Foundation plants for the front of house can create a terrific impression of your property. Front-of-house flowers, shrubs, and evergreen bushes help blur the line between your yard and home and add fantastic curb appeal. Foundation planting helps transform the appearance of your front yard by adding greenery, a pop of bright colors, and floral aromas.
Easy-to-grow foundation plants are ideal for your yard, and they require minimal upkeep. Common foundation plants include low-growing shrubs, dwarf evergreen conifers, ground cover plants, and blooming perennials. A combination of evergreen, deciduous, and blooming shrubs can provide year-round visual appeal for your front yard if you choose.
Choosing the finest shrubs and plants for growing around a home foundation is covered in this article. Planning a stunning garden that will be the envy of the neighborhood will be aided by descriptions and images of suitable plants for front yard landscape design.
Why Choose Foundation Plants for the Front Yard?
In the front yard, foundation plants serve a variety of landscape design functions. Low-growing plants and perennial flowers, for example, conceal the property’s structure. Second, dwarf blooming shrubs add elegance to your front yard scenery. Finally, in an inconspicuous manner, growing thorny bushes around your property’s perimeter increases security.
How to Choose Foundation Plants
It shouldn’t be difficult to select the finest front yard foundation plants. Pick mature shrubs, hedge plants, perennials, and blooming annuals with a height lower than the window ledges to begin with. Then decide on whether you want to create a thicket-like effect by planting taller bushes at the rear and smaller, blooming plants in the front.
Other factors to consider when selecting plants to conceal your home’s foundation line include sunlight exposure, soil type, watering requirements, and USDA growing zones. Invasive shrubs with shallow root systems may harm the property’s foundations, so it’s also a good idea to think about the plant’s roots.
Shrubs and bushes that prefer partial shade, for example, are the finest foundation plants for the east side of the home. For the south or west sides of a property, full-sun foundation plants or ground cover plants are ideal.
Flowering Foundation Plants
Any garden would benefit from flowering foundation plants. They not only make you look good, but they also bring a lot of color and fragrance to your summer days, making them much more enjoyable. Pansies, marigolds, and petunias, for example, bloom at the same time as the flowering foundation plants.
Petunia – Low Maintenance Flowering Foundation Plants
Petunias have funnel-shaped blooms and range in color from white to red to purple. They are a stunning flowering foundation plant. Petunias are 12 inches (30 cm) tall and 3 feet (1 m) broad. Low-growing blooms are ideal for front-of-bed foundation planting because of their low height.
Petunia blooms come in a wide range of colors as well. Annuals and tender perennials of petunias may be grown. Vivid red, brilliant pink, deep blue, and lilac flowers bloom on the spreading flowering plants. From late spring through the summer, mounding petunia plants bloom and last till frost.
Summer Snapdragon (Angelonia angustifolia)
Summer snapdragon is a vigorous flowering foundation plant that adds beauty and curb appeal to your front yard. The flower spikes on this landscaping foundation plant grow to be about 1 to 4 feet (0.3 to 1.2 meters) tall. The colorful blooms of the 8-inch (20 cm) tall flowering spikes range from red to purple to yellow and white.
Planting along a foundation, in the back of the bed, or building a mixed border with autumn snapdragon plants is ideal. Summer snapdragon may be grown as a lovely annual or a year-long tropical blooming plant in USDA zones 9 through 11, depending on the location.
Marigold (Tagetes)
Marigolds are low-maintenance blooms that suit well as foundation plants in a winter landscape design. Marigold flowers are tall, orange or yellow pompom-type blossoms. Little, ruffled florets create a rounded flower head in the yellow or orange aromatic flower clusters (corymbs).
Marigolds planted at the root of your property create a bright bloom pattern that spreads. Marigolds bloom in USDA zones 2 through 11, depending on the type. Some low-growing cultivars, only reaching 4″ (10 cm) tall, may be suitable as ground cover in full sun. Some plants may grow up to 2 feet (60 cm) tall.
Pansies (Viola)
Pansies come in a variety of colors and are excellent for creating a beautiful front yard. They bloom in spring with lovely yellow, white, red, purple, and multicolored blossoms. Pansy blooms reach a height of 5 to 10 inches (12 to 25 cm) and have a maximum spread of 8 inches (20 cm).
Pansies are excellent annual or short-lived perennial blooming plants for creating a stunning border around the front of a mixed bed, putting up with taller foundation plants, or growing in front of them. Pansies come in almost 600 different species, with hundreds of cultivars to choose from.
The herbaceous plants produce 4- or 5-petaled blooms that are up to 0.75″ (2 cm) broad and have a clumping habit. Annual pansies prefer full sun or dappled sunlight and thrive when grown as annuals.
Azaleas (Rhododendron spp.)
Azaleas are a diverse range of bushy perennial plants for foundation plantings, with several sizes and flower colors. The stunning flowers of azalea bushes, which are pastel-colored ruffled or frilly petals, add elegance to a front yard landscape. The trumpet-shaped blooms are up to 3″ (7.5 cm) wide and grow 2 to 4 ft. (0.6 – 1.2 m) tall on the low-maintenance shrubby foundation plants.
