Boost Curb Appeal with an Entryway Garden - Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Life

Eye-catching entryway plantings packed with color help your home extend a friendly welcome.

First impressions count, and when you preface a front door with floral and foliage fireworks, you create an atmosphere of gracious warmth. A colorful entry also adds curb appeal, which enhances home value. The trick is to arrange plantings that blend fuss-free style with traffic-stopping beauty. Add a trickling fountain to mute traffic noise, or, if you don’t have the space, embrace a container garden that features a variety of different blooms and buds to appeal to guests and potential home buyers alike.

Boost curb appeal with color

Using seasonal color in a front yard works well for several reasons. It provides a loom on which you can weave different planting patterns year to year, so for a gardener who enjoys designing plantings, an entry garden furnishes endless opportunities to satisfy the craving for staging something new. In areas with rugged winters and ample snowfall, quick color that disappears with the frost means no worries about plant damage from road salt or piles of snow. And whenever you trade turf for plantings, you reduce lawn-mowing duties—a cause to cheer.

Profusion Series Zinnia

This mounding grower is blanketed with daisy-like blooms.

Tips for success

When designing entry garden plantings, adapt these techniques to make your home the toast of the neighborhood.

Consider scale.Design planting areas and select plants so they don’t overpower a small space. By the same token, select plants and designs that won’t disappear beside a multistory facade.
Use structures.Add a pergola, bench, birdbath or entry arbor to transform a planting bed into a focal point and destination. Choose structures to complement your home’s architectural details and motifs. Position them to accent or emphasize the entry, being careful not to overwhelm it.
Define a path.Leave ample walking space— 4 feet wide is ideal. Don’t allow plantings to obscure or block an entry path. If a path branches toward another part of your yard, define public and private areas with an arbor or
Be artistic.Choose plants that match or complement your home’s color scheme. Or, if you find a plant you can’t live without and it clashes with your exterior color scheme, try giving your front door or window trim a new color that bridges the gap between the shades.
Screen with care.In a small entry space, achieve privacy with latticework or vine-covered trellises. This type of peekaboo screen creates a shield that doesn’t feel confining.
Count on containers.Prepare potted plants  to provide punches of color during seasonal downtimes. Select containers that are lightweight and easy to move. Keep them stocked with seasonally appropriate plants, or grow plantings elsewhere and pop them into place when they look their best.