We own our front gardens let’s use them!

[Bostonten]

Why is everyone still snobby about the use of front gardens? With land being at a premium at the moment, why shouldn’t people use them as they wish without snobbery?

I don't sit out in my front garden because it's where I keep the bins. If it was more than a bin shed and a hedge I'd hang out there every now and then

@Ozgirl75

“Read the room”? That’s so insensitive to people who can’t read.

😂😂😂😂

how about you can't see the wood for the trees ? Oops no ...
how about wake up and smell the coffee ? Oops no thats two things...
how about stop chasing your tail? Oops no....

We sit in our front garden, as do many around here. Because the front has a lovely sea view. In fact, we are planning cocktails and a BBQ out there, later on today.

Often sit in mine with friends but am at the end of a cul de sac so no passers-by.

Our back garden is a wild life haven.

Our front garden was turned into car park long before we bought the place, but it's a sun trap in the later afternoon and early evening. DH and I, and sometimes dd, often sit out there. We were yesterday in fact, dh with a beer and I with tea, reading. We do have a few plants in pots out there and the boundary is marked by a stand of some flowery stuff, so we can also watch bees and other flying things messing about. The cats occasionally join us and enjoy dust baths. We're very lucky.

My front garden is south facing. My back garden can be shady and cold at times. So i tend to love being in the front more often.

I do actually use both. The back is for privacy and entertaining. I have a small veg plot out back but its mostly for entertaining.

Out the front i have a load of flowers around the lawn. I've been working hard to get up insect diversity and to feed the bees. Its already rammed with ladybirds this year.

Its great because people walking past love it so its become a point to start conversations with neighbours - usually people I'd never normally talk to. There is a old lady who walks past in her 80s and likes to stop and talk. She lives alone as her husband recently went into a home. She says walking past my garden and seeing it change was one of the things that got her through the last 2 years. I love working in it for my own benefit, both mental and physical so to know its helping others is brilliant.

The front also has a driveway which is paved which is brilliant for pots. I grow herbs all year round. In the summer I grow veg in pots and hanging baskets too. The paved area retains the heat so I can grow thing that need a bit more heat quite easily.

If im out the front, doing the garden my little boy will often come out and sit on a chair with a collapsible table drawing. Or he will come help me or talk to me.

So I use both gardens lots to try to get the most out of them because I figure what's the point in having it if you don't?

The idea that using your front garden is a 'working class' thing pisses me off. Its not. Firstly I don't get the utter snobbery of it. Secondly I think the problem here is more about the middle class utter lack of imagination and desire for utterly tedious conformity which drives me mad.

We have so much talk of how we are losing insect diversity and habitat and you get all this noise about green issues, electric cars etc etc and saving the planet driven by middle classes. And yet theres the dull as dishwater mown lawn replicated on every other house on the street. Stick in a bunch of low maintenance shrubs and bulbs. Let your lawn go like a meadow. Plant veg. Get a couple of pots of something. Stick a seat outside so you can sit and read! Just do something! You don't have to be a gardener or have to have lots of time to do it. I just wish people would get out of the mentality of just wasting this space.

We need a tv series that does up front gardens to make this point and start a trend!

I live in a cul de sac . A few families who live opposite use their front gardens despite having decent back gardens . It’s a nightmare. The children, some of whom are very young , run free. It’s great they can play relatively safely but they have no road sense and run out from behind parked cars. They leave bikes, prams and go carts in the actual street . I often have to move them to get to my house. The children drop their sweet wrappers and drinks bottles in the street . When I walk my dog he is in his element because he always manages to find some random old sweet that has been dropped before I can stop him eating it. In the Summer the kids and parents are out playing/chatting/ playing music until very late so no chance of a quiet evening watching TV . I hate it .

I used to live in a maisonette on an estate in SE London and the majority of the gardens were front gardens. Virtually none of the properties had a back garden. We all used them and it was very sociable. I knew loads of the neighbours.

I live in a very rural area now and my house opens directly into the street. I do sit at the front door for a quick break when WFH as it's not worth going to the back garden for 5 minutes. I feel a bit weird doing it though.

We live at the end of a cul de sac and the front garden gets amazing sunshine late afternoon and early evening. There’s no lawn but a big flower bed with loads of roses and a jasmine bush growing up the wall.
During lockdown I added flowers and plants in containers and planning to add to it this year, and after reading this thread I’m going to add a bench!

[quote namechangeranonymouse]@echt Poms don't sit in their front gardens. It's considered naff. Maybe in the 1950s.

Shame as mine is lovely and sunny in the evening. It's open plan and tiny though. [/quote]
I think they meant Poms in Au, not the UK.

So far this thread has taught me that in the UK the term “tone deaf” is offensive but in Australia it’s okay to call someone a “reffo” haha, sometimes we just need to draw the line (offensive to linear objects- sorry) and get a life!

On the garden point though, does anyone have a large front garden and little to know back garden? A house near us is a corner house with full football goals and cones and those corner men mannequins up in the front as it appears to be the only real garden!