In temperate zones, azalea bushes have leathery, deciduous leaves and bloom throughout the year. You may plant azaleas as evergreen flowering foundation plants in your front yard in zones 6 and above to enhance its aesthetics.
Hydrangea
Due to their massive, colorful flower clusters, hydrangeas are stunning foundation plants for any landscaped garden. From spring through fall, flowers on hydrangea bushes corymbs, which are umbrella-shaped or circular blooms, fill the front yards with color.
Depending on the species, Hydrangea flowers range in size from 4 to 14 inches (10 to 35 cm) across. Dwarf forms of hydrangea, which reach 3 feet (1 meter) tall and broad when mature, are the best foundation plants. On rounded shrubs, clusters of blue, pink, white, or lavender star-shaped blooms bloom profusely. In full sun or partial shade, hydrangeas grow best in USDA zones 3 through 9.
Roses (Rosa)
Roses are popular for their attractiveness, fragrance, and spectacular blooms. They’re one of the most attractive foundation plants available. Shrubby rose plants produce beautiful blooms that bloom in a rosette formation. You can match your front yard landscaping with a variety of rose species.
There are various kinds of climbing roses that may grow up walls in addition to shrub roses, hybrid tea roses, and tiny roses. The roots and sides of buildings can be covered by these spectacular climbing plants. You can tie the trellises or entryways with woody climbing plants.
More than their brilliant blossoms, blooming rose bushes are effective for foundation plantings. Rose plants create a natural defense barrier for growing around your property or beneath windows because of their sharp woody spikes.
Perennial Foundation Plants
In colder climates, perennial foundation plants are the best choice for planting around a home’s edge. Late in the autumn and early in the spring, cold-hardy bushes and shrubs die back. Perennial plants form a beautiful barrier around your property by retaining their leaves all year.
Hostas
For their lovely leaves, hosta plants are tough and are generally grown in the shade. Hostas are low-growing, perennial leafy plants that thrive in both the sun and the shade. Clumping plants have broad, light-green or variegated leaves that grow to 2 feet (0.6 meters) tall.
Some hostas have fragrant white or pale purple blooms with long, upright stems that bloom throughout the season. Hostas are superb foundation plants because of their low upkeep, low growth, and ability to grow in most soil conditions. They’ll also grow an attractive evergreen border around beds’ entrances.
Ornamental Grasses
Monkey grass (Liriope), which blooms like a grass but grows like a plant, adds to any landscape’s beauty by providing a soft texture. Grasses may be used to create an emphasis at the corner of the home, low edging around a foundation, or as accents for other low-growing shrubs and evergreen plants.
In a front-of-house landscape, there are a variety of flowery grasses to choose from. Monkey grass, for example, is a 9″ to 15″ (23 – 28 cm) tall flowering decorative grass with a creeping and clumping habit. Blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens), spear grass (Stipa calamagrostis), and Japanese sage (Carex oshimensis) are some other suitable ornamental grass varieties for foundation plants.
Phlox
Due to its profusion of red, pink, white, and purple flowers, Phlox is a low-maintenance and easy-to-grow long blooming perennial. Phlox may grow to be 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, depending on the variety. Phlox may spread over exposed areas of ground, growing as a creeping, prostrate plant. Phlox thrives in USDA zones 3 through 9, and is a sun-loving, cold-hardy bushy perennial.
Lilies
Lilies are long-stemmed bulbous plants with huge, scented blooms that stand out against the backdrop of the home. They are fantastic attention plants. Lily plants may be grown between 2 and 6 feet (0.6 and 1.8 meters) tall in the rear of a bed. Some stunning flowers have recurved petals, and lily blossoms are typically shaped like a trumpet.
Lily blooms are best planted in large numbers throughout the summer. Cup-shaped, bowl-shaped, or pendulous blooms may grow up to 6″ (15 cm) in diameter. USDA zones 3 through 8 are ideal for flowering perennial foundation plants.
Evergreen Foundation Plants
Evergreen foundation plants can withstand harsh conditions and will keep their leaves throughout the year. Dwarf conifers like arborvitae, Japanese yews, and juniper shrubs are the best evergreen foundation plants. Other attractive foliage plants, such as wintercreeper and coral bells, bring a touch of color to your front yard.
Boxwood (Buxus)
Boxwood shrubs may be trimmed to form rounded bails or low-growing formal hedges. Evergreen plants are suited for hedges, barriers, and privacy screens because of their densely growing oval leaves. Boxwoods are also suited for planting at a foundation since they grow to be 3 to 4 feet (1.2 to 1.2 m) tall. Planting boxwood bushes along the building’s base on either side is a good idea. The evergreen bushy plant thrives in USDA zones 5 through 9 and flourishes in full sun or complete shade.
