page_title: Front yard
section_title: Canada
hierarchical_section_title: Front yard / History and styles / Canada
caption_attribution_description: English: 1970's westcoast contemporary home in Richmond, BC.
context_page_description: On a residential block of land, a front yard or front garden is the portion of land between the street and the front of the house. If it is covered in grass, it may be referred to as a front lawn. The area behind the house, usually more private, is the back yard or back garden. Yard and garden share an etymology and have overlapping meanings.
context_section_description: The development and history of Canadian front yards generally followed early American trends but diverged in the early 1900s.
  In the 1920s and 30s, zoning laws were introduced for growing cities like Ottawa and Vancouver. The regulations stipulated minimum front yard "depth" for new houses and ensured home builders shunned the "tenement house evil" of New York City and London.
  In many parts of Canada, lower average temperatures and a more pronounced want for privacy led to the increased popularity of tall trees at the side borders of housing blocks, framing the house and front yard. These provided wind breaks in winter and shade in the summer. Lawn ornaments were less common in pre and post-war Canada than in the United States and a large well-kept tract of "featureless" lawn was popular with many middle-class Canadians.
  In the post-war era, suburban Canada gained its own distinctive architectural styles and this extended to front yards and gardens. Rather than the stark white façades of stately American houses, wealthy Canadians of the 60s and 70s showed a preference for wood, in particular "diagonal cedar panelling". To match that trend, front yards of such houses were often paved to match the entrances of modern city buildings; "no elite home of the 1970s was complete without a front yard of interlocking brick".
  As in other cultures, Canadian front yards became areas of socialisation between the public street and the private home; a space for street parties, family barbecues and neighbourly conversation.
caption: A 1970s-built home with cedar panelling and a front yard with a large section of lawn and a tall-tree border in Richmond, British Columbia.
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