Don’t just pave over your front garden, leave a little space for plants

ON a warm sunny evening I had the good fortune to walk around the picturesque village of Hurworth on Tees. The village clusters around the churchyard, with imposing houses nearby on the green set behind high hedges and railings. The architectural delights continue across the road as handsome Georgian and Victorian villas give way along Church Row to smaller cottages, many opening straight onto the street. The harmonious groupings of buildings made a perfect village scene, but for me, the stand out feature that completed the picture was the incredibly wide range of front gardens and plantings along the Main Street. Some of these front gardens were long, others only two feet deep and where a front garden was not possible many owners had grown up the walls or had planters by the door. The overall care and horticultural attention to detail in these gardens left me feeling that all was right with the world! Elsewhere, however, all is not right in the world of front gardens and the statistics are alarming.

It is estimated that one in three front gardens across Britain are completely paved over. That's five million spaces that leave no room for plants, the bees or birds. Now that's a shame because when you begin to consider the benefits that front gardens bring, you would think twice before reaching for the concrete mixer. A green space outside the front door is good to come home to and makes us happy. It's a nature reserve on your doorstep, as an average 250 species can live in our gardens. A big plus is they also help prevent homes from flooding as borders and lawns soak up rainwater, unlike hard surfaces where water runs off creating flash flooding. Plants are great for our physical health too, they trap dust and pollution helping us to breathe more easily. They can even lower our heating bills by insulating our buildings with wall plants and keep us cool in summer by creating shade and releasing moisture.

Well that's all very fine I can hear you say but where do we park the car? Fair point and it is the main single thing that provokes owners to cover their front gardens with hard surfaces. Well as part of the RHS Greening Grey Britain campaign at Harlow Carr we have built a demonstration 'Front Garden' to show just how you can have a beautiful front garden and park the car off the road. The plot size is a modest 5.2 x 6.7 metres, large enough to park a medium sized family car. In the design we have stuck to half a dozen simple and straightforward ideas that create more than enough room for a range of plants and the car.

Firstly we have kept paving to a minimum using only 26% of the total area. To accommodate the car gravel has been used to make a space and by leaving large gravelled gaps between the paving, it allows rainwater to trickle away slowly but also is a place for plants to grow or self-seed into the gaps. A Beech hedge bounds one side of the plot and is better than a fence or a wall as it filters out pollution. On the other side of the front garden is a brick wall and this provides the perfect vertical surface for growing climbing plants that take up little room. Almost half of the plot is flower beds, we've planted up the corners of the garden as usually you can't park a car there and also managed to squeeze in three trees with slender trunks that take the greenery up and over the car. Finally two pots with seasonal planting sit on the front step where there is no soil.

So why not come along to pick up a few ideas for your green space out front?

DIARY DATES

September 13, 20, 27: Garden Tours

Join a tour of the garden starting at 11.30am and find out how Harlow Carr evolved from a Victorian Spa to an RHS garden. There is a suggested £2 donation to the Friends of Harlow Carr. Normal garden admission.