My front garden - Ideas?

Hello all.

I've decided to dedicate a bit more time to my front garden. Since moving in, most of my gardening time has been spent in the back (which was truly horrendous, and still needs a lot of work but is now useable). I'm still going to spend most of my gardening time out the back, but the front is only small and its the first thing you see when you come home or go out, so it ought to be nice.

The front garden is a proper sun trap. The difference between front and back is like two different countries. In the summer, the front can be like the med, while the back is like, well, the north east coast. I've planted a hedge and a few flowers. Now i'm after ideas. Anyway, enough said, here's some pics.

1. What we have here is the view from my front door. You can see that by the time you put my car on the drive, there's no much room to get past without walking on the lawn, meaning that the lawn is well worn and muddy at this point.


2. The other side of my drive. Nothing wrong with, but very boring don't you think?


3. Here you can see down the right side of the pic my new beech hedge. Planted in november, it is already budding up well and has gained a couple of inches in height. There are also assorted spring bulbs at the foot of it. Down the left side of the pic you can see the remains of a flower bed under the front window. Its full of herbaceous perennials so looks ok in summer, but a bit miserable now that winter has finally turned up.


4. The view from the street at the end of my drive as you come home. You can see the flower bed better. On the trellis by the door, its not obvious in the pic but there is a healthy climbing rose on there that flowers well from spring onwards. Personally I hate said rose, it is a dull purple colour.


So there we are.

I'd like it to be a bit more private, hence the new beech hedge. I'd also like to do something about the lawn being trampled at the edge of the drive. I have a load of flat(ish) big stones, and thought about a flat rockery that is ok to walk on, with low growing plants that are tough as old boots among it. I'm open to any suggestions though.

 

As you want to be spending more time out the back, lift the turf (saves cutting it, and may be of use elsewhere) lay a membrane and cover with ornamental gravel. Cut irregular beds in. and a rockery area could work too.

 

Which wall? The low boundary one with next door? Picture 2?

 

" Here you can see down the right side of the pic my new beech hedge"

Pinch out the leading bud, and the bud at the ip of each side shoot. Do this each Winter for the first 3 or 4 years, until the hedge has reached final-height. This will encourage it to bulk up (and in particular not get skinny at the bottom).

I do ours mid Summer too, but its is growing at more than 2' a year as I'm a bit keen with the Nitrogen to get it to hurry up!

Personally I would give it a wider strip to grow in - i.e. remove a bit more grass.

Lawn grass looks quite rough. If you are going to keep it I would manicure it more, so that it has finer grasses and looks "smart". You could fork out some money to Green Thumb, or do it yourself, obviously.

 

The front tells alot???

Hi,
The front of any house says a lot, and tobe honest yours needs bringing to life,
The front door,
A nice feature, one of two ideas here, (a) a really nice hanging baset one side and an feature fixed to the wall light on the other side.

(B) or a square box timber container with a standard round at the top conifir ? The container will look nice and the conifir will set the wall off plus the outside light will add to the container's height.

The pathway sides (both sides) should have that edge of the grass area taken off Approx 8inch wide and i'd do this by having box edging on both sides, they are slow growing hence little for you to worry about, and when they're cut nice and quare like a green wall approx 12 inch high, is stops people standing on the grass edges.

AS you say you get the sun in this section of your garden (the front of house)
what about cutting out a Lavender bed? you'll have evening smell of lavender, the sight of the lavender is nice and it grows in poor soil,
in the winter once its given a slight tidy up you'll have a sea of greyish looking clouds sitting in the morning mist of winter.(this idea is for the right hand side of the path as your facing the rear of your car as in the pic)

Now the Lawn area at the left hand side as you look at your car!

Cut a circle out of the grass area (size approx 4ft all the way round)
remove the turf and use a membrain and buy a concrete bird bath, set the bath on the mem, and cover nice and deep approx 3inch deep with white pebbles and a hand full or two of red pebbles, ontop of the white "to add a little warmth of colour.

Last, give that very small grass area's a rake, and then a feed, use a plank of wood to cut the edging just proud of your box edging to keep it looking really smart and to allow you to both weed and also have a little space for feeding the box and for a top up of compost during winter prep.
That grass area's are small but really look very strawish colour, ie they need to be greener looking, liquid feed with rose feeder for a quick pick me up,

You do this little lot and you'll see a difference when you drive in and people walking past will see a nice front garden in the day light and visitors will be welcomed by a nice outside light when its dark, and the Lavender is very calming,
Ive a huge bed myself of just lavender, its simple to grow and ask for nothing but gives a lot back.

