Foxglove at first sight

Front gardens are often your first point of contact with the world, a way of making a first impression and the part of your home and life which most people connect with... and that includes you! We often scurry through the front garden, racing to the door, sometimes laden with groceries, to get inside as soon as possible.

During colder or rainy months we don’t tend to consider these spaces too often – they just exist.

However, at this time of the year we linger longer, cutting grass, deadheading roses, often taking time to chat to the neighbours as we work.

It’s a good time of year to reassess the space to examine how it’s looking.

Are you making full use of its possibilities? How can you improve the look of your garden and enhance your house at the same time?

Are we too fixed in our ideas as to what a front garden “should” look like? Does your garden have a feature... a tree, a special collection of plants or a striking ornament to act as a decorative element and capture imagination?

First are the rules: The design should be simple, uncomplicated and welcoming.

Easy and direct access should be maintained to the main routes – the front door and possibly a side entrance and/or garage, where bins may be stored or where bicycles or cars need to be reached easily.

The layout (the overall design) should have strong, definite bones.

Signal clearly with line and shape where people should go, leading the way to the front door. All other routes should be visually subservient.

Use big pots or collections of smaller pots on either side of the front door. They signal clearly your required focus.

In cities or urban areas you may need to factor in space within the garden for storage of rubbish bins, bicycles or fuel. Manufacturers and retailers are supplying an everincreasing range of safe, lockable storage units. Plan to incorporate these in an unobtrusive way, maybe by a side wall, and try to colour co-ordinate them to ensure they don’t stand out.

Use the same judgment with paths or driveways too, as generally they are there to do a job and not to be the stand-out features. Subtle can be best.

Consider the boundary between you and your neighbours. Is there a fence or hedge? Fences don’t have to be standard, uniform or even straight.

Visit sites such as Pinterest to find a world of inspiration

If you don’t have a fence, look at your hedge. Is it doing its job, providing an attractive screen around the garden? Or is it time for a change?

Wonderful topiary can be made from the plainest of hedges.

Bamboo can look great but plant non-invasive types or use a root barrier so it doesn’t pop up in your neighbours plot. Remember also, if you live beside a busy road, a hedge or planted screen can provide a wonderful noise buffer.

Formal clipped beech, yew and buxus work well and even though common privet isn’t trendy it works perfectly well. Informal options include flowering rose bushes, fuchsia, hydrangea and escallonia.

If your boundary is constructed as a plain brick or concrete wall, you can ring in the changes by changing the colour with a lick of paint. If it has cracks or crevices, introduce some planting in the openings.

A nice dry sunny position would be well decorated with aubrietia, campanula, saxifrage or other alpines.

Your decorative feature could be a planted archway to walk under on your journey to the door, a fountain (with water reservoir safely out of reach of little ones), a sundial or even a simple seat or bench where you can relax and watch the world go by.

Planting choices depend on your favoured style. For instance, a contemporary look could be achieved with grasses and bursts of single colours – agapanthus are looking great as pop-ups right now).

A cottage garden feel could be delightful for an older home, with roses round the front door, a higgledy-