Garden design made easy - Front gardens

Matt James Garden designer

In this new series, Matt James aims to show you how to redesign your garden space into something exciting – whether you have a balcony, basement or new build blank canvas, here are some inspiring ideas and advice to get you started.

Being both private and public spaces, front gardens are an important buffer zone between a house and the street, yet many are disappearing and becoming paved areas used solely as car parking space. Often, their potential is overlooked, with our efforts and energies going into creating a private retreat in our back garden.

Ugly, dusty rubbish bins, lonely gnomes, uninspired planting – I’ve seen it all in front gardens, yet it is possible to have pedestrian access, parking and low-maintenance planting schemes that add kerb appeal. If you’re thinking of selling your property, any estate agent will tell you that first impressions are key – a tidy, well-tended front garden often clinches that initial viewing.

Create easy access
The main priority is easy access to and from the front door. Paths should be direct and obvious to visitors, so avoid lots of curves and loops, or plants that cover the edges. In small front gardens, line up the path with your front door. Whatever the path’s position, use safe materials that are easy to walk on and ensure that they’re laid level.

Make an attractive path
Complement your house in some way by linking it visually with the path – neutral materials work best. Natural sandstone flags go with period properties, blue-black slate works well with slate roofs, while York stone or dark grey granite setts marry well with houses made of red brick (try Ced.ltd.uk or Bradstone at Simplypaving.com for paving ideas). Cheaper options are gravel, or bark chips if your budget is tight. Poured concrete paths are unimaginative – so avoid them as it will look as though the pavement runs right up to your front door.

Planting vs parking
How much room do you need for manoeuvring and parking? Sometimes there’s space for six cars, when you have only two. A combination of materials for different functions – paving for people and gravel for the car – stops the car from being the focus of the garden and breaks up the space, creating more interest. Delineate these areas with different textures, patterns or colours that work together.

For driveways, steer away from tarmac and concrete block paving to avoid it looking like a car park. Gravel is a good alternative but it needs a sub-base laid by professionals. Make sure there’s a lip around the area to stop the gravel from spreading where it’s not supposed to go.

As crazy paving is dated, you might want to dig the whole lot up – but this is a job for a contractor and it’s expensive to do and to replace. Exercise some ingenuity and ask the contractor to cut out some borders and large beds with a special stone saw, leaving the parking area and path as they are. Once it’s all done, dig over the old soil and add lots of good compost to create new planting areas – it’s hard work but worth it to see some green in your garden again.

By law, impermeable materials like natural stone and concrete must be angled so that rainwater is directed to a lawn or border. If you’re using impermeable paving on an area that’s bigger than 5m² you’ll need to get planning permission. Ask paving suppliers for advice or use a BALI (British Association of Landscape Industries, bali.org.uk) approved contractor. New drop kerbs also need planning permission as the pavement may have to be strengthened to protect underground gas and water pipes.

ABOVE: Burnside Toll Cottage was last renovated back in the 1980s, so it provided a blank canvas for the homeowner’s modernisation plans, which included a new front garden.

Devise a planting scheme
Tough low-maintenance plants are best for front gardens, but some spots are warm enough to grow scented climbers such as star jasmine around the door. Think year-round appeal and plant slow-growing evergreens like Sarcococca confusa, Prunus laurocerasus ‘Otto Luyken’, Pittosporum tobira, Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ and Eleaegnus x ebbingei – they make perfect structural plants that won’t grow out of control or provide places to hide for burglars. You may want to fill your garden with plants, but avoid planting large specimens directly in front of windows, other than low-growing, prickly-leaved plants that act as a deterrent to burglars. Keep hedges low with spiky osmanthus or holly – but don’t use leylandii.

Topiary and the front garden are made for each other and suit both town and country gardens alike. I’ve seen tiny city front gardens with nothing but topiary – a collection of clipped box balls, cones and spirals that look smart by day but quite magical when lit up at night. Knot gardens (formal, square-framed designs) with box, yew or small-leaved privet planted closely together and kept trimmed can also be filled with dwarf lavenders and herbs or scented summer flowers.

Don’t forget trees. An ornamental cherry tree or small crab apple tree acts as a good focal point when planted in the centre of a front garden. Avoid weeping willows, though, or anything else that’s going to grow too big, such as pampas grass.

If you think your front garden is too small for plants, consider the corners. These are ideal for planting with an eye-catching evergreen or two. Even huge terracotta pots crammed with easy-maintenance shrubs, seasonal planting and bulbs will brighten the space. Plants can also help to divide the path from a car. If you have a large car runway strip, break it up by planting the centre with low-growing ground cover plants such as ajuga and thyme.

Some front gardens are too small to warrant grass, but if you like it – keep it. However, gravelled and barked areas are easier to manage and suit informal planting with ornamental grasses and perennials that don’t require much work.

Install lighting
Lighting in the garden at night increases security. Bollards can light the way to your front door and are useful at steps or changes of level. Triggered spotlights, like the Homebase PIR Motion Sensor, £14.99, can be used with any outdoor light and come on when movement is detected; some illumination at the front door is also handy for helping you to find your keys late at night when it’s dark.

Lighting can be used creatively too. Putting low-voltage spotlights at the base of architectural plants produces dramatic shadows, especially against bare walls.

WORDS MATT JAMES PHOTOGRAPHS DOUGLAS GIBB
All prices and stockists correct at time of publishing
Featured in the September 2011 issue of Real Homes