Townhouse front garden ideas?

[artylady14]

I have an absolutely minute front garden as I live in a townhouse. We are re-doing our garden as the builders (new build) put in a horrible array of plants.
We have put in some box hedging borders in October which are growing nicely and waited til Spring to put some rose bushes in. We have now changed our mind about planting roses and want to put something much cheaper as we may be moving in a year or two. Can anyone advise of any affordable and low maintenance pretty flowers I can plant in a few little patches of front garden? My husband has no interest in gardening and thinks its not worth the bother now and should pave it over!

I had a tiny London front garden and planted established lavender round the edgewith a wisteria tree (already owned) in the front. The rest was paved

Honestly if you're moving I'd stick with pots you can take with you! Either that or just get a packet of mixed flowers. Something like this: www.suttons.co.uk/Gardening/Flower+Seeds/Featured+Flower+Seed+Ranges/Fastflowers/Summer+Long+Flowering+Mix_143771.htm#143771
Very cheap but would look lovely.

I wanted some lavender any way so will do. Thanks LetThereBeCupcakes too for the link. Just some pretty mixed flowers will do.

Fuchsias grow well in conditions of benign neglect - but depends on the soil.
Have a walk around the area and seewhat is doing well in other peoples gardens.

How about sticking with your original plan, but shopping around for cheap plants? Aldi do fruit trees now, with some lovely varieties for £3.99. They usually have more ornamental ones in a week or two. You can buy cheap roses from the discounters too. A bit of research and a few trips, and I don't think you'd need to spend more than £30-40.

Thanks shovetheholly, I do want some pretty flowers. We are absolute beginners with gardening but meeting with a gardener this week for advice. I will go to Aldi and have a browse.

It's worth checking back, too, because Aldi have new stock each week.

A little bird tells me Poundland have roses for £1 at the mo - you can even buy them online while you have a glass of wine in front of the telly.

Will you be selling to move? in which case you would get the benefit from a pretty garden at that stage.

I would do 3 things:

1. Put geraniums in everywhere between your box bushes. Here's 20 plants for £28 at

Hayloft. They will largely disappear into the ground over winter but will be up and leafy by the end of April and covered in flowers by June onwards. I have some which stay above ground all year, they fill out in spring.

1. Fill several containers with bulbs for spring flowering. You would need to plant these in the autumn. Narcissus, scilla, tulips, crocus, all good. And you could put some lilies in other containers. All these can go with you when you move, and the pots can sit on the bare soil while you are waiting for the geraniums to come up.

1. Get a couple of packs of seeds like Cupcakes says. Look for ones which can be sown in the place where they are going to flower, and look for annuals (which means they will come up and flower this year). Many annuals then drop their seed on the ground so you get more flowers again next year without doing any more planting. I rather like annual grasses as well, like this one bunny tails

Traviata, thank you very much. That's really helpful. I don't know anything about flowers!

aldi fruit trees , though cheap, are a long term investment and unlikely to fruit in your time scale

So we had our meeting with our gardener who is going to help me plant three typse of roses, some fuschias and lavender with geranium rozanne spread in between.I am very excited to get started on my little garden. Thanks for all your tips.

I think you should add some pics when it's all done so we can "ooooh" and "ahh".

Ooh, that is such a lovely geranium! good choice!

I will post pictures up in the summer. Even though our soil is full of rubble my gardener thinks it will be fine. Glad our geranium choice is a good one, I'm a complete beginner with

lavender wont grow with the roses, arty, they need different types of soil. lavender likes dry gritty soil, roses like rich clay
if you do plant lavender plant it in a different section