Before & After: A Lush Front Entry

Starting a garden from scratch in a brand new house is a challenging task that I think is often underappreciated. Builders frequently leave lots of building waste, and they tend to scrape off topsoil, compact things, and leave upturned subsoil. Because of this, massaging the landscape of a newly built home into something beautiful can be harder than it looks.

This front garden was shared on Studio ‘g’ and belongs to Megan Cain, who is a vegetable garden consultant who also blogs at The Creative Vegetable Gardener. While this isn’t a vegetable garden, it’s obvious that Megan knows her way around ornamentals and good design. The two trees (a Japanese maple and what appears to be a Dogwood) nicely frame the house. I am also quite partial to the layout of the paths, whose angles make for an inviting entrance that doesn’t feel quite so cookie cutter.

It should also be noted that the before photo wasn’t quite a true before — what Megan started with was much worse than this. While the difference between the two photos still makes for a stunning transformation, I hope you can imagine it without the rocks and mulch so you can get a full sense of Megan’s accomplishment.

To read more about the project and see more photos, check out Studio ‘g’. And if you like her style, Megan offers gardening classes and has published a digital workbook called Lay the Groundwork that can help you build your own garden.