These Real-Life Gardens Impressed Us as America's Best Front Yard Finalists
This spring, we set out to find the best front yards in America. And you delivered! Whether you entered online, via Twitter, or on Instagram, our judges sifted through hundreds of submissions and evaluated them on aesthetics, creativity, and personality. The ten entries with the highest scores were deemed our finalists. From there, they were subject to open voting from our fans. One of these finalists was just named our 2020 America's Best Front Yard contest winner, but we want to celebrate all of the stunning front yards that made it to our top ten list. Congratulations to this year's runners-up, listed below in no particular order.
America's Best Front Yard 2020 Runners-Up
Oregon gardeners Carolyn and Bob Gutz deftly layer shrubs and perennials, many of them Northwest natives, to show off the plants’ hues.
John Brennan-Taylor has mastered bloom times in his and wife Mary’s Upstate New York yard, with hundreds of flowers from spring through fall.
There are no hard edges in Brigid and Skip Hart’s northern Michigan garden—only curving beds filled with swaths of flowers planted en masse.
Palms and a pomegranate tree frame a cheery, bright green landscape, with a few flowers for punctuation, at Najia S.’s California home.
Each year, Pat and Russ Gray plant a fresh batch of tulip bulbs outside their Oxford, Maryland, door for a spectacular spring display.
Even in Las Vegas, Sharon Winter achieves a green space with plants that don’t need much water yet contribute interesting foliage.
Making the most of her front yard in San Francisco, Janet Petros clusters plants tightly for a woodland-inspired landscape.
In Southern California, Ed and Patty Hildebrand replaced their turf with drought-tolerant succulents and shrubs, plus a rock swale to collect runoff.
Behind an airy border of perennials, Megan Cain puts her Madison, Wisconsin, front yard to work as an ambitious edible garden.
America's Best Front Yard Runners-Up from 2019
This Louisiana cottage was overgrown with poison ivy and photinia. “It was great for privacy,” owner Sara McDaniel jokes. The DIYer went for a more welcoming landscape with ‘Dwarf Burford’ hollies and ‘Thumbelina’ zinnias along the front porch and crape myrtles, dwarf gardenias, and liriope at both ends.
The paper birch and dogwood trees are the only constants in Mary Ann Beaudry’s Michigan yard. Everything else has to prove itself. She auditions annuals and perennials in the containers, beds, and borders.
This Utah yard explodes with zinnias, dahlias, and sunflowers. But it’s a hardworking plot, too, packed with fruits and veggies that Cynthia Stringham mostly starts from seed to try unusual varieties.
Russ Hench, a landscape designer, and Tom Piccari used caramel-hue heuchera and dark red coleus to tie into the warm colors of their 1926 Ohio home. Boxwood, spruce, and a weeping cypress provide contrast and year-round interest.
More About America's Best Front Yard Contest
We received nearly 1,800 entries for BH&G's America's Best Front Yard Contest this year! We were so impressed with each entry we saw and the amazing diversity of styles and plants these gardens showcased. Keep on planting, pruning, and painting, and you, too, could have the chance to win the honor of America's Best Front Yard. Stay tuned for information on next year's competition.
