Welcome guests with an inviting entranceway

A homeowner should not have to put up a sign that says “front door this way.” But I have seen many situations in which a home's entry was not well defined and created difficulties for the owners.

In one situation, the main entrance was on the side of the house and up a flight of stairs, but it appeared to be in the front, which was actually the garage.

On another property, the basement door looked like the front door. Visitors had to walk across the front yard to try to figure out how to access the house. The front door was on the side of the house, hidden above narrow steps lined with rocks and planters. Deliveries would sometimes never reach the owner's front door.

The key is always to make a front entry spacious and obvious. Sometimes all that's necessary is to figure out the most comfortable way to bring visitors into your home.

Make the entrance uncomplicated and inviting by creating a wide area of paving so pedestrians can clearly see where to enter. The path can be curved six to eight feet wide at its beginning, tapering down to four to five feet and then widening back up to a larger area at the front door. Try drawing a configuration that appeals to you and is comfortable to follow.

The paving materials you choose can complement or contrast with the others on your property. They can be a formal row of flagstones or have a staggered configuration. There is a wide selection of materials available, including colored and textured concrete, interlocking pavers, flagstone, brick in a rainbow of colors, and river and ocean gravel ranging from white to black.

Another decision you will have to make is whether your walk will be curved or straight. Although a straight line is, of course, the shortest distance between two points, my preference is to use a curved line, which can seem less formal. A curved line also creates a good drop-off area for visitors.

When hills are part of the configuration of a front yard, retaining walls should be considered. They offer the opportunity to include terraces as part of a landscape design. And the entry is more clearly defined with a wall following a hillside. Visitors will know where to walk, and the terracing will add visual stability to the hillside, providing areas for mixed perennial gardens. You can add these same elements to the rear garden to match the front entry. For example, you could build a 10- to 12-inch raised vegetable and herb garden in an area of good sunlight.

Use beds of low-growing plants as accents along the sides of walks and paths. In shady areas, try some foamflower (Tiarella cordata) mixed with woodland phlox (Phloxdivaricata). Plant alternating varieties close together and they will fill in quickly. Evergreen ferns would also be good plants to grow along the sides of a path. I like evergreen wood fern (Dryopteris marginalis) and rock polypody (Polypodiumvirginianum).

Other low-growing plants that could be used to accent walks or set off terraces are the following:

Nikko deutzia is tolerant of partial shade and has white flowers that last for several weeks in April.

Sweetbox (Sarcococca hookerana var. humilus) is in the boxwood family. It is a broadleaf evergreen sub-shrub that grows about 12 inches tall and has barely visible fragrant white flowers opening in April.

Epimedium is a shade-tolerant perennial that produces masses of tiny yellow flowers in early spring, before it leafs out. It freezes back to the ground in winter.

The winter months offer a great opportunity to rethink this important aspect of landscape design.