Small landscaped front yards
11 small front yard landscaping ideas that are low maintenance
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By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.These small front landscaping ideas that are low maintenance deliver on curb appeal without requiring you to constantly weed, prune, or even water your front yard. Whether you are frequently away and don't want to come back to a dead outdoor space, or just want something that looks good without you having to do much to it, these looks are for you.
These front yard landscaping ideas are specifically for smaller outdoor spaces. You don't need acres or a massive lawn to pack in a punch with some clever planting and hardscaping, as these beautifully-designed front yards prove.
Small front yard landscaping: a word on what landscaping includes
If you are considering your small front yard landscaping options and think that 'landscaping' and 'low-maintenance' are incompatible, have no fear: they are, much like when landscaping a backyard. Landscaping doesn't just mean labor-intensive hardscaping projects. Technically, landscaping includes plants, lawns, and pathways. In fact, it's perfectly possible to have a well-landscaped front yard with hardly any hardscaping at all.
Small front yard landscaping ideas that are low maintenance
Plant-based front yard designs are not necessarily higher-maintenance than no-plant schemes, either. It's all about choosing the right type of planting for your climate – and the amount of work you're prepared to put into maintaining your front yard.
(Image credit: Shades of Green Landscape Architecture)
Ornamental grasses are the low-maintenance gardener's best friend.
They are easy and fast to grow, look bushy and sumptuous even in the smallest of spaces, and they just have that modern, clean look that's popular at the moment. Pair them with whispy, tall plants like the African lily for a delicate and contemporary look.
This impeccable small front yard was designed by Shades of Green Landscape Architecture . The grasses soften the contemporary concrete hardscaping, and we also really like the fact that the steps have built-in lighting for added drama in the evening.
2. Use symmetry to create a classic, timeless look
(Image credit: Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design)
Symmetrical front yard landscaping will never go out of fashion, and it works particularly well for smaller front yards because it visually expands the space by creating a vista. Take inspiration from this beautiful front yard designed by Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design . A formal symmetrical layout is cleverly combined with relaxed, textured planting and a gravel path.
It is both low-maintenance and smart-looking.
Sticking to a simple color scheme with your planting will enhance symmetrical landscaping. Try all-white flowers for a crisp, formal look.
3. Be inspired by mediterranean gardens
(Image credit: AMS Landscape Design Studios)
Mediterranean gardens are enjoying a huge revival, and the Mediterranean landscaping style can do wonders for smaller front yards.
This stunning Californian front yard by AMS Landscape Design takes its cues from traditional Italian garden designs that use oversized terracotta pots for growing citrus trees. If your space is even smaller than this one, use just two pots on either side of your front door and pair them with terracotta tile for an authentic Mediterranean/Spanifornian landscaped look.
This is very low-maintenance scheme – the tile will last many years and doesn't require any specialist cleaning or resealing, and citrus trees are easy to grow, so long as you have a mild to warm climate and give them big pots.
4. Landscape with succulents
(Image credit: mbolina / Getty)
Succulents are the perfect low-maintenance plants for small front yards. They provide lots of sculptural texture and look great in a front yard bed, or in a container. Group succulents of varying heights, shapes, and colors right outside your home for the biggest impact.
Succulents also play very well with concrete hardscaping, stone urns, and water features. Plant them in shallow concrete troughs right outside your front door for a sleek, contemporary effect. For even more drama, you can learn how to make a living wall out of succulents and transform your home exterior into a living art installation.
5. A small front yard doesn't have to mean small plants
(Image credit: Singjai20 / Getty)
There is no rule that makes large, bold plants inappropriate for small front yards. In fact, the opposite is true: lots of small, low-growing plants will make your small front garden even smaller.
Many small containers are also a high-maintenance option – you'll have to water them all the time.
So, even if your front yard is really tiny, just go for it, taking inspiration from this glorious tropical front garden. Tall, spiky palm trees look especially appealing against the neatly trimmed lawn. Palms can also be grown in large containers, if that's your preference.
6. Add herbaceous borders to a small enclosed front yard
(Image credit: HannamariaH / Getty)
If you like the classic look with garden borders, then you should definitely add a few herbaceous perennials like lavender and rosemary. These drought-tolerant plants always create a beautiful contrast to grass and paths or driveways, making the overall landscaping softer.
