Local garden designer Judy Horton offers 3 examples, below, of front yard landscape designs that fit with three styles of architecture prevalent in the greater Hancock Park area: Meditteranean, English Tudor and American Colonial. These designs are meant as beginning inspiration and incorporate the 10 design considerations as outlined in our book: Your Next Front Yard.

 

The three designs illustrate simple configurations that use water conserving plants at parkways and yards, trees and canopy to complement the common streetscape, cross-yard views with minimal hedging and fencing, yard-to-yard individuality and minimum maintenance requirements.

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With decades of experience in landscaping front yards in our area, perhaps Horton's most important tip is to "landscape for your trees." Since maintaining and adding to our tree canopy is essential to reducing heat, curbing global warming, and providing habitat for wildlife, any new design of one's yard should take into account the trees already on site. If your trees require regular water to maintain their health you should use plant materials that require similar amounts of water. If your trees are native to California, they may not need summer water and your garden could also be planned with more native species of plants that require less water. If you don't have any, or many trees, consider planting California native trees which support our wildlife ecosystems (the birds, butterflies and bees) which cannot survive on trees from other parts of the world. See why plant native for more information.

 

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