Front garden help

[TeeTwenty]

Hello lovely people!
We have a lawned area with photinia hedging as our front garden. The area is shared between us and next door neighbours with the boundary line roughly around the purple line.

It looks very basic and mostly covered in weeds but I don't know what to do here as I will be doing only my side and the other side will remain as it is. I put an acer against the window but that got wrecked by the wind so I had to remove it.

If I put some large box planters in the red boxed area and plant in them, would that look ok? Do I need to remove the grass or do anything to the area before putting the planters in?

The area is north facing and receives some sun in the afternoon. I was thinking trailing hydrangea and a climbing rose under the window, some shade loving ferns, fatsia, hosta in front of the hedge and maybe a line of bulbs along the driveway.

The reason I am thinking of planters is we take turns in cutting the grass and I donot want my plants to be cut accidentally. The hedge needs to stay as we are on a busy road.

Will appreciate any suggestions and ideas!

I think a big planter under the window might be a good idea but not sure how they'd look by the hedge and along the side. (Also I'd probably end up bashing my car doors on a planter next to the drive ... maybe it's wide enough that wouldn't be an issue). Rather than a planter close to the hedge I'd probably get a big pot and put it on that rather unsightly drain cover, and along the drive make a border planted with lowish plants that would gently overspill onto the drive (with bulbs in it too).

If there is a boundary, surely it isn’t “shared”? Why can’t you have a hedge, flower bed or fence along the boundary line creating 2 lawns/separate gardens?

If you can’t do that, I wouldn’t have planters in front of the hedge. It will look odd and be very shady. Unless you especially want planters or the soil is poor, I would just have flower beds. You can use edging strips or stones if you are worried about the plants getting cut by the lawnmower.

You don’t need to have paving or bare soil under the planters but the grass will die underneath them.

@ErrolTheDragon Thank you. Yes I had a feeling that planter in front of the hedges would not work. The drive is wide enough but a border is enough for that side I guess.

@BobandRobertaSmith Shared was the wrong word choice. there is a boundary line but we need to split the lawned area and change the hedges which is not as easy and we are not too keen on that.
Thank you, I will just do edging and border on 2 sides and planter under the window.

I’m still a bit confused as to why you would need to change the hedge or why it matters whether you split the lawn/hedge? 😂 It certainly isn’t difficult! Just put a hedge or flower bed or fence on the boundary line. But if you don’t want to, that’s up to you 😂

If it were my garden, I would have flower beds on 3 sides along the boundary, drive and in front of the house or turn the whole thing into a cottage garden bed without a lawn. It’s all very new looking with lots of straight lines. A cottage garden style would soften everything or you could embrace the lines and go for something very architectural and formal eg box balls in planters. I like Errol’s suggestion for a planter on top of the ugly drain.

I like Errol’s suggestion for a planter on top of the ugly drain.
Yes, but quite often an attempt to hide something only draws attention to it and actually makes the problem worse. Don't do a piddly little thing; make the planter as big, if not bigger, than the drain cover. Or maybe have a matching pair, to make it look even more intentional (as long as you can still get round to mow the lawn).

I agree with @BobandRobertaSmith - I'd put a fence or hedge to separate the two lawns; dig up the lawn & take out the existing hedge & plant it with what you want, taking into account what will actually grow/thrive in the conditions. Much more interesting & useful to wildlife.

Unless you want the lawn to sit on I'd take it all out and plant the whole area as a deep border. There are lots of YouTube videos about creating a border. Such as these:

I think the single hedge and shared lawn looks OK - it's a bit hard to tell from the angles of the photos how wide it is but it might look a bit narrow if split in two.