Ideas for an open plan garden

Hi

This is my first post and am looking for any ideas people may have as to what we can do with our front garden. It slopes down to the pavement from the house and is about 50ft long and runs parallel to the driveway. At the moment it is all grass apart from a few slabs running along next to the house.

When we moved in a couple of years ago, we planted a giant cherry tree about half way down (currently about 8ft tall), with some daffodils around it. We are looking at making something more of it now we have finished with the back garden. We are not allowed to enclose it because of restrictions in our deeds (but it would be pointless doing so anyway as it's on a slope so you wouldn't gain any privacy).

Any ideas on how we can incorporate some planting to bring some all year round interest?

Thanks

 

Hya chookie welcome.
Is there any chance you could post a pick of the area?

 

Hi

Here is a pic I took a while ago, hope this works:



The lawn extends about 10ft behind where I took the pic and merges into the pavement in our road.

As you can see, there is an invisible boundary line between us and the neighbours, so we can't do anything too drastic involving any structure otherwise I think it'll look a bit odd. I just think it looks a bit boring at the mo, I'd like some flowering shrubs or perennials. Oh and I forgot to mention before that it's north facing so I am struggling to find things that will be happy there - it does get morning sun though.

 

Your garden sounds just like mine, North facing, shared front lawn and required to be open plan.
At risk of doing a 'me,me, me' If you take a look at the thread 'Nursewhen digs it up' you'll find what I did with my front garden plus the plans I drew up.
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/nursewhen-digs-up-t8896.html

 

Hi and welcome!


As it appears to be a shared garden with no clear separation between yours and the other semi's, could you not talk your neighbour into a "joint effort?"
If yours ends up markedly different from theirs, it will have the effect of making both gardens look quite narrow.

 

Thanks guys, nextdoor are retired and have said they just want to keep theirs as a lawn, sorry, moss patch, we take turns to mow the entire area. But.... nursewhen, I am very impressed with your efforts, took me about half an hour to read the thread, haha!

Our gardens do sound really similar, I even have clay soil & rubble under the 'moss'! :( So, I too will need to bring in some top soil I think.

I am thinking that I could run with your idea but rather than pulling the tree out (I don't think we will have the root issues), I might make it a feature of the middle border. So, that could be my spring border as I already have the daffs planted which seem to be doing well. I'm also thinking of possibly doing a lavender hedge as I love purple and I know someone else that's done that.

If anyone has any more ideas, keep them coming please

 

Oh good, I'm glad my ideas have been of help.
Your tree is young, so I'm sure it won't be a problem and maintaning a bed round it now will train it to send its roots down rather than along. Mine was too old and established for me to be able to do anything with it.

 

What a lovely big space to work with!

You could encircle your tree with some nice paving, making a central bed- neatly setting off your cherry and spring bulbs.

How about marking out a semicircular lawn with beds in the negative spaces?

With apologies, Ive marked up your photo!



Below is a front garden with a mature tree at its centre, Ive flipped it so the drive is on the left.



Can you tell Im procrastinating until its time to go for my run? :D