It can be hard to know just what to do with a front garden. They bring different challenges to gardens at the rear of the house. Often in town, the garden can be small, very shaded or very hot. Gravel or paving is regularly used to fill the area but that can look stark on its own and also suffer from the fact that that can be a great environment for weeds to flourish if not maintained. Pots can struggle if it’s very hot and few things look worse than pots full of dead plants. The other alternative is all planting, but then plants can become too big, or neglected and the area soon looks messy.
On top of that the small square or rectangle garden that you might get in a terraced house is not an easy shape to work with, and so I spend a lot of time walking around my Hertfordshire town looking at gardens and it’s quite rare to see a nicely designed space that flatters the house. In many ways the smaller the space, the fewer the options and the harder it then is to get a balance of modern garden design, lovely planting and accommodating practicalities like access and bins.
Equally, sharing the space with a car can mean what’s leftover is awkward and lacks unity. Finding a design that accommodates a car, some planting and a path to the house can be tricky!
Some tips and tricks for front gardens:
Remember that if you are changing the surface of the area and it’s over 5m2 it’s best to use a material that will allow water to penetrate, avoiding the problem of rainwater washing straight into the mains system. Gravel, permeable block paving and grass with geo-grids like Cellpave are all permeable - laid correctly of course. For guidance on this go to the UK planning portal
Mix your materials
A mixture of different materials provides low-maintenance interest and practicality. In this Hertfordshire front garden, I used a mix of clay pavers and aggregate that was already on site. The planting is a mix of evergreen and perennial, so even in winter there is something to soften the brick of the house. But the materials are also attractive and will look good all year round. The pavers break up the space, providing small planting pockets within the square shape of the garden.
Keep planting to a minimum of varieties
Here I have used about 10 different varieties of plant including the climbers. This means it’s easier to maintain as there aren’t lots of different plants with different requirements. It also looks better to repeat plants within the garden.
Great gravel
Gravel is commonly used in ‘dry gardens’, in combination with a base of shingle, and special planting methods. This means that gardens which are subject to high heat and prolonged drought can thrive without extra watering. Beth Chatto’s dry garden in Essex is probably the most well-known and spectacular version, but the concept is becoming more widely used as climate change accelerates. Personally I don't enjoy walking on gravel, but in conjunction with other paving for foot traffic it’s a very forgiving, attractive and modern material to use over planting beds. It’s low-maintenance and often a great place for lovely self-seeders to set up home, such as verbena, Erigeron, escholzia and a host of plants that love the drainage it offers.
Using your vertical space
A great resource in a front garden is the vertical space offered by the house. Here we used wisteria and trachelospermum jasminoides on this west-facing frontage which will dress the house, soften the brickwork, provide interest from inside and also amazing scent by the front door to welcome visitors.
If you'd like some help making your Hertfordshire front garden a beautiful place to welcome visitors and to be an asset to your house drop me a line here
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