DIY Driveway Landscaping

Landscape with Logs

• Where snakes and scorpions are not a problem, line your driveway with logs and stumps. Leave the bark on so insects and lizards have a place to live. The logs give birds a natural source of food and shelter as well. Stumps with hollows provide cavity nesters like chickadees, wrens and kestrels a place to raise their young.

  Plant a woodland garden around the logs, use leaves, and bark as natural mulch. Some plants to try include sweet violets, moss, sedum, bursting hearts shrub, columbine, wormwood, St. John’s wort and conifer trees. In arid climates choose cacti, drought-tolerant succulents, agave, yucca, jojoba, and other native desert plant species.

Dry Creek

• Install a dry creek bed to run alongside your driveway. Use native stones, granite rock, local plants and wood for a realistic approach. Construct faux waterfalls by stacking rocks and planting them with cascading flowers. Plants that spill down rocks and planters include miniature sedum, moss phlox, moss, creeping Jenny, and creeping Charlie.

  Try grouping irises around “pools” of blue bonnets, baby blue eyes and other short, blue flowers. Sweet violets are purple but quickly spread to cover large expanses of open ground. They tend to have a mounding habit, remaining neat and tidy, even when not in bloom. Your USDA zone will determine the types of plants you can grow.

Make a Tree Tunnel

• Use fast-growing trees to create a drive-through tunnel to your house. Try planting golden privet with golden rain trees. Alternating rain trees with privet will give you the option of keeping the privet shorter than the trees. During bloom, rain trees are covered in a cascade of golden blossoms. Golden privet has yellow leaves year-round so they continue to give color when the rain trees are out of season. Try planting shade-loving hostas beneath the privet and rain trees. Top this planting off with pale-colored mulch and it will shine down a darkened drive.

Hummingbird Driveway Garden

• Line your driveway with milkweed, columbine, sage, catnip, jasmine, bee balm, and twiggy plants. Train trumpet vines across the driveway on simple arbors made from 2-by-4s. Secure the arbors well so they do not blow over or collapse beneath the weight of heavy vines.

  Instead of planting in straight lines, try grouping masses of hummingbird-friendly plant species. Connect the plantings with a simple 2-by-4 fence. The fence doesn’t have to span the entire driveway; just use it to connect open spaces between gardens. Paint the fence white to make it stand out, or use natural tones to blend into the landscape. A few twiggy plants give hummingbirds a place to perch between feedings.