Tag Archive: front garden


PicPost: Entranced (again)

Filed under: PicPosts- great photographs — 1 Comment
02/07/2015
An elegant entrance near Holland Park, London

An elegant entrance near Holland Park, London

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Front Gardens no more?

Filed under: Climate change and gardening, Design, Gardening techniques — 1 Comment
20/05/2015

Stunning Underground Garage Design Ideas With Hydraulic SystemMy friend Les sent me this link to an item on BBC News, which makes for interesting, if not surprising and worrying reading…

Old School Gardener

 

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Making an Entrance: Tips for Front Garden Design

Filed under: Design, Design My Garden - Tips to improve your plot, Gardening techniques — 4 Comments
03/05/2015

front garden1A front garden is on view to all, so must look good all year and be functional. Here are a few ideas for making your own ‘entrance’:

Focal points-

  • A statue, pot or some other hard landscape feature can be used to provide a focal point; something to draw the eye and give a sense of unity to the front garden.

  • Alternatively, box topiary shapes or other bold ‘architectural’ plants can fulfil this role and can be relatively easy to maintain. Likewise, planting groups of the same plant can be used to create a series of ‘green’ focal points.

  • Another idea is to create a feature such as a rockery that will be seen from the roadside and combines both hard and soft landscaping elements.

Paths and drives-

  • A path to the front door is a central feature of most front gardens. By laying this diagonally across the plot an illusion of depth can be created. If your plot is relatively small and your path from garden entrance to front door has to be primarily fucntional, they should take the shortest route if they are going to be used by casual visitors. However, they can be made to look more attractive by introducing gentle curves or by by using a mixture of path surfacing materials such as brick and stone. But don’t use more than two or three different materials as this can cretae a fussy, disjointed look.

  • If your plot is larger and you can fit in a second path which has a mainly decorative role, this can be routed to meander through the garden and provide easy access to each part of the plot; it could be a continuous ‘snake’ of paving or stepping stones, or a combination of both.

  • Don’t underlay gravel with different coloured or shaped chippings, as over time these will rise to the surface and the result will look ugly.

  • Try to avoid using impermeable materials for vehicle hard standings (there are now regulations in place about this) and if you do have large hard surfaced areas use planting pockets to break these up- a car can easily pass over low growing plants.

Planting-

  • Drought- tolerant shrubs such as Hebe and Choisya help to squeeze out weeds, so helping to keep the front garden looking tidy.

  • Plant tough plants at the edges of drives such as ornamental grasses, heathers or creeping thymes, which will survive an occasional clipping by a car tyre.

  • Use creeping plants near to the edges of the garden to create a natural look.

Good neighbour-

  • Abide by the law if you are thinking about some more major changes to your front garden e.g. if you are putting up a wall or fence adjoining a public road that is higher than 90cms or hedges in such locations. You need to contact the local authority before putting in solid boundaries and may be asked to cut back hedges that interfere with sight lines.

  • Likewise you need to contact the local authority if you plan to put in a vehicle ‘crossover’ over a public footpath and if you want to cultivate any grass verge outside your house.

front garden2

Source: Short Cuts to Great Gardens- Reader’s Digest

Old School Gardener

 

 

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Parking Space

Filed under: Design, Recycling projects — 3 Comments
19/01/2015

PARKING SPACE

Love the green roof and I wonder if this could be done using recycled pallets?

Old School Garden

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Elegant Garden on a Human Scale: Casa da Pergola, Cascais, Portugal

Filed under: Heritage Gardens & gardening, Portuguese Gardens — Leave a comment
02/01/2014

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It was our last full day in Portugal and having visited two grand Baroque gardens in Caxias and Oleiras we stopped off in stylish Cascais for lunch. It was also a chance to take a look at a very different garden, one very much more domestic in size and with a more informal air.

Casa da Pergola (‘The Pergola House’)  is a mediterranean – style mansion or Manor House, near the centre of Cascais. I viewed the charming and well kept front garden from outside the locked entrance gates, not having the time (or courage) to ask if I might be let in to look around. Still, I could see enough to be impressed.

The hotel website shows pictures of elegant white marble floors and staircases, beautifully decorated bedrooms with “bas relief” stucco ceilings. The house has been owned by the same family for over a century and its beautiful facade, adorned with hand painted tiles, has been the delight of both amateur and professional photographers. Here’s my take on it!

Further Information: Pergola House website

Old School Gardener

 

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