Landscaping a ranch-style house creates special challenges for homeowners, most of whom want to soften the ranch's sharp, boxy exterior without overwhelming the home's clean lines.

Traditionally, ranch style homes are rambling one-story dwellings with very spare, clean lines. If your home was built in the 1950's or 1960's, chances are good that it's a ranch style house. The ranch style was first seen in the 1930's and it evolved from earlier 20th century designs, most notably the bungalow, mission and prairie schools of architecture. Due to their popularity with tract developers, the ranch style is often dismissed as "assembly line" architecture, and their lack of fussy details lead critics to see them as lacking in character.

Even the most drab of ranch style houses benefit from creative landscaping, though. The key is to choose plants that are in keeping with the home's modern design and avoiding old-fashioned, overly ornamental flowers and shrubs, as well as respecting the home design's small scale and lack of height.

Because of their Western influence, desert plants are ideal for ranch style landscaping. Bougainvillea are evergreen perennials (meaning they're planted just once and then maintained for several years) that flower at different times during Landscaping A Ranch Style Housethe year. They can be trained as vines, allowing for the decoration of an expanse of wall space, trimmed into bushes, or just allowed to grow freely. The Mexican Bird of Paradise is a beautiful, low-care plant that grows quickly and adds a charming retro touch that's perfect for a ranch house landscape. Oleander is another evergreen shrub that flowers from May to October – they can grow to over 20 feet tall, however, so they demand occasional pruning. Cacti and other succulents of various sizes look great in a ranch home's landscaping, and they offer the added bonus of being drought-resistant – so you save on water.

If you live in an area in which desert plants won't grow well – or if you just don't like them – consider softening the entry area with a shady canopy tree such as a maple or birch. The landscaping of most ranch homes features foundation planting, with plants either contrasting or harmonizing with the color of the house – cool colors like blue and green fool the eye and make the house appear further back from the street, while warm colors brighten the yard and work best against a dark background.

The purpose of any landscaping plan is to help make the home look more natural in its surroundings and, in the case of a ranch home, brighten and soften the architecture's sharp lines. Whatever you choose to do when landscaping your ranch house, the most important thing is to choose plants that you like and that will add to your enjoyment of your home.