Even more greenery destroyed... sigh

[SparrowInTheHedge]

I know it's technically none of my business as it's not my property etc etc... but I am still unreasonably upset.

My neighborhood seems to have taken to destroying all the greenery they can. The place is already mostly concrete, hardly anyone has a front yard on my street, it's all paved parking.

One neighbour has chopped down the hedge separating our front drives and will be replacing it with a short wall. Another neighbour has cut down 3 trees and all the hedges in their front yard.

It all looks so bleak and miserable. Not helped at all by the fact that the houses are characterless, plain boxes

I'm going to go to B&Q today to buy some pots to put out front in rebellion. DP still won't agree to rip out the drive we don't use and turn it into the flower haven I've always wanted.

My neighbour ripped up the bushes and grass and put down pebbles. We planted extra bushes and have loads of trees. So definitely understand the trying to make up for everyone else's concrete feeling

The Royal Horticultural Society have been very concerned about the effects of paving over from gardens, see for example www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=738

I have been looking at the results of Network Rail's tree clearing, and think how ironic it is that there's all that fuss about planting new trees - at current rate we might just catch up with replacing what Network Rail has removed - our local embankments are bare, studded with the remains of tree trunks over 1m diameter.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of "Friends" groups looking after parks in our area, but they, and their facebook followers, seem to feel the only interest in natural objects is if they've had something man-made added to them - fairy doors, painted pebbles to find, crocheted poppies, knitted "decorations" added to trees.

But it's not all gloom. One of the few positives about lockdown is the number of people looking anew at the natural world - you see if on here - the daily posting rate has rocketed since March, but also on a non-public wildflower facebook group I'm on - we're having huge numbers of id questions from people who clearly have never looked at a wildflower in their life before.

Oh dear, I feel tour pain. I think some lovely pots with different coloured flowers in the front on a drive way can look nice and this will help the bees etc. X

I'm going to go to B&Q today to buy some pots to put out front in rebellion. DP still won't agree to rip out the drive we don't use and turn it into the flower haven I've always wanted

To can get around that. You can get decent sized raised beds and pots. You could create your own garden with a bit of imagination and he can't complain about any drive being ripped out.

Oh you are my people!
In our last house we had a tiny front garden that had been paved over. We lifted the slabs, improved the (totally dead) soil underneath and crammed it full of cottage garden bee friendly plants.
The lady who bought it paved over it again... in fairness she does have a few pots lovely looking ornamental plants, but it took me 2 years to get that space buzzing.... and her 6 months to silence it.

All is not lost though. My 4 year old very carefully checks plant labels if she sees any for sale and insists I buy any that have a bee on. We are slowly planting up a flower bed of a random assortment of things... it won’t win any horticultural awards but I’m hoping it’ll bring some insects.

We have lots of pots and flowers in our garden but we did have lots of big conifers taken down recently.

Same as that awful plastic grass! Hideous!

My front garden has a random pebbled area that the path encircles. It seems to have been a design choice or to save the developer putting in lots of smaller bits of turf. The soil underneath is awful though obviously there as we do get weeds.

I'm thinking of getting some raised beds and plonking it right on top. I'd put it right at the edge so it's be raised bed-path-hedge with no other gaps. Just not sure how high to make the bed. The hedges are 1m. The path is a actually a ramp, rising about 30cm in total. The gravel area is about 2.5m by 1.5m, with two edges being the path, one edge the house. So I don't really want to cover the whole area with a bed because it would be ridiculous. But... Not sure what dimensions.

Will sketch a picture and post below, would appreciate thoughts.

So here's general layout... And question on how big a bed to put in, probably in the hatched area.

And thoughts? South facing, relentlessly hot in summer.