This project was a front entry redo that needed to combine beauty with functionality. The driveway is steep, so a back-out space was essential. This left a fairly small planting space in front of a very large façade. An existing Pygmy Date palm became a starting point for design formation. Additionally, the client preferred blue-flowering plants and gray-foliaged plants. To bring the small planting bed into scale with the house, a large King palm worked well with it’s own architectural value, enhancing that of the home. Peppermint-scented geranium filled the gap in the shaded bed to the right of the entry where another King palm, shorter and 3-stemmed, served to balance the landscaping across the front of the house. Along the driveway I kept the plantings simple; this served to provide a non-competing backdrop to the design “action” happening at the front entry.
In the border planting between this home and an adjacent home, I added large plants for privacy screening and additional ground cover plants to make the planting more lush and robust. A spectacular specimen Staghorn fern was mounted to an existing tree directly outside of the kitchen window. Cut-leaf Philodendron were added beneath to create a focal area for the entire bed, which is beautiful whether experienced from the flagstone steps or the kitchen window. Remember to plant something very special in front of your kitchen window because you will probably look at it a lot.