Front Yard Cold Weather Landscaping Ideas

Every season has its beauty and nuances that affect the appearance of your landscaping. Cold weather landscaping is a concept designed to overcome the dullness that can prevail after leaves fall and plants turn colors like white, brown, and gray. Here are cold weather landscaping ideas you can use to improve your front yard's appearance in winter.

Build Upon Your Hardscape

Hardscape consists of solid landscaping features manipulated by humans. It includes landscape architecture, paths, and walkways, but not plant life. Other hardscape features include decks, driveways, and gazebos. While concrete contracts in the winter, it's still considered a permanent feature of your landscape.

Winter is an excellent time to rethink or add to your existing hardscape. Creative ways to add practical and aesthetic walkways for any season include bark, brick, stone, and rocks. These items don't require much maintenance and add to curb appeal.

Fix Water Leaks

One of your cold-weather landscaping priorities should be to inspect your decking to see if water leaks exist. If a wooden deck retains too much moisture, it will lead to dry rot and mold buildup over time. Not only does moisture, mold, and mildew damage wood, it creates health hazards. Learn how to keep water from dripping through deck so you can move on to other priorities.

Colorful Winter Plants

Planting certain shrubs in the spring yields colorful plants in the winter. Beautyberry and Nandina Domestica are popular berry plants among gardeners and are suited for cold weather landscaping. Another attractive choice for shrubs is red twig dogwood. These shrubs fit the red and green theme of the year-end holiday season. Furthermore, they look beautiful all year long with spring blossoms, variegated leaves in summer, and berries from summer through fall.

Another way to use berries for an attractive ambiance is by hanging grapevine wreaths full of bright berries on your front porch. Think in terms of evergreen bushes if you want your front yard always to look green. Hollyberry brushes are exceptionally resilient during winter, mixing green with bright red berries.

Winter Lights

Another holiday-oriented idea for cold weather landscaping is to get creative with lighting. Using porch lights to emphasize hardscape structures creates a subtle winter ambiance. Adding colored LED lights can direct light strategically on specific focal points such as a porch, walkway, or driveway.

The brighter the lights, the more they keep burglars away and illuminate your home with a vibrant appearance. String lights are closely associated with the holidays but can be used year-round for aesthetics. A series of white lights add a clean look to your front yard.

Paint Your Mailbox

An often overlooked cold weather landscaping technique is to add a fresh coat of paint to your mailbox. If it's a black or silver metal box, it can look worn in winter weather. But when you paint it periodically, it seems new and brings subtle detail to your front yard's appearance. When all your front yard components look like care went into them, it adds to a theme of consistent property upkeep.

Welcome Wildlife with Bird Feeders

If you want to show your love for wildlife, consider adding bird feeders to your front yard. Birds bring color and a tuneful spirit to cold weather landscaping. Hanging a bird feeder on your porch will attract various winter birds who have a tougher time seeking food in the winter. A typical bird feeder holds five pounds of birdseed. You'll be helping the ecosystem, which will, in turn, beautify your home with natural energy.

Conclusion

Use these cold-weather landscaping ideas to get started on enhancing your front yard for the wet season. Customize your front yard based on what resonates with you and what you want to project to your neighborhood. Contact us at West Coast Deck Waterproofing for more ideas on the landscape to improve your property.