Plant suggestions for my front garden
Hi. We need suggestions to improve the look of our front garden in our house. We need some plant suggestions. Photo is below.
Current Plants:
At the moment there are two straggly pink flowering hebes at the front, a blue hydgrangea tucked behind on the left, and another hydgrangea on the right (we thought it was blue also, but looks like a red flower is appearing). There is also ceanothus on the far right. I'm not sure what the wide leaf plant is second from the right (would love to know the name....?), but it comes out with pink flowers.
Location:
London, on the north side of a medium height wall, in a south facing front garden. It gets quite hot out here in summer, yet, the plants seem to do well.
What we want:
We were thinking of planting a snowball hydgrangea (hydrangea annabelle) in the centre. We realise this is yet another deciduous plant though, so we were thinking about putting 2 slim evergreens either side. We like the look of Sambucus Nigra Porphyrophylia Black Tower - but that is of course decidious too. We like repetition, bold, stylish plants. The side of our front garden has buxus balls, mondo grass and coneflowers repeated.
Can you please suggest any plants that would make our front garden look nicer? Any tips on how to make the garden look tidier would be great too.
Posts
To make it look tidier you could shape your ceanothus and hebe as it is crowding out the hydrangea. In fact you could give a little trim to all the plants. You could also put a decorative mulch like slate in a colour to match some of your paving. I'd keep away from bark as it could get messy. It would also make weeding, if any a much easier job.
Plantwise you could try choiysia. This is evergreen and you would get white flowers a couple of times a year. Or cornus (dogwood), they are deciduous but you then have the coloured stems as winter interest (red, yellow, green, brown, black, orange) and they have white flowers and also berries.
Hi Scgh
That looks like quite a difficult border to plant up - I imagine the soil is quite dry & maybe quite poor & I think you've done very well with the plants you've got there.
The broad leaved plant is a bergenia (AKA 'Elephant's Ears') - evergreen with spring flowers.
Re the planting: Unless you really don't like them I would leave the hydrangeas & ceanothus in situ. I'm not very fond of hebes as they can get straggly - so I would take those out. You might like to look at some of the euonymous and pittosporum shrubs. Lots of different forms & colours of both - but they are both evergreen and can be hard pruned into tidy shapes - I would keep them to abt 3' - 4' tall in that situation.
You could also lightly prune the ceanothus if you don't like it's shape - but it really doesn't like being cut back hard - I would do it over several seasons.
A mulch of something like slate chippings would 'tidy' the appearance of the soil & work with the colour of your hard standing.
Good luck
You snuck in there Gardenmaiden
Yes I did
. Proper geraniums would look nice too and if you can sneak in a few spring and summer bulbs, you're away.
Just been out and looked at mine (cotinus) Verdun, its doing well.
I would go bold with chunky geometric clipped evergreens, & contrasting 'fluffy' and colourful herbaceous planting of things like hardy geraniums (G. 'Rozanne' is one of the best for a long flowering season). Keep it simple, with hard-working plants in a limited number of varieties, and it will look smart.
Talking of simple, a nice clipped box hedge would look rather good, rather than fussy planting!
I'd be tempted to get rid of the hebes. What about a Pieris 'Forest Flame' - evergreen, gorgeous red new leaves in Spring with lily of the valley type flowers to follow as the leaves slowly pale to a salmon colour and then bright green. Changes all year round. Can be a show-stopper. When I bought mine several years ago, the literature said best in part-shade. But, the one in full-sun has always bloomed brilliantly with the one in part-shade very short on flowers and effect. Maybe a good hardy subtle coloured fuchsia would be interesting.
If you have a good shrub nursery nearby it would be worth going to have a look-see and get some advice. There are so many gorgeous shrubs with year round interest which would really go well and contrast with your hydrangeas and ceanothus. You could get some nice ground cover plants as well.
Lovely wall. An exciting challenge for you.
I suggest choisya too but my favourite is Sundance - a bold yellow which isn't everyone's cup of tea but it would add a splash of colour to that bed. I've got a couple of Erysium perennial wallflowers, purple variety which I think is Bowles Mauve (I stand to be corrected). In my garden it flowers 12 months of the year although it needs a regular trim to keep it tidy. I've also got a shrubby honeysuckle Lonicera Baggesens Gold. Maybe a bit boring because it always looks the same but I use it to fill a very dry north-facing bed, shaped so I can under-plant with seasonal annuals and bulbs.
You are right Erics mum on erysimum