Evergreen Dwarf Juniper
Evergreen juniper shrubs or conical junipers can be used in the front of the house if they have a spreading habit and do not grow taller than 3 ft. (1 m) tall and 4 ft. (1.2 m) wide. Juniper shrubs can be flat-topped spreading shrubs, columnar shrubs with restricted development, or low-growing evergreen plants depending on your front yard landscaping demands.
To grow beside a home, consider planting the following juniper shrubs:
- Dwarf Japanese garden juniper (Juniperus procumbens ‘Nana’)
- Blue star juniper (Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’)
- Juniperus chinensis ‘Expansa Variegata’
- Common Juniper ‘Gold Cone’ (Juniperus communis ‘Gold Cone’)
Evergreen Dwarf Arborvitae (Thuja)
One of the tiniest arborvitae shrubs, Thuja occidentalis ‘Hetz Midget,’ grows to 3 or 4 feet (1.2 m) and thrives in small areas. Little arborvitae bushes are optimum on the south or west side of a structure as perfect foundation plants. Arborvitae varieties have delicate light-to-dark green feather leaves and can only grow to be 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall. USDA zones 3 to 7 are ideal for dwarf, evergreen arborvitae bushes. From the arborvitae cultivars, the following are the best evergreen shrubs for foundation planting:
- Thuja occidentalis ‘Hetz Midget’
- Thuja occidentalis ‘Little Giant’
- Thuja occidentalis ‘Fire Chief’
- Platycladus orientalis ‘Aurea Nana’
Japanese Yew
Taxus x media ‘Densiformis’ has a spreading low growth habit, making it a suitable ground cover plant. Dwarf yew shrubs are also incredibly easy to trim into different shapes, not only because they grow less than 4 ft. (1.2 m) tall. Some yew foundation plants are columnar shrubs that grow to be 15 feet (4.5 meters) broad, whereas others are smaller. In front of foundations, the following are the best evergreen Japanese yew shrubs:
- Anglo-Japanese yew (Taxus x media ‘Densiformis’)
- English yew (Taxus baccata ‘Repandens’)
- Dwarf English yew shrub (Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’)
- Irish yew (Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’)
Coral Bells (Heuchera)
Several cultivars of coral bells are excellent evergreen foundation plants for adding beauty to the exterior of your home. The leafy, mound-forming plants may grow to 2 feet (0.6 meters) tall and are arranged in neat clusters. In hues of purple, green, red, and lime green, the low-growing foliage plants provide year-round color along the foundation line. Coral bells plants with black leaves are also available. USDA zones 4 through 9 are ideal for growing coral bells.
Wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei)
Little evergreen Euonymus bushes have exquisite foliage that adds a decorative touch to any garden. Wintercreeper is a versatile landscaping plant for front yards, and this picture shows the compact cultivars: ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold,’ ‘Emerald Gaiety,’ and ‘Moonshadow.’
Golden yellow and green leaves or creamy-white and green leaves are found on low-growing bushy evergreen shrubs. Low-maintenance bushes grow to be 2–3 feet (0.6–1 m) tall and broad, with a growth of up to 5 feet (1.5 m). Wintercreeper thrives in USDA zones 5 through 9 and may be planted on the sunny side of your home.
Deciduous Foundation Plants
Your front yard landscaping can be greatly enhanced by using deciduous foundation plants. In the spring and summer, front-of-house deciduous plants typically produce beautiful blossoms. Furthermore, depending on the growing zone, there are a variety of deciduous plants to choose from.
Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus)
Since it generates spectacular flowers in late summer when few plants are in bloom, many gardeners prefer the rose of Sharon flowering plant. The dense foliage and beautiful blooms of the deciduous shrub have made it popular. Showy hibiscus blossoms range in color from pink, white, purple, and red. This attractive landscaping plant may be kept below the height of your front windows by periodic pruning.
White Meadowsweet (Spiraea)
Meadowsweet is a deciduous flowering plant that produces stunning flowers on dwarf spirea shrubs. In the spring and summer, the lovely upright, rounded shrub produces huge clusters of gorgeous white blooms. Before the leaves fall in the autumn, the shrub’s branches transform your yard into hues of reds, purples, and yellows. Most meadowsweet cultivars, which are suitable for planting in USDA zone 3 through 9 and full sun, grow between 2 and 4 feet (0.6 and 1.2 m) tall.
Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)
Berberis thunbergii f. Golden Ring Barberry Barberry is a collection of thorny shrubs with gorgeous crimson foliage made up of spoon-shaped leaves. It includes the Atropurpurea ‘Golden Ring’ variety. Because of its crimson leaves, crimson stems, and crimson berries, the crimson shrubby plant is a fantastic way to add a scarlet touch to a front yard.
Additionally, the plant makes a good choice for creating a security barrier around your residence’s exterior. For USDA zones 4 through 7, Japanese barberry bushes make excellent front-of-house plants. Depending on the cultivar, the eye-catching red landscaping bushes grow from 1 to 5 feet (0.3 to 1.5 meters) tall. In full sun or partial shade, Japanese barberries thrive.