Small Front garden - stuck

[Bearthepooh]

My house is an end terrace, typical new build block design and I've got a small patch of grass on the front, the row of houses on my street are the same and it looks so dull. We can't pave over or cover it fully due to covenants, plus we have a garden company that comes and mowes the grass (badly and always left patchy )

I want to add in some life, maybe some trees, or flowers, a small design into the grass in front of the window. I've got a tree just plonked in, with fairy lights but looks a bit daft.

I can't do too much design because the garden company will just mess it up, and don't use any kind of edge trimmers so I need to make sure they can get to the edges.

Also there's some kind of drain or box thing the tree is sitting on, not sure if I can even dig around that.

Any ideas what I could do, or any suggestions for kind of plants or trees that could add some life? Or even just a basic design? Hopefully my pictures have added correctly.

Get lots of plant pots and fill them with lots of brightly coloured flowers and one underneath your window, that could have lots of flowing plants.

Easiest option might be a little bay tree (I got mine in Lidl) in the biggest plastic pot you can get, next to the door. Bay might eventually grow into a large tree if planted in soil but is happy to stay small in a pot.

Or a rosemary bush planted in the earth by the door, nice scent when you brush past.

Bit more work but lovely would be a trellis attached to the wall between door and window, and a climbing or rambling rose to grow up it (planted in the soil ideally). You can get them with nearly no thorns.

Window boxes with bulbs, daffs and tulips, primroses in spring followed by annuals until autumn, then replant the bulbs with some winter pansies. Hanging baskets would work too. Just put a couple of brackets high up and hang the baskets from them. It keeps the grass clear. A totally I quite like the minimalism of it . . .

Do people look in your windows? I got a freestanding planter with a trellis attached from Screen with envy last year. I did have a looooong wait for it, much longer than expected, but it does provide some screening while allowing light to get through.

It's a small area, and grass is hard to maintain, I'd cover it in shrubbery of different heights, flowers and leaves.

A clear demarcation between a narrow border and the lawn would ensure your plants are safe from the grass maintenance work and not impede it.
Also, sticking to a limited style and type of pots would make more of an impact - something like this design, where the colour of the pots complement the front door might look quite striking...
(You could alter the number of pots and slabs to suit the width available to you). The shingle or pea gravel in between the slabs could camouflage the drain cover, and you could sow annuals into the shingle for summer flowers.

I'd dig up the grass for 1m in front of the house & put in some low-maintenance evergreen shrubs - choysia and hebe and sarcococca. maybe lavender or salvia too for flowers. All of these will look nice for most of the year and provide space for birds to perch.

If you can do a border at the road, I'd add maybe 7 small ilex crenata balls, (like box) & put golden gravel or similar round it.