Lavender also looks good with almost any type of hardscaping in your yard, from bold concrete to traditional garden edging.
7. Use garden edging to zone your front yard
(Image credit: jhorrocks / Getty)
If you want to use most of the limited space available to you as a lawn, you can still get in some fun landscaping with plants if you create small zones dedicated to planting.
Yard edging will help here: once it is in, it will require no maintenance and help keep your lawn nicely shaped and give your front yard great curves.
Small front yards will benefit from invisible steel edging because too much brick or stone can look too bulky.
8. Landscape with traditional cottage garden plants
(Image credit: nigel FRANCIS / Alamy Stock Photo)
English cottage gardens tend to be on the smaller side, so cottage garden-style planting schemes are very easy to implement in small front yards. Go easy on the hard landscaping if you're going for this look – instead, lay a gravel path and let cottage garden plants, such as rose, lavender, and hedging, do the rest.
Sculpted shrubs like box, juniper, or thuja will give your front yard a manicured look, but they're not really high-maintenance. An annual trim is the most these easy-going evergreens will need.
9. Create a low-maintenance Japanese-inspired front yard
(Image credit: Audrey Walker Images / Alamy Stock Photo)
Japanese-inspired garden designs are perfect for small and simple front yards.
The combination of gravel and slow-growing species of cedar and maple, grasses and moss, is very low-maintenance but looks amazing. These schemes don't require much space at all and can be achieved in even the tiniest front yards. Japanese plants also tend to require almost no pruning – less work for you. No room at all? You could just have a Japanese acer in a pot outside your front door – they are container-tolerant for many years.
Don't worry about raking the gravel, either – that's only required for Zen-style gardens that use very fine gravel and is entirely optional. You can use ordinary, gray gravel to create the same effect; no raking required.
10. Use pavers to create a neat, low-maintenance look
(Image credit: Creative Design Maintenance)
Paving ideas are not just for backyards – if you want a more formal, smarter look, then paved landscaping is the way. Especially if your front yard borders a communal lawn, as in this example by Creative Design Maintenance , stone pavers will help create a neat border for your front yard.
Pavers are also really easy to clean and require virtually no maintenance apart from an annual clean with the best patio cleaner.
(Image credit: Creative Design Maintenance)
You don't need tons of plants to create interest in a small front yard. Often, a carefully positioned single tree is enough. The best small garden trees include Japanese acers and dwarf cherry trees, but any unusual-looking tree will make a statement, especially if it's accented with concrete landscaping or an oversized planter.
Another great option for small front yards is a full-sized garden tree. Provided you choose a species that doesn't require a huge plot of land to grow in, you can create a beautiful landscaped look with just the canopy of your tree. Consider an acacia or magnolia – both perfect trees for smaller outdoor spaces.
What can I do with a small front yard?
A small front yard doesn't have to be a limitation for your landscaping ambitions. However, Zachary Smith, Founder of San Francisco Bay Area landscaping company
Zachary Smith Arboriculture , advises to start with small ideas and build up, explaining that in his experience, 'people tend to try to do too much, and with smaller spaces, simpler can be better.
' He recommends starting with 'decorative gravel and interesting succulents. When some fancy agaves and cactus-like plants are installed in a bed of unique gravel or stones, it can be a surprisingly impressive look, with very very low maintenance requirements.'
Another option is 'to use a ground cover cotoneaster, or creeping juniper ground cover around several large and unique boulders.' Rocks, obviously, don't require any maintenance whatsoever but look great in most front yards, helping you create a look that's completely individual.
How do I landscape a small front yard so that it's low maintenance?
Smith has a very important top tip for keeping small front yards low maintenance: 'It's most important to remember that simpler is better, and the lower maintenance requires less foot traffic in the landscape which will reduce compaction and wear and tear on small plants.'
Basically, this means that a low-maintenance landscape design will have a hardwearing walkway and plants either on the sides or on a dedicated plot that isn't walked on.
You also may choose to reconsider that lawn – lawns just aren't low-maintenance, ever, so you may choose to replace yours with extra plants or a rockery.
