Front Garden Design Tip: Break the Rules

Best Advice for Front Garden Design

Ten years ago I was at a garden conference. I will never forget it because I got into an aggressive garden-lady argument over the “proper” contents of a front garden design. There was a sweet garden designer from Europe who spoke at the conference. She insisted that the front garden be orderly and filled with subtle and calming colors. This expert believed that strong colors and clashing shapes simply cannot reside out front. I believe the opposite – that rules are meant to be broken! Bold color should be everywhere. The only thing restricting you should be your own heart. Clearly, my feelings are very strong on this point. While we garden ladies thankfully did not come to blows, it was equally clear that we all do not agree.

Mix and Match the Front Garden Design

Above you see my front garden design with mix and match craziness. In the lower part of the photo you see my container garden display; a mix of tropicals, cactus, sweet potato vine, flowering annuals, perennials, and houseplants all slammed together in a mad mad mad combination of happiness. Look to your left and see my ridiculously tall milkweed which self-planted along my sidewalk (photo below).

Since milkweed is a requirement for a monarch butterfly’s survival and I have a few monarchs every year, I simply could not pull them up. My garden is a strange mix of natives and traditional perennials, flowers, and sculptures. Seemingly, it is designed willy-nilly, but truly it is designed with a very specific purpose; to please *MY* eye.

In my mind a garden is not about rules, it is about expression. Passionate, colorful, heartfelt expression. It is a connection to nature and a connection to creativity. Your garden is the place to throw both your compost and your full self in order to create that which gives you joy. And so, my friends, I give you permission to break the rules. Live largely. Garden passionately.

List of Fun Front Garden Design Plants in My Garden Containers

List of new plants in the front garden containers (photo at top) –

• Coleus ‘Inferno’
• ‘Distant Memory’ Colocasia
• Colocasia ‘Thailand Giant’
• Hosta ‘Autumn Frost’
• Cuphea ‘Vermillionaire’
• Hosta ‘Cool as a Cucumber’
• Grass Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’
• Hosta ‘Dancing Queen’
• Salvia ‘Playin’ the Blues’
• Sweet Potato Vine ‘Blackie’
• Verbena ‘Superbena Stormburst’

Special thanks to Walters Gardens and Proven Winners for providing many of the annual plants seen in this garden. Fish art was created by FishintheGarden.net, the rainwater cistern and fountain is from Aquascape Inc., and the bold blue chair cushions are from Target. Thanks to the Organic Mechanics Soil company for providing my organic worm-casting filled soil for my container gardens.