The Level Green Landscaping Blog

8 Ways to Create a Memorable Entrance with Landscaping for Your Commercial Property

Written by Douglass Delano | Mar 5, 2025 2:17:39 PM

Everybody has an entrance. Make yours memorable. 

Whether you’re a hospital, a shopping center, an HOA or an apartment building, people show up on your property and go through an entrance.

And that’s usually their first impression.

Maybe they drive in, past signage that should offer an impressive welcome. Or your entrance might lead to doors they walk through, giving you a chance to wow them up close. 

What creative ideas will make your commercial property entrance landscaping stand out, offering an impressive, can’t-miss welcome?

A burst of colorful seasonal flowers impossible to ignore. Supersized planters brimming with tropical plants unlike anybody else’s on the block. Signage that grabs attention with eye-catching landscaping. A general sense of tidiness and upkeep, letting people know you care, right off the bat. Toss in a few sustainable options to help both your budget and Mother Earth. 

Let’s learn more about business entrance landscaping ideas, as well as tips for HOA and other residential entrances, too, including:

Make It Your Own

Pack Supersized Planters with Exotic Impact

Seasonal Color for Sizzle 

Improve Your Hardscape 

Give Your Signage a Boost 

Keep Your Commercial Building Landscape Tidy 

Sustainable Options 

Holiday Lighting Makes Your Entrance Shine

1. Make It Your Own

Branding and landscaping are great partners, offering appealing flowers and plants with a personalized spin.

Level Green crews have installed bright entrance flowers in company colors, in the shape of company logos and giant university letters. Welcome university or school visitors with bright flowers in your own school colors. Crews have painstakingly planted flowers in a giant U M for the University of Maryland. There are lots of impressive possibilities. 

Commercial property entrance landscaping can also personalize your entrance to celebrate a big event. 

When a busy shopping center was about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, the property manager wanted to spell out “20 YEARS” three times in vibrant annual flowers in the expansive beds circling the entrance fountain. 

After meticulous planning by a Level Green account manager, landscaping crews painstakingly planted cheerful pansies in the spring to spell out the celebratory message against dark brown mulch, then switched them out for begonias for the summer and panolas in the fall. 

It offered unforgettable entrance appeal. 

2. Pack Supersized Planters with Exotic Impact

Here’s a chance to go big with your entrance first impression. 

Extra large planters are the way to go, filled with unusual, intriguing flowers and plants your visitors won’t see down the block.

They’re among the best business entrance landscaping ideas. 

An instant focal point, large containers of beautiful plants grab attention.
If you’re thinking a big pot of pink petunias, guess what? So are all your competitors. Be different.
 
Large tropical plants add drama. Think banana trees or palms for a cool vacation vibe. Add stunning white bird of paradise, alocasia or variegated ginger.

Annual grasses are great fillers, and some varieties pack a unique purple or pink punch.

Striking variegated coleus, bright begonias, or vivid blue ageratum can round out the tropical vibe. Ask your account manager about intriguing new varieties of plants and flowers that will set your entrance planters apart.

Don’t Pack Away Those Planters in Fall

Once fall moves in, those tropicals won’t survive the chill, but your oversized planters are still ready to make a big impact in your commercial property entrance landscaping. 

Time to switch in Emerald Green arborvitae, Green Giant arborvitae or Blue Point juniper. Boxwood or holly are great choices, too. Add bright pumpkins for Halloween fun. Everybody loves celebrating the changing seasons.

As the holidays approach, fill those pots with festive pine boughs, red twig dogwood and glossy green holly.

Welcome spring with pots brimming with cheerful tulips and other spring bulbs. Let visitors know you're as happy about spring's arrival as they are. 

3. Seasonal Color for Sizzle 

The best business landscaping ideas almost always include attention-grabbing seasonal color that offers big impact throughout the year, creatively changing with the seasons. 

Include this strategy at your entrance, even if you don’t budget for it anywhere else.
It means people will notice you, no
matter what time of year. 

Tropical plants and fun new flower varieties can star here, too, in your summer seasonal installations, to make your commercial building landscaping stand out. 

Mums are must-have showstoppers for fall, exploding in vibrant color and keeping your business entrance landscaping captivating through autumn’s chill.

4. Improve Your Hardscape 

If your property’s walkways leading up to your entrance are old and cracked, that’s a terrible first impression.

They're not only unsightly, they’re a dangerous trip hazard.

Replace old walkways with impressive stretches of pavers that add texture, design flair and can help break up the industrial look of a long stretch of concrete.

5. Give Your Signage a Boost 

You want everybody to notice your entrance signage — not just drive in by. Among the best business entrance landscaping ideas: add eye-catching landscaping. 

A few tips: 

  • Color always attracts attention, whether with annual flowers, colorful perennials or blooming shrubs.
  • Adding shrubs to signs expands your signage footprint, making it seem bigger.
  • Even if your entrance sign has lighted lettering, don’t forget to light the landscaping around your signage, too, for drama  and impact. Level Green crews choose plants that won’t block existing lighting, or, if necessary, we move lighting so it isn't blocked by the plants we install.
  • Plants grow fast. Partner with a proactive landscaping company that stays on top of it, trimming plants before they block your signage. 

6. Keep Your Commercial Building Landscape Tidy 

Once you spruce up your entrances with flowers, planters, updated signage or walkways, don't forget about proactive maintenance. That’s as important as skilled installation. The most innovative business entrance landscaping ideas don’t matter if the area is weedy, flowers are faded or the grass is patchy. Your entrance appeal can go south fast.
 
Partner with a commercial landscaping company that puts proactivity first, actively looking for signs of any potential problems then hopping on solutions fast.
 
Level Green account managers are on it, with a mission to pounce on problems and head off issues before they become real concerns.

Your landscaping plants stay healthy, weed-free and don’t grow so tall they block your signage or the lighting fixtures that illuminate it. 

7. Sustainable Options 

Business entrance landscaping ideas don't have to be expensive or time consuming.
 
High-maintenance colorful annual flowers at multiple entrance signs throughout your commercial property can add up. 

They also need lots of water, weeding, fertilizing, and they need to be replaced at least twice a year.

Consider more sustainable business entrance landscaping ideas. Go with lower maintenance perennials and ornamental grasses, or try some easy-care xeriscaping with river rock and accent boulders. 

Pretty perennial flowers and graceful grasses still attract attention to your commercial property entrance landscaping, with less maintenance and expense. 

This smart plan saves you money and helps the environment, using less water and fertilizer. 

8. Holiday Lighting Makes Your Entrance Shine

When it’s a special time of year, customers and residents expect a few extra festive touches, and that means classic white lights at your entrance. Holiday lighting is a no-brainer for your commercial property entrance landscaping. 

Wrapping trees with lights offers a stunning light show. They look special and magical. And the higher they’re wrapped, the better. 

Level Green crews have big ladders and heavy equipment to get 15 or 20 feet up on large trees for wrapped trees that offer huge appeal for your commercial building landscaping. 

Ready for Big-Impact Commercial Property Entrance Landscaping? Trust Level Green 

Make sure your business entrance landscaping inspires people to stop in — or move in. 

Ready for business landscape ideas with big impact? 

Let us suggest the perfect commercial landscape plants to make your property entrance impossible to ignore. 

Level Green Landscaping provides commercial landscape maintenance services in Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland. 

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions. 

 

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.