Well-mulched borders or xeriscaped front yards are also extremely low maintenance. Xeriscaping is specifically aimed at making your front yard drought-tolerant, by choosing plants that don't require much watering and surrounding them with gravel for added water retention. You don't have to live in an arid climate to enjoy this type of landscaping, either, and it looks very good with both traditional and contemporary home exteriors.
Anna is Content Editor at Real Homes. She moved to the world of interiors from academic research in the field of English Literature and photography. She is the author of London Writing of the 1930s and has a passion for contemporary home decor and gardening. At Real Homes, she covers a range of topics, from practical advice to interior and garden design.
17 Small Front Yard Landscaping Ideas We Love
Mary Patton
Your front yard welcomes you home every day and is the first impression you make on guests, neighbors, and—someday down the road—prospective buyers.
Why not make sure it's always a good one?
Extend your favorite interior design ideas all the way out to the street and add joy and personality to your home's exterior with a few small changes. Whether you want to do a full-yard overhaul or just make some simple tweaks, bookmark these small front yard landscaping ideas to add major curb appeal to your home.
01 of 17
Calima Home
Make a small front yard seem bigger than it is by working with layers of varying depths and heights. Planting fuller shrubs at the top of your yard next to any trees you may have will add a sense of lushness, and it allows you to go smaller and simpler right next to your home. We also love how the terra cotta pots by the door echo the home's roof.
02 of 17
Pure Salt Interiors
Make a yard more visually interesting by framing your walkway with mulch and a thin border, then adding small plants, solar lights, and stones. Your mulch beds don't have to be perfectly straight or symmetrical, and this walkway project can help you revamp your front yard in just a weekend.
03 of 17
BLANCO BUNGALOW
Even if you don't live in the desert, where you can get the instant 'wow' factor with large cacti, you can still create a unique hedge by crowding large plants in a row. For colder climates, try mixing Weeping Norway Spruce with Dwarf Globe Blue Spruce or Siberian Carpet Cypress for a similar, structural look.
04 of 17
BLANCO BUNGALOW
Laura Genevieve of Blanco Bungalow gathered all of these plants for her front yard without going to a store—and she did it mostly for free, too. She used the gardening section on NextDoor to find neighbors who were giving out clippings of plants that you can propagate and then, transformed the exterior of her 1920s Spanish bungalow on a budget.
05 of 17
Pure Salt Interiors
For a clean, traditional look, layer rows of shrubbery. Your front yard will look great year-round, and your only maintenance will be grabbing the shears every so often. You can play around with what shrubs you use, but just notice how the variations in shade provide contrast here.
06 of 17
Dazey Den
If you want to add flowers but don't want to mess with your hedges or your lawn (or your landlord's hedges or lawn), clusters of short ceramic pots will mimic the effect of a flower bed and can hide any dead patches of grass.
07 of 17
RIKKI SNYDER
You can't go wrong with two sculptural shrubs framing your front door. Notice how these shrubs go above the highest point of the archway and are also taller than the wall sconce, which maximizes the impact of this exterior's multiple layers of landscaping. For faking height, a tall pot (with good drainage) is a quick cheat.
08 of 17
MINDY GAYER
If you're working with built-in planters and you're planting low-moisture greenery, you can get creative and paint your brick. Just do a little research beforehand, as you need to use a breathable primer and paint on exterior brick to prevent mildew buildup.
09 of 17
AMY BARTLAM; DESIGN: DENHAM INTERIOR DESIGN
For a super tight yard, a more natural look adds intimacy.
Let your shrubs get shaggy, encourage climbing plants, and don't fuss too much. Lean into the weathered look with your planters and tile.
10 of 17
MINDY GAYER, PHOTOS BY LANE DITTOE
For coastal homes, make every day a beach day and opt for sand over rocks or mulch. The tan looks beautiful with bright succulents, and the sand will provide great drainage for everything you plant. Even better, you'll never have to mow the lawn.
11 of 17
WHITE SANDS
Sometimes, we have big dreams but not a lot of space to work with—or flexibility in our rental agreements. This home makes use of a tall built-in side planter to add greenery to a tight concrete driveway. You can copy the look with hanging box planters, too.
12 of 17
WHITE SANDS
This modern, minimalist home shows how to make less into more. The driveway, walkway, and front yard are all separate squares and rectangles that match the home's face, and sticking to one plant on the porch let's the pink door take the spotlight.
