Do you have a front garden?

Baby_Angel

We have a very small front garden. It was full of building rubble when we bought it. Now my DH has finally cleared it up and laid half to lawn and half to brightly coloured flower beds. It is a delight to look at.
We live in a cul-de-sac. Plenty of parking on the road, so most of the neighbours don't have a dropped kerb!!!

DKLS

Mostly tarmac with enough parking for 12 cars and there are two large flower beds All behind a 14ft solid gate so no one can see in.

Slinky

Yes

Where I live we're on thick clay which makes most gardening a chore. Most of the time you either can't get a tool in the ground or if you can it comes out plastered with clay. We had our back garden landscaped and it has mainly bushes plus some raised beds for growing a bit of veg. We copied the planting out the front and bunged in a few bulbs as well. Anything involving digging, hoeing etc is to be avoided.

moneyistooshorttomention

Yes

My recently-bought house came with most of the front garden tarmacked - in the service of the Great God Car obviously.

Money is running very short now after renovation work on the house to date, but it's on the list to rip up most of the tarmac (only leaving enough hard surface for my visitors to park) when I can afford it and put it to being a garden. Sooner the better....

I'm in an area now of heavy clay - but I'm throwing money (and loads of stuff to improve the soil) at it to make it into the sort of soil I recognise. I hate "concrete gardens" with a passion.

lostinrates

missprice wrote: »

Some maybe but not all, I am paving over at the other house because my kids don't want to garden, which means I would have hundreds of sq ft to do by myself, or pay a fine if/when the garden got into a state. Fines start at 1k, it has an actual drive big enough for 5 cars already. Its just convenience to pave it to me.
I am aware its a shame but what can one person do faced with fines. I would leave it to be a wild garden but one complaint and its to court I have to go. This paving thing is cheaper too, just buy lots of weedkiller in vast quantities.:rotfl:


I am doing some gardening here but I still prefer pots and planters on a gravel bed, cos to me it looks better. And the other garden is vast and no one wanted to take it on, I did look at the site you mention, plus neighbours would tell me they would love a garden like that, so I offered them the whole thing or any part to look after, but still no one interested.

I ain't getting any younger and traveling between two houses with equipment is just too much to ask.

There are many alternatives.

One might be a non grass lawn. What the non grass element was would depend on what aspect your garden had and how much use your garden gets.

PasturesNew

Yes

Yes, but only large enough to park a motorbike on. I've a side garden that extends to the front, that's wide enough to take a car, but it'd be very difficult to get that permission and I'd regret doing it as there's a huge tree over it where pigeons sit ....

Personally, given a front garden large enough - and with inadequate off-road parking, I'd be the first to pave it over and stick the car on it. I don't give a tinker's cuss for horticulture, nature, all things green and the environment. I'd choose personal comfort and convenience every time.

Jagraf

No

I find front gardens ideal for dog walkers who insist on letting their dogs pee up the rose bushes, or do their business on the grass. Or for school kids to throw their rubbish in, or for people generally to think that front gardens are for their own use.

The best is parents of school kids who used my friends front garden for parking their cars on as she lived opposite the school :eek: (no wall between her grass and the pavement).

I now have a bricked driveway on a corner plot so that people can take a short cut to the adjoining road smoothly without getting mud on their shoes from all that wet grass.

Jagraf

No

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, but only large enough to park a motorbike on. I've a side garden that extends to the front, that's wide enough to take a car, but it'd be very difficult to get that permission and I'd regret doing it as there's a huge tree over it where pigeons sit ....

Personally, given a front garden large enough - and with inadequate off-road parking, I'd be the first to pave it over and stick the car on it. I don't give a tinker's cuss for horticulture, nature, all things green and the environment. I'd choose personal comfort and convenience every time.

That's interesting as I was always an old house, big trees, lots of grass kind of person. Now I just want to move into a new house on a new estate with a tiny garden so I can put a hot tub in it and have no weeding to do. With a couple of hanging baskets and no stuff dropping of trees and doing my head in. My car is covered in sticky mess from the sap of a big tree we have. Rant over

dirty_magic

Ilona wrote: »

I have a lawn, and borders with shrubs, at the front. Big garden at the back. Hate those paved, graveled over etc. There are a few in our village, I think they look awful. One is a corner plot, I walked past while they were ripping their lovely garden up, their excuse was .'We're not gardeners'. :mad:
Gardening is good exercise.
Ilona

I enjoy gardening myself, but not everyone does and not everyone has the time to maintain both front and back. A low maintenance gravel garden can look good, and I'd rather my neighbours pave or gravel it than leave it to get overgrown because they don't like doing it.

We have a big 3 car drive put in by the previous owners. When the houses were built they had a one car drive and a front garden, but there's no room to park in the street so almost everyone has paved over it. If I'd have done it myself, I'd have had a 2 car drive and a border for planting. I wouldn't have grass at the front though, we used to have two lawns and it's time consuming cutting both.

balletshoes

Yes

pollypenny wrote: »

Yes and a huge side garden, as we are on a corner plot.

I covet your corner plot .

My front garden is the width of our house, a third is our driveway (fits one car only) and the rest is lawn, gravel border under the windows, a few perennial bushes (peony rose, ground-cover lilac, hydrangeas) and some alpine plants along the front edging. Its completely south-facing and I love it, makes my house look like home.