Sunless front garden - all ideas welcome :)
Rach McBride
Posts: 5
Hi all,
We bought our property just under 2 years ago, and in that time, I've transformed most of the gardens from a wilderness into something far more presentable! To cut a long story short, I've turned waist high lawns into proper grass, dug out new beds, started a massive herb garden in the beds under the window.. you name it, I've broken my back over it!
The problem I have is our front garden. It's not very big, I've made new beds around the borders and I'd love to know what to plant out there, but it never see's the sun. All the sun we get is at the back of the house, leaving a dark and dingy front garden facing onto a main road. I would love to know what plants and/or flowering shrubs I could plant out there to liven it up a bit. At the moment, I'm clueless and so is my gardening mad dad..
All ideas welcome, thanks in advance.
Rach 
Posts
This'll give you ideas, there's plenty that can be done.
That's a brilliant start - thank you, Darren!
Tricks, such as mirrors to reflect light and using lighter colour paint on fences help brighten things- if used tastefully !
Then there's variegated foliage- but I'm not familiar with variegated plants, so can't recommend any.
Rach McBride, My front garden is starved of sunlight too but I have 4 hosta plants there and they do well.
Darren and Linda - thank you both so much!
I'm going to look into hosta plants, which I've never heard of, and from what I've seen, some of them are flowering as well, thanks Linda!
I'm also going to think about some ferns for the back wall of my back gardem which also hardly sees the sun.
I'll post some pics when I get the chance - all advice is gratefully received!
Rach
Also, look at toad lily - trycirtis.
Looking forward to seeing those pics. Good luck .Rach
Hostas are great for shade. But, beware, they are a slug magnet!
Please don't use mirrors ..... they can cause birds to fly into them thinking there's a way through
Try Dicentra Spectabilis Bleeding Heart or Alba.
Both good in partial / light shade but not heavy shade. (Don't know how shaded you front garden is)