House With Garden in Front Design
Front gardens are special and very different from rear gardens. They are often for show not for relaxation, and for kerb appeal, not for parties and play.
There are lots of ways to create instant impact and maximise space out front, all while adding value to your property in the process, and no matter how small your front garden, is, with careful planning you can make it both a beautiful and useful space.
Before your house comes into view, your front garden is the first thing visitors will see, and a neat exterior will most certainly create a warm welcome. A well-maintained, flower-filled front garden also adds to the overall look of your neighbourhood, and most importantly, 'A front garden full of plants also means a home and food for wildlife,' says Leigh Hunt, horticultural adviser at the Royal Horticultural Society.
In reality, for much of the year we're likely to see more of our front garden than our back. Every time we walk to our car or out of our house, whatever the weather, we'll be immersed in this garden, so why not give it the attention it deserves?
Martin Leigh Getty Images
Golden rules
We'll start with the seven golden rules – follow these and all will fall into place.
1. Fit in with the street scene. Every road has a 'look' and if you take your front garden too far away from what's normal for your street, you will create a 'wow' but not in a good way. But you can still raise the tone, if other front gardens in your street are neglected you can go for quietly smart, and if every other garden has been made over like a daytime TV programme, you might have to work a bit harder. If in doubt go for low key, neat and formal.
2. Symmetry and structure will give a great look, so look for well defined flower beds, straight lines and solid planting. The hardest look to pull off in a front garden is a wildflower meadow with plants flowing everywhere – go for the opposite of this and you'll be on the right track.
3. Structure like this will also work in winter as well as summer – and winter is a key time in the front garden. This will likely be your one glimpse of greenery on your way from house to car, so getting the winter look right is crucial. The shapes of the flower beds will be seen, and the structural bones are visible in winter, so it's essential to make sure those bones look good.
4. The layout – the bones of the garden – needs to signal where people should go. It's an obvious point but one that's often forgotten. When folks walk to your house the front garden needs to show them the way to the front door; it's purpose, if you like, is to direct. The easiest way to do this is with a clear path and a big signal to mark the front door. Big pots either side of the front door will do the job.
Paolo Paradiso Getty Images
5. When you're putting in the structure, work with the house and the windows. So planting is high between the windows, low in front of them. Accentuate the patterns of house, don't work against them. This will often give you a good pattern to copy around the rest of the front garden. The pace of the lower and higher planting can be used at the sides and alongside the road. Use the same spacing and the whole thing will come together like a symphony.
6. You may not think about selling right now, but it's likely to happen at some point, so if you're putting money and effort into your front garden think about kerb appeal to buyers. What would you like to see if you were thinking about buying this house? It's another really good reason to avoid anything whacky at the front. Kerb appeal is about looking neat, well maintained and cared about. Case in point: Dustbins can be a real eyesore, so screen them with shrubs or trellising, or, as horticulturist Alys Fowler suggests, 'Make your garden so pretty your eye won't be drawn to the bins at all!'
7. Finally, watch out for planning rules. These are often specific to front gardens and can cover anything from the height of your front fence to the colour of your house. To find out what applies in your area, the planning department of your local council will be a good place to start.
* SHOP THESE FRONT GARDEN ESSENTIALS *
Front garden essentials
Garden Lavender Tree
BUY NOW £30, Marks & Spencer
This beautifully scented lavender tree in a keepsake hessian bag is perfect for any doorstep.
Round Hanging Basket with Liner
BUY NOW £5, Wilko
This hanging basket – complete with a chain and hook – comes with a natural coco lining which is great for absorbing and maintaining moisture of flowering plants.
Riveted diamond trellis
BUY NOW From £6.99
Made from high-quality hardwood, train up climbing plants with this super-strong expanding trellis.
Smart Garden Boxleaf Artificial topiary ball
BUY NOW £15, B&Q
Ideal for hanging on hooks by archways and doorways, this artificial topiary ball is durable and strong and is ideal for front gardens – plus no maintenance required.
Addis Outdoor Round Dustbin with Lockable Lid
BUY NOW £29.54, Amazon
If you need an outdoor dustbin for your front garden, a design with a lockable lid is ideal. This dusky grey shade is subtle and stylish enough and won't be much of an eyesore.
Matt Anker Getty Images
Perfect plants
The main requirements for plants in a front garden is that they give structure and don't take too much looking after. They need to be steady, not glamourous. As a general rule, choose plants that flower in every season, that way, you'll always have something new to welcome you home, and window boxes are great for adding a splash a colour.
1. Evergreens: Shrubs which stay green and have a good bulk all year round are key to front gardens. Try box or yew, hebes or sarcococcas. Choose the size you need to create your look and one of these will fit the bill.
