Give Your Front Yard a Facelift
Front Yards are intended for others…. Street-side spaces are not often private gardens. They are for passers-by, walkers, cyclists .. and garden voyeurs. They dress the spaces in front of our homes, the bits of yard leftover from building houses and porches and decks. They are the small areas without many interesting shapes or even any endearing qualities. Whether you have a verandah to sit on, a view of the lake or neighbourhood, or no view, the front garden is the first thing you see when you come home…. The first thing your guests see when they come to your door… ..the first thing your neighbour sees or the stranger going by. In spite of how little you may use your front door, there is still something that makes us want it to look its nicest…. When the house was new to me, most of the money was spent on its insides because of course, that’s where I would spend most of my time and besides, winter was coming - who would sit in the yard or garden besides the birds??. The outside was left until Spring and naturally, preferring more private spaces; I concentrated on the back garden (but that is a story for later). My house was built in 1906 but someone decided to “modernize” this lovely old house by adding an ‘Angel Stone’ porch in the ‘50’s. Didn’t fit with the house, but there it is, still glommed onto my hundred-year old house today. Poor thing is not really very attractive.
– I had to think of something. The grass in the front yard would not grow under the glorious but humongous maple tree. The fact that shops sell ‘grass seed for shade’ doesn’t mean that it will really grow. It just doesn’t get enough sun to be thick and luscious. The best it can do is look thin and patchy…. Good effort if you are grass seed, but rather sad and not much to look at. The old junipers in the front yard were never kept up or trimmed and they just outgrew themselves. Not knowing what else to do, I gave them a haircut but alas, it was too late for even that to make any kind of difference – poor things. The following year I painted that sad little porch, but it only made it stand out even more… sigh… and I took up some of the grass and planted dozens of Impatiens….. but, I was a self-professed NON-gardener ….. Poor wee things….didn’t know what to do and....... so they just kind of sat there.
Eventually I painted the whole house one colour and the sad little porch kind of faded into the arms of the old house… and it was much better. How I came to the decision for that colour is another story for later.
And then, I took another risk – a big one… nothing grew in the front garden so I hired some muscle and we dug up the whole front yard, got rid of all the grass. I even made a deal with a nearby construction site; they were removing stone and marble (heavy dumping fees) so I made a trade - my sod (lighter) for their stone and marble pieces – win-win…. At a plant sale, I found large cement stepping stones heart-shaped like rhubarb leaves with a bit of peachy pink in them… they were gorgeous and added a totally different perspective. The key to having no grass is also having no weeds. No grass means you have to replace it with something else…. Like plants, stones and pathways. If you choose stones and/ or rocks, and after removing the grass, you will have to put down either landscape fabric (which lets air and water through but no weeds) or layers of newspaper, which is not quite as long term, but less expensive and more accessible. Then - make some sort of plan where your stones or pea gravel, which comes in several colours and your river rock, will go, (so think your colour scheme out ahead of time). A few lines on a scrap of paper constitutes a plan as much as a lot of ink on fancy paper…. Put your plants in first – and in the full shade that I have, the easiest for me, was Hosta. I put a row of them with white blooms at the back of the garden nearest the porch, and the others (mauve blooms) at the front. They are inexpensive, easy to grow and spread beautifully. Here’s how it looked before and after…on the side of the house…
Near the fence, a lovely “Dappled Willow” with feathery leaves that have tips of white and pale pink. You can trim it and shape it how you like… I prefer the open and more natural shape, you can decide later as it grows what you prefer. I found a wonderful metal gate and before I mounted it on the fence, I painted a scene under it. Just the idea of a scene…. To make one think there was more behind the fence than just some unsightly storage stuff. On the corner by the porch, in one of the sunnier spots behind the maple, a ‘Burning Bush’… it has a lovely shape, but in the fall, the leaves turn a brilliant red… it is a stunning display of colour, so plan where it could make the best statement. The side bed has my neighbour’s chain link fence… good for keeping out small children and other small pests…. But not so good for looks. However, it can be a gardener’s dream because you can grow wonderful vines on it…. Like ‘Trumpet Vine’ and ‘Clematis’ if you have sun. Even Virginia Creeper is good…. No flowers, but deep blue berries (not edible) in the fall and bright red leaves. It will spread like wildfire though, and you will have to keep your eye on it or it will take over…
A front garden or yard is usually small and so there are ways to make it seem bigger or more fascinating by adding dimension… pathways, and stepping-stones and fences with false doors…. Anything that draws the eye inward… as if there is more to see and you are tempting the passer-by to linger awhile, to actually stop and see your garden… to experience its mystery. As you can see, the front yard (now a ‘garden’) is very narrow… less than 15 feet from the edge of the house to the street…. But with a combination of pea gravel -pink granite for me as it is a softer colour and blends in with the house colour and the colour of the rhubarb stepping-stones. I also used what they call River Rock around the edges of the beds for more definition. Gives one a sense of mystery - that there is more to ponder.
All this to say, that don’t be shy about making a statement in your front yard, Make a garden where there is none and let your imagination team up with your practical side. Although there is a little maintenance when the leaves fall, it is an easy front yard to maintain. © lush-gardens.com 2008
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