8 Amazing New Construction Landscaping Ideas

Buying a new construction home is exciting for many reasons. Primary among them is that you can put your personal stamp on every inch of your home – inside and out. Your home’s front yard landscaping is your face to the neighborhood, and how you design your backyard can determine how you use your outdoor space. Feeling a little overwhelmed about your new construction landscaping?

We are here to help with our top eight favorite new construction landscaping ideas for your front- and backyard. Let us spark your creativity so you can design a beautiful new home landscaping that is uniquely you.

New Construction Landscaping for Your Front Yard

The first thing you, your family, and visitors will see when arriving at your new house is your front yard. Up your curb appeal with these eight ideas:

1. Add Foundation Plantings

Think of foundation plantings as the baseboards of your front yard. These plants are added close to the foundation of your home and help soften the transitions between your house and your landscape.

Foundation plantings tend to be low-growing shrubs, perennials, and ornamental grasses. The right plants will depend on where you live, but popular options include:

• Junipers
• Arborvitae
• Boxwoods
• Texas sage
• Agave
• Red yucca

2. Design a Welcoming Entryway

Welcome guests in style and help set the character of your home with a well-designed entryway that reflects your personal tastes. Consider framing your front walkway with eye-catching plants like ornamental grasses, colorful annuals, and trees like Japanese maples or dogwoods. Balance your plants with hardscape features, such as an arbor, trellis, or artsy pots and containers.

3. Add a Pollinator Garden

Pollinator gardens are both beautiful and practical. They typically include a variety of colorful, nectar-rich flowers that provide food to pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Pollinator gardens give your home a touch of the wild while also supporting biodiversity in your yard.

Ideally, you’ll want to use native plants that are well-adapted to your local growing conditions for your pollinator garden. It’s also a good idea to choose plants that bloom throughout the seasons to offer continual food to the wildlife in your yard.

Popular plants for pollinator gardens include:

• Coneflowers
• Lupines
• Milkweed
• Asters
• Goldenrod

4. Xeriscape Your Yard

If you live in an area that regularly experiences drought, consider choosing a xeriscaped front yard instead of water-hungry grass. Xeriscaping is the art of balancing native, drought-tolerant plants with well-designed hardscapes to create a low-maintenance yard that requires little water to thrive.

Xeriscaped yards vary greatly in their designs and can give you lots of opportunities to be creative. Popular low-water plants include:

• Junipers
• Boxwood
• Black-eyed Susans
• Sedges
• Purple coneflowers
• Yucca
• Cactus

Pair these plants with colorful gravel, stones, pavers, and/or mulch to add more texture and variety to your landscape.

5. Stepping Stones and Walkways

Typically, the centerpiece of your front lawn is the walkway. For your main pathway, choose durable materials like brick, stone, or concrete. Let your creativity shine as you choose the style that best speaks to you.

Consider a herringbone brick pattern, large flagstones, or exotic stepping stones. Native stones will offer a natural look, while clay can be carved into a variety of fascinating shapes. If you’re on a budget, concrete can be etched to look like stone, brick, or slate at a lower cost.

Finish off your walkway with path lighting so guests can enjoy your efforts at any time of the day or night.

New Construction Landscaping for Your Backyard

While your front yard ups your curb appeal, your backyard is where you, your family, and your guests will probably spend most of your outdoor time. How do you want to spend your time outside? Combine relaxation, comfort, and practicality into your new home landscaping to get the best of all worlds.

6. Add a Deck or Patio

Decks and patios provide you with an outdoor living and entertaining space.

If you’re building a deck, you’ll need to decide between natural wood and composites. Natural wood offers warmth, beauty, and often a lower price, while composites resist weathering and require less maintenance.

Patios are an excellent choice for homeowners who love to entertain. Select from materials like stone, brick, concrete, or pavers, then go to town on your personalized design. You can add built-in seating, a grilling station, speakers, lighting, and even a retractable roof. The sky’s the limit — or, more likely, your budget is!

7. Fire Pit

Fire pits add ambiance and warmth to your outdoor space. They’re a perfect gathering spot for friends and family members during get-togethers. Depending on your budget, you can choose higher priced in-ground models or less expensive above-ground models. You may opt for a unique design and spring for a custom-built fire pit made from brick, stone, or concrete blocks. For a more cohesive look, build the fireplace from the same stone or brick you are using elsewhere on your property.

If you’re operating on a budget or want to be flexible in how you use your space, portable fire pits can be a great option for your patio or yard. They usually run on propane or bioethanol.

8. Water Features

Set your backyard landscape apart with a water feature. Though often pricey, water features enhance the beauty and tranquility of a landscape and can serve as a conversation piece.

Your options run the gamut. Opt for anything from a small, self-contained fountain in a garden bed all the way up to a large tiered fountain, a cascading waterfall, or even a backyard koi pond.

Keep in mind that the fancier the water feature, the more care and maintenance it’ll require. You may find yourself needing to replace recirculating pumps or cleaning out filtration systems.

Need Help with New Construction Landscaping?

Some construction companies include basic landscaping as part of their new home build package, but you may find that you want more options and greater personalization.

At The Grounds Guys®, our local teams throughout the United States perform new construction landscaping from scratch. We will help you every step of the way, from planning to implementation to maintaining your brand-new landscape. As part of our Neighborly Done Right Promise™, we will put great customer service at the center of all our efforts. If you can dream it, odds are, we can do it.

Find your local The Grounds Guys team and request a free estimate.

We can’t wait to hear all your new construction landscaping ideas, so contact us today!