A town front garden

This was a small front garden where the postman, milkman and everybody else cut across the lawn to get to the front door.  The owners were fed up with this and wanted to force visitors to use the path at the side but at the same time wanted an eye-catching, easy care garden.

                                                                       The garden - before

The garden was quite high maintenance with flower borders, a tree in a bed in the lawn with lots of edges to be cut; and the whole area sloped off, noticeably, to the left.  To top it off the fence is owned by  the neighbours and fell into my client’s garden every year.

The garden - after

Firstly the garden was terraced to provide two flat areas.  The problem of the neighbour’s fence was solved by positioning fake groynes at right angles to it but central to each panel.  The ‘seaside’ feel created by the groynes was accentuated with planting on the house side of each one and a finger of pebbles and cobbles coming out into the garden.  The central path is made of the same surface which is uncomfortable to walk over, so now the postman no longer uses the garden as a short cut.

The garden is planted with a range of grasses, perennials and alpine plants through a weed suppressing membrane, mulched with gravel and is now the low  maintenance garden the clients required.