Transform Your Front and Side Gardens

WHEN YOU CONSIDER garden design you tend to think of the main area relaxation and entertainment – the back garden. But the and particularly the path to the first party that you or your vis-iors see, so it 1S WOrth turning it into an arresting feature. If you have a flowerbed at the front or a central ornament to accentuate it. Choose features which cannot be easily removed to deter the opportunist thief.

TOWN Front and Side Gardens

How best to make your front garden eye-catching partly depends on where you live. In the city you are likely to have less scope than in the countryside. But how- ever little space you have, a plant or orna-ment can draw the eye.

For a scene-stealing central bed, plant one of the smaller magnolias, such as Magnolia stellata, or a camellia, perhaps the elegantly striped Contessa Lavinia Maggi’. If you are concerned about secu-rity, choose something prickly such as topiary work in holly. To set the stage, underplant with bulbs and seasonal bedding plants. An all-white bedding scheme, edged with clipped ivy, is pretty: hyacinths and tulips in the spring, fol-lowed by busy lizzies in the summer for a shaded aspect, or pelargoniums and silver foliage plants in the sun. In winter, white pansies take over.

DUAL-PURPOSE BOUNDARIES

For an even simpler scheme, pave or tile the ground and make a focal point of the boundary. Cut recesses in dark hedging and put a statue inside or plant a pale shrub within, such as the white standard roses Glamis Castle or Iceberg’, or a clump of Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’. If the boundary is not a hedge, make the most of paving. Choose from slabs, bricks, quarry tiles or cobbles. Interplant with low-growing shrubs and perennials. A weeping standard rose, perhaps Debutante’ or Princess ILouise’, makes a delightful centerpiece.

In shade, plant a weeping evergreen such as Cotoneaster salicifolius Pendulus or ilex aquifolium Argentea Marginata Pendula’- or ch00se the ferny leaved WHITE WALLS and pale gray trellis give the confined space a more open feeling and make an attractive backdrop. The trellis gives scope for ivy to climb – types with variegated leaves add most color.

Rectangular slabs laid across the whole area make the strip seem wider-even when pots and troughs are added, it is the area of paving that defines the width. Choose bergenia to form a foliage backbone of year-round interest, varying the detail with snowdrops and scillas in winter and spring, and petunias or red pelargoniums with hostas in summer.

The shortest wall is the most romantic place for the pièce de résistance, a wall mask above a tall terracotta jar. Surround the jar with little pots of ivy. A barrel planted with spiky phormium

draws people from the main garden into the surprising beauty of the side strip.

In summer, hanging baskets full of annuals such as busy lizzies in a range of warm reds, pinks and purples brighten the area further. The mask and jar, too,

FOCAL POINTS IN A MODERN OR COTTAGE 

SETTING the strong lines architecture by a few specimen plants. Try sweeps are set off by ground cover, dramatized low-growing Prunus laurocerasus Otto Luyken’ round plants of architectural interest. Aralia, fatsia and bamboo are all excellent in such a situation.

As a modern sculpture, make a group of boulders. Or sink five weathered timber posts of different lengths into the ground together as one pillar; before installation, treat the portion to be sunk underground with a wood preservative.

Instead of timber you can use granite kerbstones. Set a large, smooth stone on each section of the pillar. At the other extreme, in a cottage garden the features that delight are more cozy and familiar. Here is the spot to try your hand at some light-hearted topiary -a teddy bear, a teapot or a small, plump bird or two; if the shapes are a little lop-sided, it adds to the charm. For flowering plants rather than green sculpture, use hollyhocks, delphiniums and sweet peas, or a long-flowering Lavatera ‘Barnsley’.

BESIDE THE SEA

Seaside gardens give you the opportuníty to use materials that are appropriate nowhere else. In a tiny garden use the surface itself as a center of interest. I Lay seashore pebbles in diamond shapes, outlined by others of different sizes and colors or, more ambitiously, lay them in a wave pattern and incorporate a gull, a fish or even a mermaid in the design.

For a living centerpiece in a sea of hard surfacing, plant prickly Rosa rugosa. Rugosas tolerate poor, sandy soils and the flowers are usually followed by large. colorful hips. Fru Dagmar Hastrup grows to about 3ft (1 m), has fragrant pink single flowers, huge red hips and leaves that color up well in the autumn.

For a taller, shade-tolerant rugosa, Blanc Double de Coubert’ is unrivaled. It reaches 6ft (1.8 m), with fragrant, semi double white flowers with golden stamen, and good leaf color in autumn.

Figureheads were once familiar orna- ments for seaside houses and gardens. Old ones are hard to come by, but why not carve and paint one yourself? As the originals were often crudely done, a little clumsiness adds an air of authenticity – as does ‘weathering the paintwork. Rub bits of it away here and there, with fine sandpaper or wet-and-dry abrasive paper, to reveal the undercoat or the bare wood.

