Their Front Lawn Wasn’t Working, So They Ordered a “Garden in a Box”
Grass covered most of this front yard, but bare areas and thin patches interrupted the lawn on both sides of the concrete walkway. Rather than trying to establish the same lawn again, the homeowners removed it and started over with plants.
Reddit user u/Kindly_Panic_2893 chose Garden in a Box, a program that packages groups of plants around planned garden designs. Their yard combines three collections: Painted Prairie, Shade of Summer, and Mountain Blooms.
The change went beyond replacing grass with flowers. Curved planting areas, rock paths, mulch, ornamental grasses, flowering plants, and a small water feature now occupy the former lawn, while the original straight walkway remains in place.
The Grass Came Out on Both Sides of the Walkway
Removing the lawn exposed a broad strip of soil from the driveway to the house. The existing concrete walkway remained as the center line, but the straight edges that once separated it from grass disappeared.
Instead of flattening the cleared ground, soil was added in places to introduce changes in elevation. The homeowner later described using existing soil mixed with fill dirt and clay to create contours across the former lawn.
Potted Plants Were Positioned Before Going Into the Ground
Containers spread across the bare soil show how the planting plan started taking shape before the plants went in. Taller grasses sit farther from the sidewalk, while smaller plants occupy areas closer to the front edge and paths.
The three Garden in a Box collections were not the only plants used. Several grasses and a few additional plants were added later to close gaps in the design.
Mulch Replaced the Open Soil Around the New Plants
Fresh plantings initially leave large gaps between one another, but the exposed soil did not stay bare. A deep layer of wood mulch covered the planting beds after the lawn was removed.
The homeowner used around four to five inches of mulch without landscape fabric beneath the planted areas. That layer helped suppress weeds while the new plants established and began filling the open space.
A Water Feature Became Part of the New Front Garden
One section near the house received a small rock-lined water feature instead of another planting bed. Flat stones create its edge, with larger rocks and new plants connecting it to the surrounding landscape.
The addition did more than fill an empty corner. The homeowner later reported seeing more pollinators and birds in the yard, with the water feature drawing birds into the garden.
Flowers Began Filling the Gaps Between the Young Plants
As the plants established, the spacing visible during installation began to disappear. Yellow blooms spread above the mulch while grasses and taller plants added height behind them.
Most of the original Garden in a Box plants survived their first growing season. The homeowner reported losing only a few plants, while many grew more than expected and produced flowers during the same season.
The Former Lawn Became a Layered Planting Bed
Later photos show what the original spacing was designed to accommodate. Plants now overlap from front to back instead of sitting as isolated specimens surrounded by mulch.
Low flowers cover the front edge near the sidewalk, medium-height plants occupy the middle, and taller grasses rise behind them. The different heights turn the flat lawn into a garden with visible layers from the street.
Gravel Paths Run Through the Planting Instead of Grass
Narrow gravel paths provide access through the garden without restoring strips of turf between the beds. Large stones define parts of the route, while plants spill toward the edges.
The homeowner found weeds more persistent in these paths than in the mulched planting beds and said weed barrier beneath the gravel was one change they would make if doing the project again.
Plants Now Reach Across Much of the Mulched Surface
Viewed from the house, the garden no longer reads as small plants inserted into a former lawn. Flowers and grasses occupy much of the ground, with mulch visible between established groups rather than across one open bed.
Drip irrigation runs beneath the mulch. Watering started more often while the plants established, then dropped to about once every six or seven days for 90 minutes as the season progressed.
The Water Feature Disappears Into the Mature Planting
Growth around the rock-lined basin changes how the water feature sits in the yard. Plants now rise behind and beside the stones, connecting the basin to the rest of the garden rather than leaving it as a separate object surrounded by bare mulch.
Birds were among the visitors that followed the change. Bees and butterflies also began appearing in a yard where the homeowner says they had not seen the same activity before.
Tall Grasses Added Height Where the Lawn Had Been Flat
Ornamental grasses create some of the tallest points in the finished landscape, with flowering plants filling the lower levels around them. Their height also breaks up the long horizontal view created by the sidewalk and driveway.
Not every plant came from the boxed collections, since a few grasses and other plants were added to fill remaining gaps.
The Concrete Walkway Is One of the Few Parts That Stayed the Same
From the street, the original route to the front door is still easy to recognize. The same concrete walkway cuts through the center, but almost everything bordering it has changed.
Grass once ran from the sidewalk toward the house. Now flowers, grasses, mulch, stone, and winding paths occupy that ground, showing what the “Garden in a Box” became once the plants had a growing season to spread.
Image credits go to u/Kindly_Panic_2893