Help with Front Garden

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum and also landscaping / gardening. Some details of the garden:

I have an idea as to what I want to do with my front garden, and here is some basic information about my garden;

1. Front garden is 100 sq/m.
2. Aspect is North East facing
3. Not sure how to answer this! lol. It looks normal.
Link to my original intro: http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/hello-from-the-midlands.48269/#post-618501

My Objectives:

The first thing I want to do is pave the driveway, initially I wanted to pave the whole driveway and have a pole lantern near the door and keep it simple. But I want to make the front more private, again, I'll need advice as to which I should buy to go across the front and maybe the sides also?

Following on from the making the front more private, should I have a small section of soil near the edges and not pave the whole driveway?

All your ideas and pictures from other front gardens similiar to my plot size would be great.

Many thanks,

 

I think you need advice from a builder, which I'm not, but here goes.

Your drive clearly slopes downhill towards the house, so if you pave it, will you not create yourself lots of problems when it rans, with rainwater run-off forming puddles against your house?

In any case, I think a recent change in the law (maybe a couple of years old now) means you need planning permission to make a drive that is impervious to water. It came about because someone realised that localised urban flooding was more likely to happen if rain water had less chances to soak into the ground, because front gardens were being paved over.

Do you use the front door to your house, or like many in a semi, do you mainly use the side/back door? I'm just thinking that gravel is great for certain situations, but I wouldn't want a gravel path leading right up to the front door, because inevitably gravel gets brought into the passageway on people's shoes. Not a big deal, but it does mean extra regular sweeping.

 

In terms of the technicalities / issues surrounding the paving considering it slopes down has been drawn up and there will be no issues. My question is to focus on the design of the trees to make the drive more private and keeping some soil for plantation.

It is a detached house and the door is at the front. The gravel will be going also together with the grass patch.

 

There's some building work/landscaping going on near my dad's at the moment. Those houses have sloped gardens too. The builders/landscapers have removed all the top soil, and have excavated the garden into tiers, with each tier retained by its own brick wall. Rather than going for straight lines though, they've gone for sweeping curves, and so far it looks really good.

I'm not sure what to do about making the drive more private. I have the same problem with mine, and have been through loads of ideas. There's a few things to consider though. For example, I expect you still want to keep good visibility for getting the car in and out across the pavement. I say this, because my drive is a bit too open for my liking, but on the other hand, as we have a nursery/primary school at the end of our road, and kids have a tendency to appear from nowhere without warning, I like to keep the view open. But then once I'm in, and the car is in for the night, I sometimes wish it was much more enclosed. You can't win sometimes.

 

It seems to me that you need to have a clear, paved and inviting path leading from the gateway more directly to the front door. At the moment it looks as though you have to squeeze yourself down that narrow path just in front of the bay. As you will often need to walk from the car also, I would suggest paving over the whole of the car parking with a a triangular area roughly extending from the gate to the front door to the corner of the house added on to it. I'd suggest small block pavers but large slabs would also look very good, especially if laid diagonally though this would need some expert craftsmanship to look its best. Not sure how you would handle the drop in levels, best ask a builder. The car section has to have no steps, but maybe some broad shallow steps dropping from the gate to the door could be incorporated?

That would leave you with a triangular area between the two side walls for decorative/screening planting. I'd suggest either a neat suburban hedge which you would trim to size, or a couple of hand-picked foliage shrubs. This would provide a screen but without being claustrophobic, impeding driving views or giving too much shelter to burglars.

 

thank you so much for the constructive reply.

I'm a little lost with your idea in regards to the "triangular area". Can you take my picture and graphiti over it to show a visual of what you are referring to.

Thanks again!

 

Don't know how to do graphiti but if you look at the middle picture and imagine a line bisecting the lawn from the gatepost to the lefthand side of the porch that's roughly what I mean. So the LH bit of the lawn would be planted and the LH bit of the lawn would become part of the paved area.

 

ok, i'll post a version of my driveway with a few possible designs. Can anybosy else share a visual?

 

Soil types could be:
clay
sandy
acid
alkaline
neutral
and probably others that I haven't learned about (yet)

If you know what type of soil you are working with, it will dictate which types of plants will grow and if/how you need to "improve" it for plants to thrive.

I'm guessing that for "privacy" you are thinking of all year round? Which would suggest a backbone of evergreens.

Have a nosey at some of the members photo galleries; now they are *very* inspirational

Another suggestion, when I wanted inspiration for my secret garden, I looked at Pinterest to find lots of things which fell under the "Oooh! Like that!" + "Hmmm, maybe?". I spent a good couple of weeks making my own "scrapbook" of ideas (copy and paste pix into OneNote type scrapbook ). Then, a big sale came up on an online store and "boom!" it all sort of fell into place.

For some free garden planting plans you could try Better Homes & Gardens even though it is an American site, the planting plans again provide inspiration and can be tweaked to suit your style/budget. More specifically "Colourful Front Garden Plans"

There is one picture in that link (#35) which, with your imagination, would give you an idea of what Madahhlia is trying to describe (see the path to the front door? I think Madahhlia was suggesting that the path to your front door begins from the front wall)



Hope that kickstarts your creative thoughts

 

All driveways now require their own drainage. This usually consists of a soak away built under the drive with a drain connected to it from the surface of the drive. No planning permission is required. I certainly didn't ask for any when mine was built last year. Builders never mentioned it to me either. Slopes usually are not a problem for builders. Mine was really bad, the lawn that was there before was difficult the mow as the soil was so steep. The landscapers took a lot of the soil out but we do still have a slopped drive, not as bad as it was before though.

Here's a picture of our drive after it was finished. Only took them 4 days to build.



For privacy I would sacrifice a bit of space and have a bed around your front wall. You could then plant a hedge there to add a bit of privacy. The same could be said for the boundary fence where you currently park. I would also keep a bed by the bay window too and plant some nice shrubs there too. Unless you have to park 5 cars on the drive then I personally see no point in paving a drive all the way. You need to soften it as much as possible with growth.

 

That is roughly what IO thought but with no lawn, and a broader paved area. I like the planting pockets near the house, but theGraduate's house is a much narrower one and you couldn't plant too much in front of the bay window.