 

And a lawn doesn't look like some green stuff stuck on the side?!

Personal interest declaration - I hate lawns!! Come the revolution I'm making them illegal except for essential sports venues (rugby, cricket)!

On a serious note though, I put Lavender in at my old place in the veg plot to deter the bunnies (it works). Unfortunately it was happy and became very high maintenance.........

 

From your picture the pathway to the door looks very windey (spelling?) and not very deep either. I would stick some paving slabs diagonally across the lawn to your front. So visitors have a more direct path. Postman are very good at trampling over anything in order to get to a door as quickly as possible.

Would attach some coloured trellis along that boring wall and grow something along it.

It's nice to finally meet a fellow lawn hater. Why waste planting space on a piece of lawn that the local cats poo on?

 

Pah! to you both. A lawn has its place, nicely tended to it sets off the surrounding borders.

But a scruffy lawn looks no better than a scruffy flower bed.

Lavender high maintenance? You just clip it once a year to remove the flower stalks and gently trim back the new growth. Of course if you don't clip it for a year or two it will become leggy, keel over, and only complement a scruffy lawn :(

Some replanting of Lavender is usually necessary though, dunno exactly how often - somewhere between 4 and 7 years I expect, but they grow easily from cuttings, or can be grown on from small plug plants bought for 20p a shot, or thereabouts.

 

Kristen -
It was very good at what I planted it for (keeping bunnies off the veg). But it was never supposed to be happy and it grew like crazy, along with the roots. It took a fair bit of digging out. However, as you say, it was very easy from cuttings and so in this situation worked well in pots afterwards.

 

Garening & painting

Jane Jane Jane,
True gardening is like painting, if you dont have a background the painting cant show off the more shall we say interesting bits,
Like ladies put make- up on ie face cream, & lip stick followed by eye shadow ect ect,the background is face powder, it has tobe washed off when finished with ie a little care of the skin goes a long way but this powder is only back ground item to help show off the lips, eyes ect.

The lawn is only the backgrounfd to your garden and if you dont give it some care ie feeding & grooming it will look a mess and wont be good on the eye.

The pictures we've seen ref this very small front garden show a very un-loved grass area, but if i lived around the corner i'd be pleased to do what ive said to this little garden and i'll guarantee the change would be very scenic from what we're seeing now,
grass is a living thing, we see enough concrete in the world and of cause the drainage if concrete is put down is another thing to think about,
A lot of coucils are saying "No" to more concrete drives etc because the water has to go some place and the local drainage systems cant take anymore.

Jane, concrete is'nt the answer, after all when you see a wedding and the Bride & groom stand in the doorway of the church "do we throw hand fulls of concrete or maybe rose leaves dont appeal to eveyone?

I rest my case:(

 

After spending the last year removing a 100ft x 10ft drive (the link in my sig shows this process) that was eating my garden I can assure you I would never want to anymore concrete down ever again. My views of concrete are all negative now.

You can still get rid of a lawn and not concrete or pave it over you know.

 

Thanks for all the excellent suggests so far. I knew I could count on you lot.

Just to pick up on a couple of points I now realise I missed:

The lawn is currently in a diabolical state for a couple of reasons. Firstly because, as I'm sure you've all guessed, I haven't really looked after it, focusing my attention so far on the back garden. Its a lot better than when we moved in (ie the grass now grows), because I've done some restoration work on it, but not even close to enough. I should have mentioned that if I keep the lawn long term, it wont be in its current form. It will likely be poisoned off, then re-seeded with a wildflower lawn mix.

Moonraker, I liked what you wrote, but unfortunately the box 'wall' along the edge of the drive is not really an option. I agree it would look nice, but the trouble is the drive is quite narrow. By the time the car is on it, there is only about a foot width of drive left to get past. Ok for a skinny person, but a big person or someone carrying anything isn't going to fit past without stepping onto the lawn.

I like the idea of a separate path, but not necessarily in a straight line. I wonder if I could get away with a small network of paths through the front garden, with one fairly direct, but not straight, to the front door.

As for growing something along the boring wall. I'm definitely up for that, and hadn't considered a clematis (passion flower was suggested). There is currently no accessible soil near the house (without making the plant cross drive), but I can easily enough change that. I guess I could just use a large container. There is a small trench about 4 inches wide by the same deep, filled with gravel between the drive and the boring wall. I suspect it is there for drainage. I reckon I could fill that trench with general purpose compost and put nasturtium in it. It would thrive there (it thrives everywhere, my dad calls it a weed), and between that and nice climber, it could look quite good.