Living in an arid zone doesn’t mean that you cannot have a beautiful front yard. All you need to do to have this front yard is create a desert garden. You can even create this garden without lots of money because there are many front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget to choose from.
You must follow certain rules when creating a desert garden. The main rule is you must replace the traditional grass lawn with rocks, gravel, and other drought-tolerant ground covers. Moreover, you must only grow drought-tolerant plants or native plants in this garden.
11 Front Yard Desert Landscaping Ideas on a Budget
When it comes to creating a desert landscape in your front yard, you can minimize the budget by planning the landscape without the help of a landscaping designer. To help you design the desert landscape, you can check these 11 front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget.
1. Golden Barrel Cactus and Succulents Desert Garden
This garden landscape is unique. It does not have any desert sand because the landscape designer chooses to cover the ground with gravel, garden paving, and black lava mulch. Despite the lack of sand, it looks closely similar to a desert thanks to the plants in the garden.
The designer mainly focuses on growing desert plants, such as golden barrel cactus, agave, bunny-ear cactus, opuntia cactus, and saguaro cactus. All these plants look eye-catching because the designer arranges them artistically.
2. Unique Desert Landscaping
You can make an attractive desert landscaping on a budget if you cover most areas of the front yard with rocks and gravel. Consequently, you can spend less money on plants and plant maintenance.
To create this landscape, you can adopt this unique desert landscaping idea. It is one of the best front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget you can apply. You will need rocks and gravel in three different colors, i.e., white, black, and beige to cover the yard.
Create a unique pattern in the yard using grass-edging fence belts and place the gravel in it. This desert garden will not be perfect without agaves, succulents, and other drought-tolerant plants.
3. A Dry River in the Middle of Sand Hills
Many front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget have non-living focal points. One of the examples is the desert garden in this image. Its focal point is the dry river in the middle of sand hills.
This desert garden looks attractive with scattered boulders and drought-tolerant plants. In the springs, this desert garden looks lovelier because a particular tree and shrub in this garden will produce beautiful yellow and red flowers.
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4. Contrast Desert Land and Green Lawn
This desert landscaping idea is different from most front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget because it has a manicured grass lawn. Many people think that no grass is the main rule in desert garden landscaping.
However, if the climate allows you to grow drought-tolerant grass, then go for it and adopt the desert landscaping idea in the picture above. The designer of this garden covers a part of this garden with gravel and garden paving. He also plants several drought tolerant plants in it.
5. Boxwood and Rock Garden
The boxwood rock garden idea is a great alternative to desert landscaping ideas if you live in a windy area. This garden is neat and modern with rocks, decorative stones, and lines of round boxwood. You can add yellow agaves or yellow Mauritius hemp to brighten up this garden,
6. Beautiful Desert Garden with Lovely Plants
Cactus and succulents are not the only plants you can grow in your desert garden. This garden landscaping idea, for example, has more than just cactus and succulents.
It has a lovely collection of plants, such as feather reed grass, lavender, and red-flowered plants. To complement the beauty of this garden, the landscaping designer arranges some boulders artistically in it.
Also read: DIY Mini Greenhouse
7. Desert Landscaping with Terracotta Pots and an Open Chest
This front yard landscape has an atmosphere of an abandoned garden. However, it suits a desert landscape idea. One of the garden aspects that create this atmosphere is the worn-out open chest.
In addition, the interesting arrangement of the terracotta pots complements the gloomy atmosphere in the garden very well. Despite this abandoned look, this garden looks unusual yet attractive thanks to the colorful flowering shrubs and succulents.
8. Small Desert Garden
For you who have a small yard, you must apply the small front yard desert landscaping ideas. Landscaping a small garden can be challenging. However, you can avoid the challenge easily by adopting this small desert garden idea.
This desert garden is gorgeous because it has several focal points. Each focal point consists of boulders, golden barrel cactus, saguaro cactus, flowering shrubs, and succulents.
9. Desert Landscaping with Mexican Feather Grass and Small Trees
Some people don’t like growing too many succulents and cactuses in their desert garden. If you feel the same way as them, you can adopt this idea of a Mexican feather grass garden. The grass offers attractive greenery in your garden.
In addition, there’s something magical about seeing the grass sway in the wind with a brown gravel-covered yard as its background. You can make it look more attractive by adding focal points in the form of a tree and tall potted plants to this garden.
Also read: Best Plant Identification Apps 2022
10. Simple Desert Garden
The desert garden above is one of the best simple front yard desert landscaping ideas. The designer of this garden creates an eye-catching focal point and covers the ground with gravel. The focal point consists of a tall palm tree surrounded by yucca, agave, and cactus.
11. Small Desert Garden with Agave and Golden Barrel Cactus
The desert garden in this picture is perfect for a small garden. The landscaping is simple yet appealing. Creating this landscape desert garden is not difficult.
You only need to plant agaves, golden barrel cactus, flowering trees, and palm trees in the garden. After that, cover the ground with rocks.
Adopting one of the front yard desert landscaping ideas on a budget above is an excellent way to improve the look of your front yard. These garden ideas are not only attractive, but they require low maintenance. Therefore, you don’t need to spend money and energy on this type of gardening.
