Love your front garden

Prima online 21.06.2009

Good for the value of your home and wildlife… it makes sense to give yours a bit of attention

terraced stone houses

Front gardens aren't the easiest of spaces. Mindful of security, homeowners want an easy, open space. And, as it gets harder and more expensive to park on our streets, an increasing number of front gardens are concreted over to become residential car parks. Almost one garden in four in the north-east is paved, while in London 12 square miles of front gardens are now under paving. Yet planted front gardens promote local pride and bring green corridors into our cities, making residents feel happier and supplying much-needed shelter and food for wildlife.

● Look at your property from across the road – how does it compare to the other houses? A lick of paint to the fence, minor repairs and introducing a little green into your space will make it look cared for.

● Don't neglect your hedges – do little and often to keep hedges neat and under control.

● Clean up your porch, sweeping out cobwebs, checking that lights are working and adding hanging baskets or planted urns to welcome visitors.

● Installing lighting by your front door will not only guide you to it after dark, but will also provide enough light to help you find your keys, then the keyhole.

● Your cared-for front garden may inspire next-door neighbours to give their own some TLC, and improve the look of the street. You could always offer to give their fence a lick of paint while you're doing yours.

● Evergreen planting with good shape creates a sense of permanency and year-round interest – two-thirds of the planting should be evergreen.

● Hard landscaping works when it links in with the architecture of your house, so use complementary materials for a co-ordinated feel.

● Dustbins in the garden can be an eyesore. Screen them with shrubs or bamboo and, where space is limited, build a timber bin store.

10 best planting ideas
● Instead of having a completely paved driveway, pave two tracks to take your car wheels, planting between them with low growing plants tough enough to cope with the occasional running over. Try Ajuga reptans, vinca, Alchemilla mollis and Bergenia cordifolia

● Are there any awkward corners in your garden where some plants could be squeezed in? Shrubs like phormium, Choisya ternata, lavender, mahonia and bamboo have more impact than perennials and are easy to look after.

● Trees not only give height to the garden and your street, but also provide shelter and nesting places for birds. Look at Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel', Japanese Maples, Malus x zumi var. calocarpa ‘Golden Hornet' and Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer'.

● Use climbers to brighten up dull walls. Make sure you provide support for rambling or climbing roses, clematis, honeysuckle, ipomoea and other wall shrubs, or opt for self-clingers such as ivy, Virginia creeper or climbing hydrangea.

● Small lawns are hard to mow and maintain, so often end up looking tired and threadbare, or untidy and overgrown. Instead, use low-maintenance ground cover plants, such as glossy green bergenias, pulmonaria with their spotty leaves or even ground cover roses.

● Bold blocks of planting break up paving, soften your house, look smart and are low maintenance.

● Waist-height hedges mark the boundary between pavement and front garden, without creating a security problem as intruders can't hide behind them.They'll filter the dust from the street and provide habitat for wildlife, too. Thorny Berberis thunbergii is a good choice if you're considering security, Buxus sempervirens adds definition to paths, while yew hedges are an evergreen classic.

● A pair of evergreen plants in containers will enhance the entrance to your home, adding impact to your front door. Where space allows, groups of containerised plants will make your garden look cared for.

● Containers brimming with plants can be added anywhere, planted with almost anything, including trees - perfect if you've already paved wall to wall. If you're worried about theft of your pots or expensive topiary pieces, secure them to the ground with plant anchors, available from www.topiaryshop.co.uk.

● If space is really tight, hanging baskets hung from porches or outside walls will bring colour and fragrance.

Paving with confidence
Gardens soak up rain where paving, tarmac and concrete cannot. The latter increase water runoff by as much as 50 per cent, so flooding is becoming a problem. Street drains can't always cope in a heavy storm and the excess can go back up front drives and into homes. Eventually this rainwater, mixed with the pollution it picks up along the way, finds its way into rivers, causing environmental problems with waterways.

Because paving stops rainwater getting into the ground, it also causes the soil beneath it to shrink, especially in clay areas. This can cause subsidence, with property walls developing cracks.

If you're updating or paving a driveway, it's important to use materials that allow rainwater to pass through them:

● Gravel is crunchy underfoot (so disliked by burglars) and by far the cheapest permeable hard-landscaping material around. Available from your local builders' merchant in many colours, prices start at just £2 per sq m.

● Matrix or cellular paving is made from hexagonal cells filled with aggregates, such as gravel or flint. They reduce scatter, and provide support, making gravelled areas much more user-friendly. Try Addastone Matrix pavers, from £60 per sq m (01825 761333).

● You don't have to get rid of the lawn – you can buy concrete paving that allows grass to grow through it. Grassguard from Marshalls (0870 1207 4740) is a concrete and grass system from £22 per sq m; Netpave by Netlon (01254 694494) is a plastic version, priced from £16.50 per sq m.

● Formpave Stormwater Source Control System allows rain to pass through concrete where it's collected and cleaned, before being released into sewers or back into the ground. Priced from £15.95 per sq m. Call 01594 836999. Marshalls Priora Pavers (0870 120 7474) is an interlocking system with drainage openings allowing water to pass through, from £21.50 per sq m. Also, Bradstone has produced a unique system for sustainable drainage, allowing you to trap and reuse rainwater. Call 01335 372289.

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