Front of house.

[brighteyesburninglikefire]

My front garden is a bricked drive, o space for planting anything.
It is dire and makes me miserable. I can't change it, the HA insists I keep the drive. I can't even lift part of it.
I'm looking for ideas on how to cheer it up. The obvious answer is pots, and I had a heavy pot which was actually stolen last year, so I don't want to really spend as much on it as I would on my back garden.
So what is cheapest, (budget of @£250) that would still look inviting and be fragrant. And difficult to steal.
Any ideas, much appreciated.
It is East facing, a boring, low walled drive with no gates.

Difficult to steal is tricky. I would go for plastic, because they are easy to reposition and also low value. I have some lovely large plastic pots which cost about £20 each. I grow a David Austin rose in one, (bought bare root in autumn with the discount so again cheaper) which smells lovely. You could try lavender in a pot, you would have to make sure it had good drainage though. You can get scented begonias and scented leaf geraniums which have quite a long life span through the summer. Could you add brackets for a couple of hanging baskets, again these are not expensive to buy, you could even try padlocking them to the bracket if you think they might be taken.

We have the same problem with the front being paved, however we can't change it as its the only place we can park the cars. We've done a few things to soften the front and it's made a huge difference:

• Hanging baskets - we've got 4. Half of the house is set back behind the main drive so 2 baskets on the front section of the house then 2 on the set-back bit. Change plants in autumn and spring so they're good all year round.

• Window boxes - one under each of the downstairs windows. Like with the baskets, change plants a couple of times a year so always green and colourful. Plus they were screwed to the wall before being filled so pretty hard to steal.

• Couple of heavy pots with evergreen plants in the corners near the front door.

• Built a planter with several layers to go in the far corner of the drive. A couple of permenant evergreens plus annuals that get changed when needed. Also hard to steal because of how much it weighs once full.

Hanging baskets are a good idea, but cable tie them to the brackets so they can't get nicked (I learnt this working in pubs with beer gardens!)