13 of 17
Leaf + Lolo
Stenciling your steps is a great way to add personality to a tiny front yard. If you don't have a porch, it will make your entry look personalized as opposed to unfinished.
14 of 17
PURE SALT INTERIORS
Grass can be fickle, even more so with our constantly changing weather patterns. If you're already working with a lot of stone, just skip it entirely and fill in empty areas with mulch and hardy plants.
8 Must-Know Mulching Tips, According to the Pros
15 of 17
Mary Patton
If you do have great green grass though, let it shine. Leaving strips of grass in-between stone pavers gives a modern organic look to this front yard, and it can keep a short yard from looking cramped.
16 of 17
Mary Patton
This yard shows once again that a small strip of plants goes a long way. These tiny but mighty flowers add pops of color to the white exterior and don't distract from the cheekiness of the pink flamingos.
17 of 17
HANNAH TYLER DESIGNS
Filing your front yard with overflowing hydrangea bushes will make your home look like a fairytale cottage or seaside bed and breakfast. Plus, these plants can withstand cold winters and will come back to delight you year after year.
20 Midcentury Modern Landscaping Ideas to Inspire Your Exterior
Landscape yard adds 15% to the price of club houses - Article
As part of the study, Kalinka Group ecosystem experts analyzed the adjoining territories of club houses with up to 100 lots with the start of sales in 2019-2020. According to the company, having your own landscaped yard leads to a fairly significant increase in the price of flats and apartments, which in some cases can reach up to 15%.
In 2021, according to the Kalinka Group, 2 new projects with landscaped yards came out at the stage of closed sales in the Central Administrative District.
According to analytical data on the elite real estate market in Moscow, in recent years, developers have been paying more and more attention to the improvement and landscaping of adjacent territories and courtyards in club projects.
Having your own landscaped garden with walking and relaxation areas, fountains and artificial ponds becomes a strong competitive advantage.
Multi-level lighting, individual landscaping with large trees and perennials are almost mandatory today and tangibly stimulate the interest of buyers.
Turandot Residence residential complex, courtyard
as well as prices for apartments and apartments, which, according to our data, in some cases can be 15% or more.
The period of the pandemic, when people began to spend much more time at home, made this trend even more pronounced. That is why the developers of club houses pay so much attention to the improvement of courtyards,” emphasized Alexander Shibaev , Director of the Kalinka Group Consulting and Analytics Department.
Among the new projects in the Central Administrative District with up to 100 apartments or apartments, in which sales started in 2020, 4 out of 5 houses considered have their own yard with landscaping and gardening.
This once again underlines the desire of developers to create even in the smallest club projects are a kind of oasis for sports, relaxation and meditation with the most comfortable private areas.
Among the club houses in the Central Administrative District with the start of sales in 2020, one can single out the courtyard of the Tessinsky project, 1 by Insigma, which is a private garden of 1,060 m2 with an unusual pond, fountain, green areas and large trees, as well as a small own garden with perennial chestnuts in the project Prechistenka, 8 from the company Insolver.
Dvor ZhK Tessinsky, 1
In projects where sales started in 2019city, the number of elite club houses with their own landscaped territory also prevails: 11 out of 14 have their own private courtyard with various elements of landscape design and gardening. Among the projects with the start of sales in 2019, one can note the unique project of country villas Cameo Moscow Villas in the center of Moscow.
Residents are offered a frontyard and a backyard - guest front yards with a landscaped patio and more private spaces in the backyard, respectively. The common courtyard of 750 m2 is a landscaped area with paved paths, trees and shrubs.
In addition, the TURGENEV project stands out: a well-maintained courtyard with upholstered furniture, recreation areas, fountains and an abundance of greenery and flowers makes the project truly exclusive. The area of the courtyard in this project is 1,500 m2.
Turgenev Club House, courtyard
In the Abrikosov House project, the authors of the concept paid attention to the diversity of shrubs and plants in the courtyard: more than 25 species of plants for landscape gardening will be presented here.
