10 Questions To Ask When Designing Your Front Yard
A lot of thought and design goes into your home, so why shouldn’t the same thought go into your landscape design. Your front yard is the first impression people have of your home, so its design needs to appropriately reflect the style of your home.
Writer Kate Burt, from Houzz UK, spoke with three landscapers who shared key decisions to make before you start digging, below.
From bin storage to parking, the design remit of the average front garden may seem restrictive, yet the possibilities for creating a beautiful, relaxing or wildlife-attracting outdoor space are plentiful, which is where landscaping expertise comes in. To get the balance between practical and pretty just right, however, there are some key decisions to make. Here, three garden designers help you prepare for that all-important first consultation, giving you a head start in creating an inviting new outdoor space for your home. Houzz spoke to three UK-based landscape experts for their top tips: Terrey Maufe of Outerspace Creative Landscaping, Phil Hirst of Phil Hirst Garden Design, and Simon Orchard of Simon Orchard Garden Design.
1. Am I Going To Have Grass, Paving, Plantings Or A Mix?
“Before getting carried away with planting or paving ideas, be clear what the space will be used for,” says Orchard. “Parking? Bin storage? A bike shed? Screening for privacy? Providing a nice view from indoors? Impressing passers-by? Only then can you start thinking about how it will all fit together.” Hirst agrees. “The choice between the amount of paving and the amount of lawn or planting you have is often dictated by practical considerations,” he says. “How many vehicles need to be parked on the drive and, if you’re on a busy road, do you need to be able to turn, so you can drive in and out?” This isn’t to say that if your front garden is used for parking, it can’t also include some plants. “A front garden always looks better with at least some planting, even if it’s in containers,” says Hirst. He also suggests you might want to think about adding low-growing and shade-tolerant planting up the middle, where car wheels won’t run over it.
2. What Sort Of Planting Would Work?
“Even if you have a postage stamp-sized front garden, there’s always room for a few plant pots or window boxes, which will brighten up the space, attract the odd butterfly and, hopefully, put a smile on the face of a passer-by,” says Orchard. As front gardens tend to be smaller than back gardens, Maufe highlights that trees, shrubs and plantings need to be proportionate. Trees in particular can be structurally problematic if they’re too large or planted too close to the house or boundaries. Your choices will also be influenced by the aspect of your front garden. “If you have a [south-] facing back garden, you may want to make the most of the sunny aspect of your front garden,” says Maufe. “There’s nothing to stop a front plot being the primary garden if the aspect is favourable and the design requirements can be met. It can also be a productive space, with herbs, fruit or even vegetables being grown there.” “Tradition has it that front gardens tend to be more formal and ordered – keeping up appearances and all that,” says Orchard. “But the great thing about gardening is you can be free to experiment and choose plants that will give you the most pleasure. So if you’d prefer to turn your nose up at a double row of lavender either side of your path or topiary balls in planters by your front door in favour of a rambling cottage garden or a lush tropical oasis – go for it!” he says.
“The most important thing is doing something in your front garden rather than nothing,” he adds. “What better way to strike up pleasant conversations with neighbours than spending more time in there pottering about?” “Bear in mind this will be the first impression visitors and passers-by get of your property,” says Hirst. “Try to make the style of planting appropriate to the architectural style of the house. A contemporary garden with clean-cut paving and minimalist planting would look incongruous with a country cottage.” Hirst suggests considering evergreens, too, to provide year-round structure. “Topiary or low hedges can be a good way of defining a front garden,” he says.
3. Where Should I Site A Path To The Front Door?
All the designers agree this is a key decision. “It should be clear to anyone entering the garden which route they need to take to get to the front door,” says Hirst. “This might mean ensuring the door is visible from the entrance to the garden. If the area is large and has more than one path, make sure the one to the front door is wider or more direct.” Orchard adds that a winding path is a great way to slow down the journey, so you take the time to enjoy any planting as you walk from the gate to the front door. “However, that may not be so great if it’s pouring down,” he says. “Also,” he adds, “we quite often take a short cut to get to our destination – known in the trade as ‘the desire line’ – whether this be straight across a lawn or hopping over a narrow bed, so you may find your winding path is sometimes ignored.” Your designer will help to ensure that this quick route doesn’t contain all your most delicate plants or features.
4. Which Surface Should I Choose For The Path?
Try to avoid uneven materials that are difficult to walk on or ones that will soon need replacing, such as bark chippings,” says Hirst. He and Orchard both agree that gravel can potentially be a great choice for paths and driveways. “It’s cheap and feels nice underfoot, and the sound is a great burglar deterrent – plus there are lots of material and colour options,” says Orchard. He highlights some considerations, though. “Small-diameter gravel can get caught in shoe treads and car tyres. The trick is to go for a 20-millimetre-diameter gravel rather than 10-millimetre.” Also talk to your designer about the available products, such as stabilising grids, to prevent gravel getting churned up and displaced.
