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Add character and distinction to your entrance with a doorway garden. Brightening up the front entrance can pay big dividends and reflect glory on the entire garden.

A small enclosed dooryard garden offers infinite possibilities with garden fixtures and plantings which can be adapted to almost any architectural style.

The idea of a dooryard garden may be old-fashioned but it shows evidence of returning to favor. Plus the basic structure of a small enclosed planting limited to the front entrance.

Often the back doorway is ideally suited to a small patio or dining terrace enclosed and tastefully planted. The large ceiling to floor windows of many of our modern homes lend themselves to the dooryard garden treatment.

Where land is limited in townhouses for example, this type of garden offers a maximum of interest in a given area. Where land is extensive a garden brought close to the home dissolves the vastness and provides the intimate touch.

Spring flower shows will give you wonderful ideas, which you can adapt to your own home.

But how does one go about adapting?

What Is The First Step In Doorway Gardens?

To begin with, don’t be distracted at shows by the blossoms; penetrate to the design “bones” beneath the floral flesh. Don’t be dismayed if the architecture is different from your home or if the plants don’t grow in your climate.

In all probability both can be adjusted and made compatible with your home and needs. You must, of course, know what your needs are. List them, noting existing plantings, traffic lanes, how much of an enclosure you can maintain and what size will be in scale with your house.

If your present plantings have outgrown their space and outlived their usefulness, sweep them away without regret and give yourself a fresh start.

If they can be cut back and utilized, so much the better. But whatever you do, be bold, think fresh and make use of colorful annuals in your scheme. Ones at flower shows abound with good ideas so take pictures with your digital camera.

Those plans may be adapted in a variety of ways. Harmony has been achieved without major changes in the basic plan where a plan has been adapted, not copied.