Thus, despite the fact that the level of landscaping and landscaping in club houses in the Central Administrative District may differ - from minimal landscaping to private gardens with ponds, fountains, architectural forms and large trees, there is a general trend towards creating projects with private "green" courtyards: in 2019-2020, among the club new buildings up to 100 lots that went on sale in the Central Administrative District, the share of such projects was about 80%.
In addition, even in the most "club" of the considered houses, the authors of the concept create "oases" for their residents: for example, in the projects Artisan, Residence on Vsevolozhsky, Cameo Moscow Villas and Turandot Residences, the number of lots does not exceed 40, garden varies from 500 to 1,000 m2.
House of apricots
Source: FromMillion.ru
Tatarstan residents were told about the history of Russian courtyards — Realnoe Vremya
Society
07:00, 04/27/2020
The first online educational lecture on the history of Russian courts
As part of the large-scale presidential program "Our Yard", a series of educational events dedicated to the history and culture of Russian courtyard spaces has been launched on the YouTube channel. How the role of the courtyard in the public life of the house has changed since the 19th century, when the territories of apartment buildings turned into places of recreation, how the courtyard culture appeared and what it is today - told the historian of architecture, senior researcher at the Moscow Museum and teacher at the MARCH architectural school , Denis Romodin.
The lecture was moderated by Assistant to the President of Tatarstan Natalia Fishman-Bekmambetova. Realnoe Vremya provides a transcript of the lecturer's speech.
The notion of a courtyard in the 19th century was purely private
I started to be interested in the history of courtyards from childhood. It all started with the improvement of my own yard, which I wanted to see clean. And already in adulthood, I began to pay active attention to the improvement of the yard in which I live. First from the point of view of a resident, and then moved to a professional level.
As a historian, I was interested in the topic - where did the concept of the courtyard come from, why did this topic come up in the Soviet period and in works of art? Why does our yard look like this? What problems exist and where do the roots grow from? Therefore, I took up the history of the courtyards of Moscow, and later of St. Petersburg. In the future, I became interested in how things happened in large cities both during the period of the Russian Empire and during the period of the Soviet Union.
To understand the history of courtyards, it is impossible not to remember the painting by the artist Vasily Polenov "Moscow Yard". Just in his picture, a typical courtyard of the Russian provincial county court is displayed. The very concept of a court in the 19th century was purely private. These were manor yards with personal space, which were fenced off from strangers. For a long time this area was closed.
But with the growth of industry, industrialization, and trade, profitable construction began in many provincial county towns. At the same time, the urban environment began to change. Multi-family housing began to appear. Tenants rented rooms, corners in estates and small private bourgeois houses. The concept of rental housing and the market for tenement houses began to emerge. It was different - ranging from tenement houses of furnished rooms of the lowest category and ending with prestigious tenement houses.
It was then that the inner quarters and the open space of courtyards appeared. The courtyard here played a transit and economic function. He had no decorative role. In St. Petersburg, as the capital of the Russian Empire, the inner courtyard space began to take shape. Yards in many tenement houses, if they were prestigious, were guarded. And if we talk about poor neighborhoods and urban areas, then these yard spaces were open. Of course, these were not the most comfortable places. But in small towns, courtyards with a low housing stock and low-income housing were on-farm spaces where clothes were dried and various implements were stored. Therefore, people made minimal efforts to improve them. The best they could do was plant a tree.
The space itself belonged to the landlord, and he did not take any part in its improvement. Residents did not need it either, since they were just tenants for different periods. There was barely enough money for housing. Therefore, all the time was spent on somehow earning a living.
« The janitor played an important role in the yards»
The growth of profitable housing in St. Petersburg marked a new problem - plots were small. Therefore, homeowners tried to make the most of this area. But in different cities of the Russian Empire there were their own requirements - fire regulations, which were supposed to ensure the passage of firefighters and the distance between the buildings of houses. However, homeowners tried their best to minimize this space. This is how the inner spaces of the yards arise.
Tenement houses did not exceed 4-5 floors. And the inner spaces of the yards at that time were quite large. As a rule, an arch led from the street, and this space was closed from outsiders, fenced with gates. Inside the arch there was a door and there could be an entrance to the janitor's apartment. In fact, it was a surveillance camera. The janitor could see everyone who entered the yard. And in the evening he closed the yard.