Maufe, on the other hand, is not a fan of gravel – or other loose materials – for purely pedestrian routes, as the surface can take quite a bit of maintenance. For curved paths, she suggests smaller module pavers or cobble-like setts; and for straight paths, larger paving slabs or modules. Talk to your designer about functionality. “Some materials can become very slippery, especially in winter,” says Hirst. “Make sure, too, that the materials are easy to keep clean and won’t show up dirt that will inevitably get trodden across them.”
5. How Can I Make The Garden Wildlife-Friendly?
“If possible, include a range of different plants that have flowers attractive to pollinators, or evergreen leaves that will provide shelter for birds and insects,” says Hirst. “Try to have as little bare soil as possible and consider using a gravel mulch, which will provide lots of nooks and crannies for mini-beasts. It may even be possible to incorporate a small pond.” “Water is a magnet for wildlife,” says Maufe. “Including a bird bath can provide a natural focal point to attract birds and other wildlife. Positioning it close to a hedge or trees can further increase the appeal, as birds are more likely to use it if there’s cover nearby. The same goes for bird feeders, which are another good front garden addition.”
6. Do I Need Space For A Car?
“Providing space for cars without them dominating or compromising the property’s front garden is a challenge designers frequently face,” says Maufe. “If you’re having hard landscaping, drainage is very important,” says Hirst, advising that any hardscaping is designed so water run-off doesn’t flow into public drains. As such, a permeable surface is often desirable. “If the ground is relatively level, gravel is often the most cost-effective surface [for cars],” says Maufe, “but attention should be given to creating good edges and borders to contain it.” “If you opt for a material that isn’t permeable, then run-off water should be directed into planting beds or soakaways,” says Orchard. Maufe suggests another car-relevant idea. “Consider future-proofing your parking space with the provision of an electrical charging point,” she says.
7. Which Materials & Colours Should I Pick?
“There are no hard and fast rules, but I try to keep the number of different hard landscaping materials in a scheme to three or less, where all the materials work in harmony,” says Orchard. Hirst adds that materials should tie in with the colour of the house. Coordination with the back garden may also be a consideration. “That doesn’t mean colours have to be the same, but they should be complementary. Sometimes, it might be good to match the materials used in neighbouring gardens, particularly where houses are of a similar architectural style.” In heritage areas, it may be necessary to obtain advice from your local council to ensure hardscaping materials used are in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood.
8. What About Privacy?
What does this mean to you in relation to your front garden? Do you want to stop passers-by peering into your living room, or prevent them from seeing you and your family using the space? Everyone will have their own privacy preferences. “An obvious way of achieving privacy is by having a hedge or fence at the boundary to prevent passers-by seeing in,” says Hirst. “However, this can also mean light is excluded from the garden or even from the house. Hedges and fences can also mean intruders are not visible to passers-by.” He suggests that a well-positioned tree or large shrub could provide enough privacy to people inside the house without these downsides.
“Direct paths from pavement to front door can be rerouted to avoid casual passers-by gaining a clear view into your home,” says Maufe. In terms of spending time in your front garden, she points out that an afternoon of vigorous pruning with the radio blaring out might not be as enjoyable out the front as it would be in a secluded back garden. In which case, consider how much upkeep your choices will require.
9. Will I Need To Accommodate Bins?
“Wheelie bins are a necessary evil in many of our front gardens,” says Orchard. “If you have the space, try hiding them behind an evergreen hedge or tall planting – or create a screen from trellis panels, on which you could grow a climber.” Maufe adds that they can be contained within a simple slatted timber housing to blend them into a scheme. “Planting can further help to soften the structure.” Alternatively, you could buy a ready-made bin store. “But be aware they can be quite a bit bigger than your one or two wheelie bins,” says Orchard, “so can attract even more attention.”
If this is your choice, Hirst suggests positioning it so you look at it sideways from the road. “In this way, it doesn’t become a feature as you look towards the house. Or locate it behind the front wall, fence or hedge, so you see over the top of it into the garden.” He suggests you could also give it a green roof, so the structure becomes part of your planting scheme. “The other solution is to create something nice to look at in another corner of the front garden,” says Orchard. “So the eye is drawn away from the ugly bins to some colourful planting or a beautiful multi-stemmed tree.”
10. Would Space To Wash A Dog Be Useful?
“However many practical considerations need to be met,” says Maufe, “one important aim not to lose sight of is that the space needs to feel like a garden. Unlike back gardens, we pass through our front gardens every time we leave or return to our homes, so they should feel welcoming and have the potential to provide as much pleasure and interest.”
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For more tips from the Houzz experts visit Houzz.com.au