Can you help with our front garden please? (Pictures included)

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

So currently it's mainly grass with a border all the way round. We've put in a picket fence to give some charm but there's still a lot of concrete (50s ex council house) how can we cover that?
In the borders we have lavender, red current bush, a rose, a bushy thing, some other purple/blue/pink flowers.
The borders aren't brimming with flowers and as bushy and as lovely as I'd envisaged.
I'm also not so sure on having borders all the way round - id like some kind of shape?
Its a bit of a weird shape to work with though?

I've been de weeding for what feels like hours!

Looking better but still meh

Also mowed the lawn...

we had an odd difficult patch of grass in our front but turned it into a rockery, stones and then deep lush green border. a few plants/trees in the stones too.

I think you will probably have to buy some decent sized bushes to get it going or it will be a while before it fills out. You could put lavender along the fence but then I am a big lavender fan, we have a lot of it. looks a bit bare the first year when the plants are still quite small but then it really bushes out.

I am not very good at gardening though so not the best person to help.

lavender and rosemary are nice and bushy, and smell lovely.
Or nepeta (catmint) for lots of bees.
Thyme or hebe for compact green shrubs (though both will flower).

Which way does it face btw?

With the picket fence, you could go New England type garden- roses (head height bush roses), lavender, white hydrangeas.

I like dianthus (pinks) and Thrift (armeria) in borders too.. depends where you are/soil type also I'm afraid. Looks like good enough drainage for thrift and dianthus though.

we have quite a few hebes too - forgot about them. In my front we have in one place lavender, rosemary, lavender. fills in a huge space. looks green all year round.

heucheras can add coloured foliage.

I like ceanothus as a bush because it gets bluey flowers on it.

filling in space wise and not too expensive I do think lavender is your best bet.

Would you keep the flower beds the same size/shape and just fill it in or would you change the layout?

It's east facing
The soil is kind of clay like and v hard. I've added some sand and compost and will just keep doing that!

I like hydrangeas but do they all grow really high? I don't want to block out the fence.

Any ideas for the concrete?

I would go for much deeper borders and much less grass - maybe keep a circle of grass in the middle then the rest borders full of blowsy stuff. But then my garden is a bit of a cottage jungle.

'Love my Garden' on ITV this week included a front garden transformation. It made the lawn a random curved shape with bigger beds around, it looked lovely. They obviously had a large budget for plants but it could give you ideas.

I would change layout. Can't quite tell shape of garden but I would plant tall bushes (hydrangeas) by the concrete to hide the front of it...I'd extend the border into a curved shape in front of that area and pile it higher with mix of soil and dung. I'd plant out with nice shrubs that need little maintenance, lavender, hebes, potentilla, pieris, heuchera making sure you mix different colour leaves so that you have lime green, blue and dark green...different size shrubs and shape of leaf to give interest.

The actual border by the fence I'd shrink and just keep a thin line of weed membrane covered in gravel sunk well below level of grass so that it is easy to mow up to the fence

Having just watched love your garden our soil type is silty but quite hard like clay but not actually clay

I have a hydrangea that I've kept the same size and shape since we moved in 17 years ago, they are very easy to keep to,whatever size you want. I prune mine to shape in late Feb.

Another good plant for colour and interest and again easy to control is Dogwood 'Elegantissima'. It has variegated leaves in summer and red stems in winter and doesn't get too big. Again, I prune it hard every Feb when I do the hydrangea.

Whatever you do, do not buy Dogwood 'Midwinter Fire'. It looks absolutely gorgeous but it sends bastard suckers out all.over.your.garden. Ask me how I know this...I lifted mine from the front garden and 'donated' it to the wild garden area of the cricket club and I'm still hoiking dozens of suckers even though the parent plant has been gone two months!

p.s. I would out the hydrangea and dogwood along the concrete wall, not your lovely fence.

Another ace plant for the fence would be Scabious. They come in pink and purple shades and as long as you deadhead them they keep going all summer long.

And a similar plant is Cosmos. They come in all different colours including chocolate (smells like choc too) and again as long as you deadhead each time you wander past they will go on and on all summer.

Perhaps a nice flower bed in the middle. You could put a nice plant on the middle with smaller bedding plants around it.