The space of the yard was elongated and was used for household needs. But in many southern regions, small gardens were formed in such courtyards. And often these were not decorative gardens, but fruit and berry ones. And in our latitudes, such courtyards were utility yards - firewood was stored there, household utensils could stand.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the janitor played an important role in such yards. They were endowed with economic and administrative functions. The janitors not only kept order, but were practically district janitors. Their job was to clean the territory, carry water, firewood. It was very difficult, so there was no talk of landscaping the territories. Often, the janitors simply did not cope with these duties and did not always do their job conscientiously. Subsequently, the role of the janitor was taken over by the municipal services, and they became part of the city's public utilities.
With the construction of complex housing, the concept of a courtyard appeared
The end of the 19th century was marked by the fact that in many large cities of the Russian Empire, especially in St. Petersburg, profitable housing began to grow upwards. Courtyards-wells began to appear. The homeowners tried to make the most of the entire lot, reduce the yard area and build as many floors as possible in their house. In St. Petersburg there was at least a restriction on high-rise construction. But in Moscow there was no such restriction. Therefore, there are houses that Muscovites called "cloud cutters".
At the very beginning of the 20th century, garages appeared in many courtyards in St. Petersburg, and it became necessary to change the building structure. There are various projects for the construction of complex housing. One of these projects is the Havana workers' camp of the Association for the Fight against Housing Need.
It was at this time that the concept of a courtyard first appeared. Important attention is being paid to the improvement of courtyard areas. They should be not only economic, but there should also be landscape gardening. Just special attention was paid to the fact that all these landings should have been seasonal.
A lot of examples came from abroad. For example, in Germany there was the same problem - lack of light, dense buildings. This led to the fact that homeowners began to change the development and the nature of the layout of residential buildings within the quarter. There are front gardens in front of the houses and the courdonaire - the space in front of the house, limited by two buildings.
This was an advantageous moment, because when we put a U-shaped house to the street, we can remove more living space on the inner wings than if we put the house along the red line.
On the other hand, we provide an open landscaped yard. This building principle became popular in the early 1910s in St. Petersburg. The territory was landscaped, small architectural forms, fountains were created, lindens were planted. Gradually, the landscaping of the yards begins to change. And during the First World War, an already well-maintained block territory appeared in the courtyard of an apartment building in the center.
The birth of a courtyard culture
But the revolution and all the troubles that befell our country in the second half of the 10s - early 20s led to the beginning of the era of communal apartments. In almost all cities, during the years of the Civil War and after, the public utilities are destroyed. The janitors have ceased to perform their functions, the yards become open and turn into an unsafe place.
Of course, communal apartments are a new type of housing in which different social strata of the population live.
In many cities, communal apartments remain to this day.
The principles that were followed in the courtyards before the revolution are now no longer valid. The owner is now the state, utilities. But they are not busy with the problems of improvement. And there was no talk of any rules and regulations. If earlier it was forbidden to hang clothes inside the yard, now residents are beginning to use the yard space in their own way. It becomes general.
In many cities there is such a concept of a courtyard, where the courtyard is a community that was formed for a long time and existed until the 60-70s of the last century, when this inner territory was the so-called border of a small homeland.
Gradually, courtyard life formed a whole culture, which was described in literary works of the 20-30s. For example, in the film adaptation of "Pokrovsky Gates" life in a "communal" is described.
Yards become a landscaped area, but more landscape gardening. Video screenshot If we talk about landscaping, then for a long time no requirements were made to this territory, until the 60s, because the yards in the old housing stock were considered as utility yards.
Since the 1920s, a children's subculture has appeared in the yards. Children begin to take to the streets, yard games appear. The children invented them themselves, because there were no playgrounds.
Just the problems of playgrounds are raised by partnerships that begin to be actively created in the 20s. Gradual industrialization is going on in the country, new factories and enterprises are appearing. Large cities are beginning to develop a new type of housing. Yards become a landscaped area, but more landscape gardening. We needed a recreation area, the approach to building was already different. The courtyard space was considered as a bright courtyard. The trees were planted in a certain order so as not to darken the houses.
And the yard becomes a decorative function. There was minimal landscaping: simple fences made of wood, sandy paths, or broken bricks were used. Such yard areas in new residential complexes were landscaped rather primitively.
