Brief

The clients wanted an easy-to-maintain, elegant and potentially modern front garden that worked well with the era of the house. The refuse section had to be concealed from sight from the main path.

Design

The challenge here was to create an interesting focal point in front of the bay window given the existence, right in the middle of the front garden, of a very deep man-hole cover. We circumvented the issue by using a potted Cornus with two strips of ‘Mind Your Own Business’ to create a visually striking and extremely low-maintenance focal point.

The refuse section, which is accessed via a second opening of the front wall, will in time be totally concealed by a thick dark green hedge of Taxus Baccata, which tolerates a partially shaded position. The slate was laid in a pattern inspired by the Victorian ceramic path. Finally, the iron gate was commissioned to echo the stained glass of the house.

The hard-landscaping uses black slate and blue-black engineering brick as either are very resilient to high level of moisture, which is a problem in this North-facing front garden.

Planting

The area in front of the bay window focuses on contrasting foliage with the fresh green of ‘Mind Your Own Business’ and the yellow bark of Cornus sericea ‘Flaviramea’ standing out against the black slate and backdrop of the taxus hedge.

The border that lines the front path up to the house is planted with slow-growing evergreen shrubs chosen for their scent: Sarcococca humilis for winter scent, Daphne odora ‘Aureaomarginata’ in the Spring, and Nandina domestica for late summer.