Ideas for front garden, please (longish post)

whitesatin

We have a wide plot, quite a sizeable back garden and a smallish front garden (though not in comparison to other properties in the road). It is a town garden, in the South East of England. There is a driveway to the garage, done in the past few years, very acceptable if a bit boring. I try softening it up using pots and baskets but need to keep it free as off street parking at a premium so can't overdo the plants there. In front of the house there is a patch of grass (15 ft wide by around 10 deep). The previous owners planted a conifer hedge which we keep under control but need to keep high because it screens us from the public building across the road and the traffic leaving it (headlights). The plot slopes towards the house so the hedge is around 10 ft looking from our side but from the pavement it is a more acceptable height. Anyway, I want to get rid of the grass which is surrounded by all sorts of plants (roses, peonies, various shrubs, big hydgrangia (blue/pink) and a huge green shrub on the corner. Also lots of yellow poppies and other seasonal flowers which show themselves over the year. I want to soften the front of the house which is not that pretty (fifties detached) using a variety of plants which will be easy care but which will look and smell nice and can be, within reason, left to themselves. Their background, when looking from the front window, is this huge, dark hedge, a bird paradise which is a good thing except that there are lots of cats which make themselves comfortable in our garden as it is the only proper garden in the area. Grrrrrrr.....but I love cats so just put up with it. But they use the grass and anywhere else, between plants, as a toilet. I want to fill it with plants so they won't find it so easy to do their business.

I was thinking maybe lavender as a starting point. I have a reasonable budget just need some guidance.

Any ideas would be welcome. My husband has no interest but will remove the grass for me (he won't have to mow that bit then, LOL).

ukmaggie45

Maybe you could build a knot garden? Very traditional. There's one partly described here, but you could use different hedging materials to the box Papaver used if you want - I'd go for lavender myself, with maybe some rosemary at corners. Nothing wrong with box, but there's a nasty box disease going round - seems to be a lot of plant diseases going round at the mo - look at the ash problems! Oh, the blog post I linked to tells you lots about what went wrong for her - read to the end to see how she did it all finally.

whitesatin

Thanks for that, I really enjoyed reading the blog and ideas. In the comments someone mentioned cats using gravel as a toilet but maybe using larger gravel might work. I will wait for the snow to clear and have a go. Thanks for your reply.

yoyoegg

How about this?

Remove lawn but keep established plants in the edge borders to maximise what you already have. Put a circular gravel path and in the centre a really big terracota urn as the feature, surrounded by lavenders. Use 10 -20mm gravel, not pea shingle.

In the extended beds around the path, put in lillies, day lillies, tulips, some grasses, hebes, perennial poppies, crocus, haicynths, jonquil daffs, spurge, eryngium, geum. Plant in groups of three, rather than jumble everything up.

In the border beside the drive, leave space for annuals so you can swap for summer or winter colour.

Put the 'hot' colours nearer the backdrop of the evergreen hedge and the blues nearer the house as these colours 'recede'.

I have a large firethorn bush, and every year I prune and lay the spikey twigs on the ground to keep cats off.

whitesatin

yoyoegg wrote: »

How about this?

Remove lawn but keep established plants in the edge borders to maximise what you already have. Put a circular gravel path and in the centre a really big terracota urn as the feature, surrounded by lavenders. Use 10 -20mm gravel, not pea shingle.

In the extended beds around the path, put in lillies, day lillies, tulips, some grasses, hebes, perennial poppies, crocus, haicynths, jonquil daffs, spurge, eryngium, geum.

In the border beside the drive, leave for annuals so you can swap for summer or winter colour.

Put the 'hot' colours nearer the backdrop of the evergreen hedge and the blues nearer the house as these colours 'recede'.

I love the idea of the large urn with plants around. I really appreciate your input and will look up all the plants you mention. Thanks so much, beginning to get quite motivated.

ukmaggie45

whitesatin wrote: »

In the comments someone mentioned cats using gravel as a toilet but maybe using larger gravel might work.

LOL, that was me! I think cats will use anywhere as a toilet unless it's solid concrete! :rotfl: Though you can get plants that are supposed to repel cats, might have to try them out in our front garden. Here's a link to what the RHS have to say about cats! We just have a forest of short sharp bamboo stakes, it works but isn't very pretty, and if you had small children playing in the garden it would definitely be a safety hazard.

Conrad

In the news they keep saying people should not concrete thier front lawns as this increases flooding. I'm not sure if you were going to concrete though?

If a sunny spot I'd go with your lavender feel, but also add loads of Rosemary and other wood herbs such as thyme. This 'Med' feel will be very much more healthy if you grow it in soil mixed with tons of sharp sand so you have a sandy soil going pretty deep. I did this in part of the front here and it's easy to keep on top of.

The hedge though might make it too shady for such plants?

whitesatin

Conrad wrote: »

In the news they keep saying people should not concrete thier front lawns as this increases flooding. I'm not sure if you were going to concrete though?

If a sunny spot I'd go with your lavender feel, but also add loads of Rosemary and other wood herbs such as thyme. This 'Med' feel will be very much more healthy if you grow it in soil mixed with tons of sharp sand so you have a sandy soil going pretty deep. I did this in part of the front here and it's easy to keep on top of.

The hedge though might make it too shady for such plants?

I agree that concrete would not be a good idea, especially when we have a paved drive to the garage. Drainage could be a problem. I think I have decided to go with some large gravel or even slate (already some in the garden) after digging up the lawn and adding some soil/sand and a weed membrane. I will need access to trim the (wretched) hedge which is, I think, some kind of conifer and can grow wildly. I will get a large container in the middle, cut into the membrane and plant some lavendar and possibly rosemary. In the large container I will probably go for seasonal colour. I can't wait to get it done now.