A few weeks ago we posted on Instagram about finally landscaping the front yard at our Cape Charles beach house. Here’s a more detailed look at how we completed the job in just a few hours, what we planted, and how it’s fared nearly two months later. We also wanted these photos on the blog so we can look back in a few years as everything fills in. The house gets a lot of sun, and so far the plants are thriving.
We don’t usually feel like landscaping pros (we’ve hired help for our backyard at home), but even with limited experience we knew we could dramatically improve the beach house’s curb appeal. For reference, this is how the landscaping looked when we first bought the place:
Even this past winter the yard looked pretty bleak. The house itself had changed a lot, but the yard remained sad and overgrown. In the photo below you can see vines and debris left after our contractor removed a rusted shed and cleared out poison ivy. It improved the feel of the property—if not the photo’s vibe.
In April we learned Virginia’s Historic Garden Week would draw visitors through Cape Charles. Our house wasn’t on the tour, but a home on the corner of our street was, so we knew tourists would be walking right past. That gave us a handy deadline to tidy up the front yard. Luckily, the bed is small enough that we could do it in one morning.
Not sure whether the local nursery was open for the season (it closes in winter), we grabbed several plants at Home Depot before our 2.5-hour drive to the Eastern Shore. When we choose plants we usually:
- Pick a variety of colors or green tones to add visual interest
- Use different heights so the bed feels layered and full
- Read plant labels to confirm they suit our light conditions (full sun, part sun, etc.)
- Prefer perennials over annuals when possible so plants return each year
- Favor evergreen or non-deciduous plants to avoid a winter of bare sticks
With those guidelines, we kept the plan simple and bought the plants shown below:
- 3 sunshine ligustrum bushes (bright yellow-green, evergreen)
- 3 gardenia bushes (dark glossy leaves, white fragrant flowers, evergreen)
- 3 purple creeping phlox (groundcovering perennials with seasonal flowers)
- 2 large hanging ferns for the porch (annuals we’ll replace each spring)
Buying phlox felt liberating because deer in our home area eat blooms the moment they appear. Cape Charles doesn’t have that problem, and a neighbor already had creeping phlox, so the purple would complement the pink house nicely.
We loaded everything into the car and drove down the next day.
We didn’t take many process photos because we were racing the clock to head back before the kids finished school, but the planting was straightforward: I used a shovel to carve swooping beds on either side of the porch based on lines we’d sketched in the dirt. The local nursery was open, so we picked up a few extras:
- 2 taller camellias to anchor the house sides (flowering and evergreen)
- 2 additional creeping phlox for the end of the sidewalk
- Several bags of mulch to finish the beds
In hindsight we weren’t thrilled with narrow mulch strips connecting the main beds to the corners, but time was limited so we left them for a future trip. We also had low expectations for the phlox because we had no irrigation system in place—just whatever rain might provide. Mostly we hoped everything would survive through Garden Week.
Fast forward two months: the yard is doing surprisingly well. Not only have most plants survived, several have visibly grown and filled in. The mulch color has mellowed, which makes those small connecting strips look better.
The ligustrum and gardenias have put on new growth, and the gardenias have already bloomed a couple of times. We used deadheading tips from Instagram to encourage more blooms. The phlox’s spent flowers were clipped to promote fresh growth.
One of the most exciting results is a resilient shrub on the left side of the house coming back strongly. It was massive when we first bought the property but had been cut back for construction and later reduced to a stump during a utility search in 2017. It’s now regenerating and should become a useful privacy anchor once it fills in. We’ll keep it pruned so it doesn’t overgrow the doorway, but it’s great to see a robust comeback from what was essentially a free plant.
There’s still more landscaping to do around the sides and back, but those projects depend on installing a shed and patio, which are currently on hold until other work progresses. In the meantime the front looks much less bare. Our neighbor’s hydrangeas have begun blooming in a big, colorful way—something the deer in our hometown devour—so Sherry is campaigning to incorporate hydrangeas into our plans for the sides and possibly the front. We’ll report back if that happens.
If you’re looking for more curb appeal ideas and exterior projects, check our Exterior Upgrades category for posts on carving mulch beds, adding landscape lighting, cleaning outdoor furniture with a pressure washer, and installing a yard irrigation system.