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?

@AngelinaFibres I would have been spitting pips . I thought about planting sprouts hoping that no one likes them. I tried growing sunflowers in the lawn last year but they failed probably because of the poor quality of the soil.

I have no problem with people using their front gardens so long as it doesn't affect my privacy.

Me and DC use our front garden all the time to play basketball. Back garden is grass and front is concrete.

Unless you do not have a back garden then please do not make this into a trend. It is massively uncomfortable for those of us who don't want to be waving and greeting the world and his wife every few seconds. I would feel better about it if we were allowed to raise fences and railings to 8 foot. However, the lonely and the narcs would definitely leave theirs as low as possible by choice.

I am actually filled with dread because when I think about this rationally, I can see that #frontgardenlife IS coming very soon. I can see why it makes sense for a multitude of reasons.

Stealth boast about your wealth again Xenia?

Most people I know who have front "gardens" do use them as driveways, myself included.

@Mynameisnothing

Stealth boast about your wealth again Xenia?

I thought that too , I find it quite endearing

@Soffit

Unless you do not have a back garden then please do not make this into a trend. It is massively uncomfortable for those of us who don't want to be waving and greeting the world and his wife every few seconds. I would feel better about it if we were allowed to raise fences and railings to 8 foot. However, the lonely and the narcs would definitely leave theirs as low as possible by choice.

Yeah, you sound a bit extreme here!

I am growing a mid-height hedge precisely so I can sit in teh garden undisturbed.

Not everyone who wants something other than concrete is desperate to talk to you. I am happy enough to say hi if people speak to me but I am actually quite shy so prefer to just use it in peace.

I'd much rather have the people you're taking the piss out of as NDNs than sanctimonious twats who no doubt gossip and cast judgement about everything their neighbours do.

Really?! God, I wouldn’t. I DGAF who is judging me or gossiping about me as long as they’re nice and quiet.

We have a nice shady grassy front garden and a sunny grassy back garden. We stay in the back because it’s peaceful and private. I wouldn’t mind a bench out front though so I could sit out with my book while DS and his friends play out - they’re young enough to require some supervision but I’d like them to have a bit of freedom too. When I was their age I was allowed to go out with mates for hours without supervision and roamed for miles.

Once, I threw out an old sofa and I deliberately turned it upside down and hosed it down just in case the local yobs spotted it at night and decided to get cozy on it.

When I was their age I was allowed to go out with mates for hours without supervision and roamed for miles. This is not really that idyllic, I do not think kids are automatically missing much by being kept a bit safer. It is all about balance, letting them be unsupervised within boundaries is good, what I used to do (roam widely) was actually just unsafe and really quite neglectful.

The front of our house gets the evening sun, so we sit out there in the summer. We do chat to passers by, although we don’t force conversations with the asocial. Living in a village, we know most of the people that pass anyway.

@User0610134049

I'm near Guildford & we seem to have our own micro-climate! Very little rain & always pretty mild. The last 4 years have been very dry & quite hot.
The back garden has the morning sun & usually by about 5am the front door step has cooled down from the night before although by September the steps are still warm.

I'm moving to Guildford then

Ours is tiny at the front. I paved part down the side for our wheelie bins.
Back garden is overlooked but I have planted evergreen trees around the perimeter to give more privacy (well eventually as I was too cheap to buy older trees).

Our front garden is a vegetable patch

It has a big cherry tree in the middle and a little pond in one corner. Raspberries and strawberries along one side. The rest has been dug over and divided into beds. We've used wooden square tiles to make paths in between them. I think our neighbours do find it a bit odd to see a front garden with cabbages and potatoes etc, but it's our space and we like it.

I have a very small area out the front that I have filled with plants. I could fit a bench out there but that would mean putting some trees in the back garden.

Our front garden is pretty tiny. But we 'use' it by making it as wildlife friendly as possible. It looks nice too, and makes me happy.

We have an acer tree that takes up most of the space, shades the house in summer, and is often covered in birds hunting insects (currently full of bees gathering pollen). Window boxes on the window ledges and along the side of the path for pollinators, some pots near the door, and leaf and old wood piles and two insect hotels in a hard to reach corner.

I can never believe how many insects make their homes in such a tiny space. It makes me very happy.

Our next door neighbours have paved the entire space, and it looks so bleak and dead (but 'neat' and 'tidy'). Next door but one has a lavender hedge which is amazing in summer, and a flowerbed full of flowers from spring. (Our flowerbed is slated over, some day I will dig see if we can remove the slates to make a shady 'woodland' garden under the tree. We already have self seeded bluebells there)

Our back garden is enclosed and grassed so we use that but our neighbours only have a tiny back garden as they're a corner house so they use the front, it's nice seeing the kids out playing. Although they do spill out into the road so if you live somewhere with a lot of traffic it probably wouldn't work.

I'm gonna turn the front into a veg patch this year I think. Might chuck some wild flowers down first though for summer

It definitely depends on the garden. I don’t use mine because a) the space is pretty much entirely taken up by the bins and our bikes and b) I wouldn’t find it enjoyable to sit watching loads of cars go past, noisy/polluted too.

We don't have a front garden as we're in terraced housing.

But if we did I wouldn't use it - I don't like being overlooked

Because it spoils the look of a street of front gardens are full of toys, furniture, washing lines etc. And they’re not usually secure?

I live in a council house and would like to make use of the front garden as back is not good and front garden is better and grass and flat (back garden is on a slope) but unfortunately not allowed to put anything out there! Those are the rules 🤷‍♀️ Privacy wouldn’t be an issue for me as mine has a hedge round but like I said no allowed to put anything out there

My garden is ornamental, a decorative front entrance to my home. It's not private as people can walk or drive passed it. I can't imagine wanting to sit 'on display'.
My back garden is larger and fenced off - much more private and away from passing people and traffic.
Can't think of a single reason to sit in my front garden.