Failing a figurehead, use an anchor. Paint it black, bolt Or cement it to a sunken concrete block and conceal the block with shingle. Frame the feature with a blue sea of catmint, then add groups of the silver and spiky plants that grow so well in such conditions – sea holly, globe thistle, artemisia and the little blue grass, Festuca glauca.

INTEREST IN THE SIDE GARDEN

The side garden is often a difficult area tO make attractive. . It may be little more than a wind tunnel running beside a garage or wall. Before considering ideas for turning drab, wasted space into a talking point. look at the paintwork. Think of houses seen abroad gaily painted in every pos-sible combination of colors – the white walls and dark blue woodwork of the Greek islands, warm terracotta and burnt vellows in Italy, the clapboard houses of the Caribbean.

Take photographs of the house, and of the facing wall if there is  one. Make tracings from these and color in various schemes until you find one that pleases you. Try pale blue walls and dark blue woodwork, white walls with green wood- work, dark green or primrose-yellow walls with paintwork of sparkling white. A small porch or portico and some shut-ters make decorative features of doors and windows. Window boxes help too.

Trellis panels fixed to the wall add points of interest. The paint usually chosen for trellis is white or dark green, but try other colors and consider black a sophisticated town garden. If the spot is gloomy, set a mirror (with a mois- ture-resistant film backing ) behind the trellis to double what light there is.

Plant up a few space-saving plant holders such as hanging baskets, troughs or chimney pots or attach a wall plaque.

JOINED-UP HOUSES

Many terraced and semi detached houses have an L-shaped garden with a narrow leg where two buildings join. It is often shaded byawall, but this is still valuable Space. You can brighten a bare wall in various ways.

Expanse Use a bit of false topiary. Train a small-leaved, pot-grown ivy up a wire spiral, or train a sphere, using a home- made frame of two mesh hanging baskets fixed together with strong fuse wire.

Train a climber up and around an arch or trellis. The larger-leaved ivies (Hedera colchica or H. canariensis) thrive in sun or shade. Those with variegated leaves do better in at least partial sun-light. They are all self clinging and fast growing once established.

+ Even simpler, paint an arch on the wall. Try a round-topped or pointed shape, making a template out of card or hardboard to guide you. In front of the real or trompe l’oeil arch, position a statue or urn. + Plant up little beds at the foot of the wall. Hydrangea petiolaris, a self-clinging climber, is lovely in shade. It bears flat heads of lacy white flowers in summer. For flower power in mild areas, the shade-tolerant Mermaid’ is an excellent, nearly evergreen rose, with large, single creamy-yellow blooms until late. Keep the growths tied in close to the wall; their thorns are vicious.

+ For fragrance, plant the early and late Dutch honeysuckles, Lonicera pericly- menum Belgica’ and Serotina’, both good in light shade. At the other end of the narrow leg, where it joins the main garden, plant a couple of graceful shrubs such as Acer palmatum Bloodgood or learia vigata on opposite sides, one a little ahead of the other. They invite you into the secret alley with a promise of delights to come.

SHOW STEALERS OUT OF TOWN

On the outskirts of towns there are many houses whose gardens are agreeably roomy. Often there is a garage at or joined onto one side of the house, presenting a large area of blank wall to a narrow side garden. If arches, niches or patterns of raised brickwork are incorpo- rated at the building stage, they relieve the dullness. But when you inherit the wall you have to employ other methods.

A row of mop-headed, standard ever-greens breaks up the base of a blank wall. Elacagnus pungens Maculata’ or silver- variegated Ilex aquifolium ‘Argentea Marginata’ give a light touch, while fast- growing privet is easy to train. Round their feet, grow half-square or half-circle containers of clipped box or private.

Alternatively, cover the wall with a plant ‘trellis’ trained and trimmed into a pattern of diamonds or squares copied from traditional trelliswork. Outline the pattern with strong wires stretched be- tween Vine eves driven into the mortar, then tie in the young stems, clipping to shape as the plants grow. Pyracanthas or Small-leaved ivies are suitable.

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CLIMBERS FOR COVER

If two walls flank a wider area, train climbers to cover them and dangle over- head from a loggia or pergola of wooden beams, leading to the main garden, The Chinese gooseberry (Actinidia deliciosa) suitable because it is hardy, happy in shade and grows in any well-drained soil as long as it is not too dry; it has vigorous, wisting stems and heart-shaped leaves.

Virginia creepers also do well in shade and turn blank space and plain loggia into a living tapestry and ceiling. They climb by small tendrils with sucker-like pads and have attractive leaves that color up in autumn. ParthenocissUs tricuspidata Lowii has deeply cut leaves, PL. Veitchii turns a wonderful purple in autumn and P henryana has pink-veined, bronzed leaves. For something less vigorous, grow a species of clematis such as Clematis flammula, C. chrysocoma or evergreen C. cirrhosa balearica.

IN SUMMARY

When one of the walls is sunny, make a central feature of a clematis, but shade its roots by tucking sun-lovers round the base, especially those that release their aroma as you brush past them: lavender, rosemary, purple sage, artemisia and Cistus x hybridus with dark foliage and large white flowers splashed with yellow.