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Front Yard Landscaping With a Ranch House & Shrubs
Front Yard Landscaping With a Ranch House & Shrubs. The ranch-style house was conceived and designed by Cliff May in 1932, specifically for California living. Mr. May combined elements of the Spanish hacienda and Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie-style design and expanded on them to include large windows to bring the California landscape visually closer...
The ranch-style house was conceived and designed by Cliff May in 1932, specifically for California living. Mr. May combined elements of the Spanish hacienda and Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie-style design and expanded on them to include large windows to bring the California landscape visually closer to the home's interior. Other identifying features of the ranch house include the long, low layout and the gable roof.
Goals
The main goals when landscaping the ranch house are to raise its low profile and soften its sharp, square silhouette. While other plants, such as trees and grasses, help meet these goals, the right shrubs do double -- and sometimes triple -- duty. Low-growing shrubs in the front bed also help preserve one of the ranch home's key architectural elements: picture windows.
Planting Beds
Widening the front planting bed to at least 4 feet, and curving it, helps break up the straight lines of the front of the ranch house. As you design the curved bed, place the center curve directly in the center of the front of the house, curving toward it. Raising the bed 10 inches with topsoil helps bring the eye up when viewing the home from the street.
Shrubs
Plant shrubs that remain small and have a rounded growing habit, or tolerate heavy pruning to make them round. Winter Gem or dwarf English boxwoods are ideal and will thrive in the shade cast by the house's eaves. Variegated or colored foliage, such as the soft yellow of the gold thread cypress, draws the eye away from the house's low profile. Balance is an important landscaping concept, so a tall, conical tree or shrub is something to consider planting.
Placement
Plant the shrubs in the front bed, set back from the edge, in the same arc as the bed. Set larger shrubs, such as azaleas, or the conical tree, at the corners of the house to provide a definite end to the house's long line. These corner plantings also add a vertical focal point.
Aim for an asymmetrical grouping of plants. Ranch houses are supposed to be informal and were designed for simple, casual living.