2. Climbers: If your house isn't pretty there's a great temptation to grow climbers up the front. That's not necessarily a bad thing. What is a bad idea is to grow self-clinging climbers. So, say no to ivy, boston ivy, climbing hydrangeas – these all have suckers and will find their way into the guttering, the mortar and, eventually, the windows. The climbers that are less likely to damage your house are ones which need support to grow up, so wisteria, clematis, roses. These can't get a hold themselves so are a lot less scary. A good tip is to grow them up sturdy trellis which is just hooked on to the wall. The trellis (and the climber with it) can be removed for cleaning or painting the walls.
3. Trees: Pretty much inevitably, if a tree is growing in a front garden, it's going to be close to the house. Even small trees grow into big trees and you might think, 'Oh we can take it out if it gets too big,' but no, you might not be able to. Once the roots go down under the foundations, taking a tree out can cause as much damage as leaving it in. It's just safer all round to avoid trees anywhere near your four walls.
Loop Images/Andrew Baskott Getty Images
Best of 3: Climbing plants for front gardens
Wisteria sinensis 'Prolific'
BUY NOW From £14.99, Thompson & Morgan
These beautiful, scented pendants of lilac-blue flowers have a prolific flowering habit that makes it the ideal specimen plant for training onto sunny walls.
Clematis 'Frances Rivis'
BUY NOW £14.99, Crocus
These delightful purple-blue bells blooms reliably each spring, no matter what the weather, and is perfect for a sunny trellis.
Potted Rose - Perpetually Yours
BUY NOW £16.99, Marshalls
Provide walls and fences with a veil of these gorgeous lemon-yellow roses each year.
Seasonal changes and affordable updates
The biggest joy in gardening is to ring the changes: to herald spring, to celebrate summer and to the bask in a winter wonderland. And there's no reason not to do this in the front garden, in fact it's possibly more important since it's the front garden that you see pretty much everyday without fail.
1. Front gardens are perfect for pots. And those pots can bring colour to every season. Violas for winter, tulips in spring, alliums in summer and agapathus in autumn. As you get more confident you can start to get more adventurous with your containers and combine colours to make really bold and wonderful statements.
2. Keep eight big pots on the go in the rear garden and plant them up in pairs for each season. Wheel them out as they begin to shine. The great thing about this is, if an experiment goes wrong and doesn't look good, a quick trip to the garden centre for some emergency flowering plants will fix it in an afternoon.
3. Battery operated, warm, white fairy lights, wound around the structural plants like box balls will make the garden wonderful in winter. You don't have to wait until Christmas and they don't have to come out in January, keep them going until spring for a really magical look which will make you, and the neighbours, smile.
naumoid Getty Images
Keeping it low maintenance
Yes, it's worth some effort to make and keep the front garden nice, but often life is just too busy to be out there every week toiling away. There are some surefire ways to get a great look without having to tend to it like a baby.
1. Lawns are green all year round but when you think about the amount of effort it takes to get the lawn mower round to the front garden and then how much effort to mow what's often a poxy scratch of grass, the most likely outcome is that you'll resent the grass from day one.
2. Go for gravel or paving for low maintenance options; the rule is that the more hard landscaping you have the lower the maintenance will be. The easiest solution to look after is paving – bricks, slabs, driveway pavers – but it can prove to be expensive to put these over the whole of the front, even if your garden is small, so gravel is a decent halfway house. It'll need an occasional bit of work to rake it back into place, but still, a lot easier than grass.
3. Use evergreens in the borders, these will quietly get on whilst giving you shape and structure. They don't grow too much, don't need staking and once they're established, usually after one season, they don't even need watering. OK you won't get many flowers from them, but they tick every other box.
Janet Johnson Getty Images
Big mistakes
1. Going whacky. I'm sure you've seen the front gardens with big personalities. They stick out like sore thumbs – don't join them. The place for expressing yourself in your garden is in the back. In your rear garden you can paint your fence blue, grow tropical plants, fill it with all the wonderful ornaments you like. At the front, tone it down and think of the way the street looks as a whole – your neighbours will silently thank you.
2. Don't make life more difficult than it needs be. If you need access to your windows make sure there's a path there and the plants aren't too big. A winding path might look lovely for a few days but you can be sure of two things – firstly, that you will curse having to go around and about just to get to your front door, and secondly that people (including you) will cut the corners.
3. Not thinking about security is a mistake we all can make. Big pots or ornaments are lovely but will they go walkies? Plants to hide the view to the road are great but will they also hide burglars trying to get into your property. There's a very good argument for keeping anything expensive hidden away at the rear. If you do want to use expensive pots they can be secured.
marg99ar Getty Images
Luxury wows
It's not a good idea to put anything too expensive in the front garden, but there is a way to introduce luxury without that danger – think about the flooring you use. There are some beautiful (and expensive) options. For example, if you live in a Victorian house have a look at reclaimed or replica tiles – these come in that classic chequerboard black and white or other geometric shapes. In a modern house the luxury options for paving are things like travertine or reclaimed York stone.
House With Garden in Front Design
Source: https://www.housebeautiful.com/uk/garden/designs/how-to/a780/front-garden-guide/
0 Response to "House With Garden in Front Design"
Post a Comment