My front garden is south facing and gets the evening sun. I have a bench there and sit there quite often.
I first put the bench there to supervise my children when they used to play out ( we live in a cul de sac) and then came to like it. We are thinking of putting a small patio there which we may put a low wall or fence around. I don’t give a fig what the neighbours think.

My house is on the end of a link and I have what an estate agent called another house with the same aspect a wrap around garden. I have a vegetable garden and a greenhouse on the side facing the road, a shed and drive on the back part. I desperately want to use my front garden to plant fruit trees and other fruits and vegetables but because I can't have a fence around it higher than 1 metre (bloody council) my partner has said no because he reckons people will use it as a pick your own. We have cctv all around and no one has helped themself to veg which is also accessible. So I've got scabby, mossy grass which looks horrible.

Ideally we should all try to plant some food in them. That small undisturbed spot would be great for strawberries or rhubarb or pots of spuds.

You’re right, we really do need to reconsider our land use and prioritising front gardens for just grass isn’t the most environmentally beneficial or making the most of a precious resource. We need to rethink them and use them to their full potential.

@TroysMammy

My house is on the end of a link and I have what an estate agent called another house with the same aspect a wrap around garden. I have a vegetable garden and a greenhouse on the side facing the road, a shed and drive on the back part. I desperately want to use my front garden to plant fruit trees and other fruits and vegetables but because I can't have a fence around it higher than 1 metre (bloody council) my partner has said no because he reckons people will use it as a pick your own. We have cctv all around and no one has helped themself to veg which is also accessible. So I've got scabby, mossy grass which looks horrible.

Plant strawberries and if you can’t have a higher than 1m fence work around it and put a fruit cage Over it. You only need to net the side close to the fence

Other parts of the decor might include the house number painted two foot tall in emulsion on the wall

This sounds good, I was considering installing a blimp so Hermes can find me but that's a much more economical suggestion

It really is! There was a massive thread a few months ago about someone whose neighbour was drying clothes in their front garden and people were appalled! It RUINS the AESTHETICS of the STREET don’t you know

That was hilarious.

I've got washing drying on my front garden already today. Mind, I'm not posh.

If you have a big house and garden then this does not apply. As a child we had both front and back but the front had a high wall and shrubs and no one could see in in a month of sundays. Sometimes we did gardening of the borders there. In some winters my mother put water on the front path so we could use it as a slide (do not repeat this at home in case postmen die!). Here it is similar to me and my house is kind of on a corner and the acre of the plot is all behind a big hedge other than where you can see in so again does not apply.

Most of my neighbours have paved their over and parked their cars on them. The remainder are a sea of gravel with barely a plant to be seen. I wouldn't want to sit out front.

Having said that, if I'm doing the gardening out there, I will occasionally perch on the front doorstep and drink a cup of coffee, but that's as far as it goes.

@EveningOverRooftops

Ideally we should all try to plant some food in them. That small undisturbed spot would be great for strawberries or rhubarb or pots of spuds.

You’re right, we really do need to reconsider our land use and prioritising front gardens for just grass isn’t the most environmentally beneficial or making the most of a precious resource. We need to rethink them and use them to their full potential.

I agree we should use them much more. Those who don't want to be in them could still chuck some lavender and rosemary in for the bees.

My last front garden was never used by me due to where it was so I completely filled it with bee plants.

I use mine more than the back. It’s a corner plot so you come in from the side. There are hedges to block public view of the garden so only overlooked by neighbours as the back is. It’s also the bigger garden and the sunny west facing one.

@TroysMammy

My house is on the end of a link and I have what an estate agent called another house with the same aspect a wrap around garden. I have a vegetable garden and a greenhouse on the side facing the road, a shed and drive on the back part. I desperately want to use my front garden to plant fruit trees and other fruits and vegetables but because I can't have a fence around it higher than 1 metre (bloody council) my partner has said no because he reckons people will use it as a pick your own. We have cctv all around and no one has helped themself to veg which is also accessible. So I've got scabby, mossy grass which looks horrible.

He may have a point. We have fruit trees down our drive. A man reversed his car down ,got out ,and started helping himself to the apples. When my husband went out and asked what he was doing he said his wife was pregnant so he needed them. Visually they are very beautiful apples but they taste the same as if you tried eating a natural sponge.

Mine is tiny but I plant a tomato or two and a courgette out there each year. Do sit on the front step sometimes as it gets the sun. Only have a wee courtyard out back with no late sun. My neighbour does have a sofa and plastic grass on his but I like to see people making the most of what they have

It's an interesting thought.

I think we usually see front gardens as a setting to make the house more attractive for others (or when seling). Ours is definitely neglected as we never spend time out there, but it's this summers focus project, mainly as ours is the worst in our street.

Love the idea of lavender, I'm really not a fan of the stuff so wouldn't have it where I spend any time, but can definitely find a space for it in the front. It's a big slopy garden so is otherwise utterly useless.

2.5 years in a first floor flat, with an autistic toddler and a dog. No outside space, working from home. It's been pure torture.