Carolyn and Bob Gutz

Oregon gardeners Carolyn and Bob Gutz deftly layer shrubs and perennials, many of them Northwest natives, to show off the plants’ hues.

John Brennan-Taylor

John Brennan-Taylor has mastered bloom times in his and wife Mary’s Upstate New York yard, with hundreds of flowers from spring through fall.

Brigid and Skip Hart

There are no hard edges in Brigid and Skip Hart’s northern Michigan garden—only curving beds filled with swaths of flowers planted en masse.

Najia S.

Palms and a pomegranate tree frame a cheery, bright green landscape, with a few flowers for punctuation, at Najia S.’s California home.

Pat and Russ Gray

Each year, Pat and Russ Gray plant a fresh batch of tulip bulbs outside their Oxford, Maryland, door for a spectacular spring display.

Sharon Winter

Even in Las Vegas, Sharon Winter achieves a green space with plants that don’t need much water yet contribute interesting foliage.

Janet Petros

Janet Petros clusters plants tightly for a woodland-inspired landscape to make the most of her front yard in San Francisco.

Ed and Patty Hildebrand

In Southern California, Ed and Patty Hildebrand replaced their turf with drought-tolerant succulents and shrubs, plus a rock swale to collect runoff.

Megan Cain

Behind an airy border of perennials, Megan Cain puts her Madison, Wisconsin, front yard to work as an ambitious edible garden.

America’s Best Yard Runners-Up from 2019

Sara McDaniel

This Louisiana cottage was overgrown with poison ivy and photinia. “It was great for privacy,” owner Sara McDaniel jokes. The DIYer went for a more welcoming landscape with ‘Dwarf Burford’ hollies and ‘Thumbelina’ zinnias along the front porch and crape myrtles, dwarf gardenias, and liriope at both ends.

Mary Ann Beaudry

The paper birch and dogwood trees are the only constants in Mary Ann Beaudry’s Michigan yard. Everything else has to prove itself. So she auditions annuals and perennials in the containers, beds, and borders.

Cynthia Stringham

This Utah yard explodes with zinnias, dahlias, and sunflowers. But it’s a hardworking plot, too, packed with fruits and veggies that Cynthia Stringham mostly starts from seed to try unusual varieties.

Russ Hench

Russ Hench, a landscape designer, and Tom Piccari used caramel-hue heuchera and dark red coleus to tie into the warm colors of their 1926 Ohio home. Boxwood, spruce, and a weeping cypress provide contrast and year-round interest.