In many regional cities, where residential complexes were built, courtyards were not improved at all. Minimal landscaping was done: paths were laid, trees were not even planted. For example, in Kazan, new houses in the 30s for the workers of the Vakhitovsky plant (now this is the intersection of Pavlyukhin and Shalyapin streets) - there was supposed to be a comprehensive improvement, but as a result, the territory is occupied by outbuildings.
« In years of the Great Patriotic War, vegetable gardens were planted in the yard spaces»
In the 1930s, the approach gradually began to change. The landscaping of courtyard areas comes to the fore. In Moscow, Leningrad and other large cities, a beautification program is gradually beginning.
However, the industrialization of the 1930s revealed a new problem - the massive development of enterprises, an increase in the population. Something had to be done about housing. Ideology and architecture are changing. The so-called Stalinist architecture appears, which was expensive. Not every city was able to master the plan of the Stalinist design, which was announced in Moscow in the 35th year. In other cities, such plans were introduced in the period from the 35th to the 40th year. For a long time, barracks, or a temporary two-story housing stock of an apartment or communal type, have become the main type of housing. Construction was underway. It was necessary to provide people with housing, so often such territories were not landscaped.
For a long time, barracks or temporary two-story housing stock of an apartment or communal type have become the main type of housing. Screenshot of video But nevertheless, in various design organizations that were created in the cities, a new type of housing was designed.
These are the same "Stalins". Of course, all these projects required capital investment.
At the same time, small architectural forms associated with ideology and propaganda are gradually being created. But they were not made of durable materials and quickly collapsed. Therefore, often the yards fell into disrepair.
During the Great Patriotic War, vegetable gardens were planted in the yard spaces. They became a salvation not only in besieged Leningrad, but also in other cities.
In the post-war period, low-rise buildings began to appear. There was minimal landscaping in the courtyards, but there were brightly whitened sculptures that stood alone among the poorly organized spaces. These areas quickly fell into disrepair. People, seeing all the devastation, did not perceive the yard as something cozy.
The situation began to change in the second half of the 1950s, when city subbotniks began to appear, which were aimed at helping public utilities.
In addition, there was another movement - the improvement of their own territories. Enthusiasts appear, thanks to whom gardens could be seen in many yards. Often this led to the fact that flower lovers began to compete with each other.
At that time, the approach to landscaping courtyards had already changed in Moscow. Capital resources could afford to improve the territory, install fountains and maintain them. Because the janitor will already be endowed with a minimal function - cleaning the territory. But the service will go to local residents.
The era of industrial urban planning
In the 1950s, courtyards practically became open everywhere. There are playgrounds. They were made of metal structures and wood.
At the same time, a new culture appears - the culture of pensioners who begin to go out into the yards. Because the pension system began to change, free time appeared.
With the development of industry in the 60-70s, production began to appear at large factories, where standard platforms, carousels, swings were manufactured in accordance with GOST.
But a major event in the history of domestic courts occurred with the coming to power of Khrushchev. This marked a new era of industrial urban development and a transition to cheaper mass housing. The concept of a microdistrict appeared. The first experimental quarters appeared in Leningrad and Moscow. These were green landscaped spaces without cars. Splashing fountains and flowerbeds were arranged in the yards. But all this quickly fell into disrepair, as utilities quickly abandoned the area.
Houses were built quickly, but the improvement was forgotten. It was the initiative of the residents that helped here. They themselves began to improve these territories: they laid asphalt, planted trees. But this was also a minus. Trees were planted quite cheap, unpretentious.
They broke often. Trees were planted mainly in front of the windows. This led to the fact that the quarters began to be buried in greenery and darken the houses.
Subsequently, the authorities at the district level began to improve the territory of playgrounds. For a long time in the 60s, the space theme was in vogue. One could see elements of rockets in small architectural forms, which were often used in landscaping. Landscaping was carried out under a single developed standard: metal platforms, reinforced concrete benches or trees that were short-lived.
At the end of the 1980s, another problem arose - motorization. Cars no longer fit in the pockets that were provided for this. The situation has escalated in our time. There are practically no places left for cars in the old yards. And the question arises how to solve this problem - a way to improve additional parking lots.
