Snazzing up the front of a house
Hello Bel. Is it possible to have lots of large tubs on the gravel near to the walls of the house? Its a bit difficult to understand how wide the drive is and whether it is needed for access, from your picture. Also, do you need permanent planting or seasonal planting?
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If the driveway is only just wide enough for a car to drive along it I don't see how you would be able to put in any beds, large tubs or troughs next to the house for planting into!
If you could persuade the owners to widen the drive into the grassed area by 1 to 1.5m that would give more room next to the house for the tubs suggested by LB. If you're getting a mini digger in to remove turf and top soil to make more driveway, you could also dig out a few planting holes next to the house to plant climbers etc
The other solution might be to make beds in the grass and plant some large shrubs so it breaks up the view of the house from a distance. But, without knowing the layout of the garden, I don't know whether that would be feasible or worth doing.
Last edited: 24 March 2017 13:25:43
Anything planted along the front of the house will be squished or bashed by passing traffic and also struggle in poor, dry soil at the foot of the walls.
I agree with TB about losing some grass and either widening the drive to allow a decent planting space at the foot of those walls or else a new border of evergreen shrubs or mixed shrubs or perennials mixed with spring bulbs to extend the season.
Looking at the number and size of those windows there really isn't a lot of bare brick left and you need to be very careful about any climber that may get into nooks and crannies and cause problems with that lower bit of sloping roof.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I agree completely with T'Bird. I personally would go for a large flower bed cut into the grass in front of the house. Again size is hard to estimate but with a large bed you can have a specimen tree, some pretty shrubs and perennials for year round interest all underplanted with Spring flowering bulbs.