Having a beautiful flower bed along the side of your house is a great way to enhance your home’s curb appeal. Not only does it add color texture, and visual interest but it can also help frame your home, soften hard edges, and make a narrow side yard appear wider. When designed thoughtfully, side flower beds can completely transform the look of your home’s exterior.
If you’re looking to add some greenery and color to the side yard here are 15 gorgeous flower bed ideas to inspire you
1. Keep it Simple with a Row of Shrubs
For an easy, low-maintenance option, plant a row of matching shrubs along the house. Boxwoods, azaleas, camellias, and hydrangeas are great choices that give you year-round interest without a lot of upkeep. Underplant with mulch or river rocks.
2. Go Bold with Big, Dramatic Flowers
Make a statement by choosing big, eye-catching blooms. You can choose from huge dahlia flowers, huge alliums, or tall delphiniums. Mix heights, shapes, and colors for maximum impact.
3. Soften with Cascading Flowers
Add softness by incorporating flowers that spill gracefully over the edges. Sweet alyssum, lobelia, petunias, and calibrachoa are perfect choices that will trail over walls or the front of raised beds.
4. Add Visual Interest with Ornamental Grasses
Incorporate some movement by adding ornamental grasses like maiden grass, fountain grass, or pampas grass. Their tall shapes and natural texture contrast beautifully with flowering plants.
5. Plant a Cottage Garden
Cottage gardens are informal, romantic, and ever-popular. Hollyhocks, iris, phlox, roses, lavender, and coneflowers are some flowering annuals and perennials that you can mix together. Leave spaces for meandering gravel or stone pathways.
6. Create a Cohesive Look with One Flower Type
Planting a single variety of flower en masse makes a dramatic statement. Some ideas include tulips, daisies, pansies, impatiens, or petunias. Underplant with groundcover or mulch.
7. Add Vertical Interest
Incorporate vertical elements to draw the eye up and make the bed appear fuller. Options include trellises, obelisks, arbors, or tall flowers like foxglove or snapdragons on poles.
8. Include Edible Plants
Grow edible flowers, herbs, or vegetables like pansies, marigolds, thyme, lettuce, or kale. It saves space, looks pretty, and provides homegrown ingredients.
9. Mix Flowers and Foliage
For variation in color, texture, shape, and size, combine flowering plants with foliage. Ferns, hostas, caladiums, coleus, and herbs make great companions to blooms.
10. Use Repeating Elements
Repeating certain plants or materials creates unity. Plant the same flower in clusters at intervals or use matching trellises. Repeating short garden walls or pavers also helps tie the bed together.
11. Add Hardscape Interest
Incorporate hardscape materials like stones, bricks, gravel, or pavers to add visual interest. Use them to make geometric patterns, divide sections, or as a base for potted plants.
12. Embrace All Seasons
Pick a range of plants that will give you color all year, from spring to fall. It’s great to mix bulbs, flowering shrubs, summer annuals, and mums in the fall.
13. Pick a Color Scheme
Having a cohesive color palette ties the whole bed together. Stick to a single color or two complementary hues. Blue and yellow is a classic pairing.
14. Highlight Architectural Features
Use strategic plant placements to showcase interesting architectural elements on your home’s exterior, like window boxes, arches, columns, or front doors.
15. Light it Up
Install landscape lighting to highlight your flower bed at night. Opt for uplights in trees, path lighting, or spotlights on features.
With the right combination of plants, hardscapes, accessories, and colors, your side flower bed can become a beautiful focal point that enhances your entire exterior. Get creative and have fun designing an eye-catching garden that expresses your personal style!
#11 // Shade Lovers Flower Bed
If you have a shaded space that you don’t use as much as you’d like, you could turn it into a flower bed area that loves shade. Impatiens and begonias are just some of the many different types of flowers that love shade.
#13 // Line a Walkway
Line your walkway with flowers to make it the focal point of your yard. This is a fun way to make your yard more interesting and add color.
Revamping a Flower Bed
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