How can I make my front garden less ugly?

[Wiggles278]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some ideas to make my front garden less ugly. It's gravel and looks a bit green and manky. I try to keep on top of the weeds but it's like firefighting. Add multiple neighbourhood cats using it as a litter box, it's not a pretty sight.

I've added some shrubs in pots which makes it look a bit more colourful, but it's still an embarrassing mess. I bought a wisteria but months later that seems to have died without ever showing signs of life and is now just a stick in a pot.

I am low on money, time and energy. Does anyone have any ideas for how to make it look less messy? I'd love the gravel removed and turf laid, but it's not an option at the moment. A lot of my neighbours are retired and seem to have unlimited time and money to spend on their lovely gardens and I'm fed up of my house looking like the street midden!

Hi Wiggles - a few queries to help with ideas... How big is your front garden, what shape is it, and is it flat or on a slope? Is the garden enclosed (for instance with a wall around) or open plan?

Do you have nice ‘retired & good gardener’ neighbours that you get on with? If so just ask for their advice and help, and I’ll get they will be eager and delighted to do over you sad little spot.

Hi @brambleberries. It's pretty small - maybe 3 metres long by 1.5 metres wide, if I had to guess. It's just a rectangle in front of my living room window, beside the driveway. It's completely open, no fence or anything like that.

@FadedRed They're all lovely but we don't talk often and I'd feel cheeky asking them for help! I have been analysing their gardens for ideas - at least as much as I can without looking like I'm casing their house for a burglary! A lot of nice plants in pots seems to do the trick but perhaps in a less slap dash fashion than mine have been arranged. They also tend to not have slightly fuzzy green gravel on the driveway!

Ok, here's a few ideas which will hopefully match your budget and time limits...
First off the gravel - what kind is it? Pea gravel is very cheap indeed and is more appealing than the larger shingle 20mm driveway type. If you can replace your greenish gravel within your budget, this will certainly help.

If you feel your garden is messy, I would introduce some formality - relatively easy with gravel. And as you have a rectangular garden, work with that.
Could you stretch to buying some bricks for edging? Reclamation yards sell them for pennies - and sometimes places like Wickes give away free bricks from damaged pallets also.

If you keep to a very simple formal design, with a limited number of plants it would make an instant impression and require little time to maintain.

Depending on your soil type and garden aspect, Lidl/Aldi sell plants during the summer that would work well, such as lavender or emerald green globe hebes around the border - keep a look out for them coming into stores if you have one near you; and perhaps something like a hydrangea or a rose in the centre (in the ground or a large pot if you prefer).

something like this photo, but with the same dwarf hedge plants all around the edge....

@Wiggles278 - if you complimented them on their lovely gardens and asked for advice, I’d put money on at least one of them being only too delighted to help, enthusiastic gardeners will be already getting ready for sprig and summer, planted and nurturing seedlings and cuttings and will have plants to spare.

If this is just too rectangular and simple, for your taste, a similar design could be used, but rotated 45 degrees, so you make a diamond shape with the bricks and gravel, leaving 4 triangles - one in each corner which you could fill with ground cover plants and perhaps place a smaller pot of seasonal plants or ornamental grasses at the centre of each corner triangle.

Great advice from brambleberries.

Alternative is to embrace the run-down-ness and turn into a garden of rustic charm

Shabby chic for the garden - brain dead tonight but this is what I meant!

I can guarantee that if you asked any of your gardening neighbours what they would do with your garden you will get lots of good advice and more importantly you will probably get lots of free plants, seeds and cuttings.

I did the opposite, went from more grass to more gravel !

How about reducing the gravel area by introducing some permanent planting? Would save you having to cut/maintain a lawn.

Have a look at Everedge. They do tree rings. I decided to use them to create pockets of planting in the gravel area of my front garden. Will try to f8nd a couple of photos to demonstrate. It breaks the area up nicely, also saves on mowing (the job I hate most with gardening.

I’ve realised I haven’t taken many recent photos out the front! Have found a few from a couple of years ago. Hopefully they show the general idea.

What is under the gravel - soil?

You have two issues:

1. the weeds and cat poo
2. what to do once you have solved 1

If soil under the gravel, I would bag up the gravel and offer on freecycle. Then weed thoroughly and put down black fabric to keep cats off.

Over time I would aim for low maintenance and low cost bee gargen so lavender, nasturtiums, rosemary, sage etc.

Do you have any budget at all?

For weeds, I've got a litre spray bottle I make up to spray my pebbles. Quick and easy. Just do when you see small ones show up.

It might be easiest to replace the gravel with ungreen gravel. Here is a link on how to clean decorative pebbles. It's a cheaper option, but will take a bit of time to do.

decorativeaggregates.com/blog/how-to-clean-maintain-decorative-garden-stones

What sort of garden do you like? I like cottage gardens and informal plantings. Pots are pretty easy and let you move things around and change plants with seasons. Pots can also give focus points and splashes of colour.

If you've got gardening neighbours, they'd be best to recommend plants that would go well in your space. Wisterias go dormant over winter, so yours may revive in spring. If you like wisteria, a huge statement pot with a single wisteria would be beautiful. Or you could train it over a trellis / arch. Then you could plant annuals in pots to match the seasons

If you could quickly run a rake through the gravel as often as you could manage, it would look better, disturb the algae growth if that’s what the greenish look is

Embrace the gravel! Have a look at pictures of dry gardens, plants which don’t mind poor dry conditions such as gravel, if you can visit Beth Chattos garden and look at her dry garden area, or look online, it is beautiful with plants that are amazing in their leaf colour, variety and structure, quite a lot flower as well, but with many the flowers aren’t the main event, the plants themselves are the focus. It sounds as though you don’t have much time to deal with your front garden so planning a garden with plants that require minimal care for watering/topping up with fresh soil or compost/ weeding and pruning would be ideal.

Sorry, she called it her gravel garden, not her dry garden!

Have a look at your neighbours' gardens to see what does well in your area, but it would be best to look at gardens which have the same aspect as yours ie if your garden is north facing it will need different plants to a south facing one.