Designing front gardens can be tricky. They are often spaces that are unloved, and require multiple uses that are more concerned with functionality than aesthetic.

They need to make maximum use of the space for ease of access: everyday, boring but really critical activities like parking, turning, offloading a bootful of shopping and getting to the front door with heavy bags is often a major consideration. Add to that somewhere to store the many and varied bins we have nowadays, and access to a secure side gate: often it’s not even considered as a garden at all. But front gardens can and should be so much more than an answer to these every day requirements.

They should be welcoming to you and your visitors. This can be achieved with soft and inviting lush planting (I would always suggest a higher level of evergreens at the front as it needs to be really high performing right through the year, even in the depths of winter), as well as soft but clear pathway lighting, and quality paving, combining to create a harmonious scheme that invites you to progress smoothly to the front door whilst leaving the troubles of a busy day behind.

Then consider if you’d like the garden to feel open to the street, or more private. Do you need to enclose it entirely with gates? Should there be separate pedestrian as well as vehicular entrances? What is the best driveway surface for your particular situation? How will it be maintained?

We’ve designed many and varied front garden spaces. Most don’t have lawns. Tiny lawns seem like a waste of space in a front garden – high maintenance with very little reward. Expanses of green sward can feel luxurious if there’s plenty of room, but as long as you’ve got somewhere to relax and unwind in a private open space in your back garden, there’s not really a good argument for keeping a front lawn just for the sake of it.

Often front gardens are the last piece of the puzzle to be designed and installed after a gruelling house renovation or extension, major landscaping at the rear, and sometimes it’s easy to just run out steam by the time you get to the front. Budgets are often tight and practicalities outbid the mere decorative. But we believe that front gardens can be both functional and beautiful. Let us show you some examples of our recent work.

This front garden was a monocultural desert – gravel driveway, small lawn bisected with a straight path – there was no interest, no softness and no reason to linger.

Our design was inspired by traditional parterres which often grace the spaces close to stately homes and are neat and orderly, with defined hedged shapes which look great when looked down from above. This contemporary parterre is in the form of broken concentric circles of hedging emanating from a central circle of hand cut Italian porphyry stone. In between the ripples of low hedging are an array of mostly evergreen shrubs, ground cover and sedges, with a sprinkling of cheerful crocuses to brighten the space in early spring. It’s designed as a fairly low maintenance space. Other than cutting the hedges a couple of times a year, there’s not a lot needs doing.

We are super proud of how this design has completely transformed the approach to the house, with the new entrance garden welcoming you in, a revised parking area, new automated gates and privacy hedging completing the scheme.

This project in Little Chalfont originated with a need to redesign the back garden after an extension changed the layout close to the house. The front garden was the last element to be addressed, as often happens, but thankfully we hadn’t run out of ideas or energy to bring a fresh zing to the scheme.

In fact the front garden is the area we are most proud of as it’s a very clearcut and stylish transformation. The small patch of lawn was unnecessary, and there was still plenty of room for parking and turning to allow us to create and area richly planted to enhance the approach to the front door. Warm tones of sandstone setts cut through the gravel driveway and planting in clean geometric shapes, making the lush planting instantly readable, whilst the arid expanse of gravel is greened with playful yew balls set into it, sentries on the way to the entrance path and the front door. New vehicular and pedestrian gates and subtle lighting complete the scheme.

A new build we were asked to design had been given a tiny lawn, some basic ground cover and a straggly hedge to form a front garden by the developers. The client was keen that the space should not only be beautiful and welcoming, but also simple to look after, as well as providing a small seating space to enjoy views to the woodland across the road.

Our solution was a new hedge of wild roses which not only provide beauty in their summer forms of crepe paper flowers in hot pink and white, but also scent, lush, disease-free foliage, and hips in the autumn and into the winter. Behind this we removed the scrap of lawn and replaced it with a planted area of hydrangeas and pittosporums, whilst stepping stones lead to a tiny seating area by the study window.

When we were invited to redesign the outside spaces at this bungalow in Chalfont St Giles it was already undergoing major construction works, so it was difficult to envisage the space as it was before. But there wasn’t much of a front garden – just a block paved driveway which extended right in front of the front window, providing the owners a view of a parked car instead of fresh greenery.

The design had to work really hard year round, be very low maintenance as the clients live abroad mostly, hopping over to the UK for short visits at various times of year. They were keen to keep the front space quite open, (the house is on a cul-de-sac, not a major road so there weren’t too many issues with privacy) and invite wildlife in, particularly birds. The design had to be in keeping with their bold, contemporary style which runs from inside to outside as well as do all the usual things like provide hard standing to the front door and side entrance, bin storage, and parking.

The space in front of the main window was planted richly with a restricted palette of loosely arching grasses contrasting in texture with low domed evergreens, with a specimen multi-stem tree (Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’) adding vertical and seasonal interest as well as food (berries) and habitat for birds. It is now approaching its second autumn and looking great!

Are you finding it difficult to envisage how to improve your front garden? Has your front driveway or garden been trashed as a result of building works? Would you like to come home to a much more inviting space by the front door, year round? Got a front garden design challenge for us? Get in touch!