Front garden help

[Bakingmom]

Please help me with my front garden! We bought our new-ish build last summer and the front garden was just a patch of soil. Now it’s spring and it’s a weed mess!! I don’t want grass down as we have artificial in the back so it’s too maintenance eg cutting it! Any good low maintenance ideas to elevate it? I’m not green fingered even though I wish I was haha!

Put weed membrane down, cut slits in and plant a couple of easy care shrubs through them (lavender, azalea, heuchera or something) , then cover the membrane with bark chippings.

(although you will have to dig those weeds out first)

Lavenders, thymes - plants that will deal with poor soil, then bark / cocoa shells or coloured slate. Will add scent / good for bees / add colour interest. And previous advice about pulling weeds / digging out their roots is key to any scheme working.

Before you plant anything check out the aspect.
Plants have different sun requirements.

I wouldn't bother with weed membrane. I would go for a thick layer of cardboard and then bark chippings. They you won't need to bother weeding.
The easiest plants to maintain are generally shrubs. You cut them back once a year at the most and just ignore them the rest of the time. Do you have any ideas of what you like? I would go for a couple of evergreen things, and then two or three things which flower at different times of the year.
Let us know what way it faces and how much sun it gets and we can recommend you something.

Use cardboard instead of horrid weed membrane.

Whatever you do, don’t raise the level as you have an air brick there which needs clearance to ground to make sure water doesn’t go into the cavity

Pave it and put some stone planters there.

I would agree with pp. Buy some hardy perennials and fill it up. If it gets any sun, I would buy a variety of salvia/sage/thyme All are great in dry conditions once established. If you want something taller perhaps a hardy fusia. Mine have survived complete neglect, frost and the extreme summer heatwaves for the last couple of years.

Look at which ones have the tallest nature height and place then more towards the back and vice versa with the smaller ones but stagger slightly for a more natural look.

I would do this asap before it starts getting hot. Water lots for the first few weeks so their roots can get established.

If you want it more 'designed' buy a few feature boulders/rocks and position them as stepping stones down the middle.

I would go for euonymus. They come in lots of varieties, are relatively cheap and easy to maintain. They cover the ground very quickly so I would not bother with weed membrane.