Easy front gardens

Most of us want an easy-to-care- for front garden. Here are reliable plants that will also make it easy on the eye, writes JANE POWERS

THERE ARE TWO words that give me the shivers when applied to gardens: “low” and “maintenance”. When I walk around the streets near where I live, I can see that together they make up the motto for many of the front gardens. There is lots of paving and gravel, some grass, some shrubs (winter heather is looking good now), but not a great amount of other plant material. Outside four out of five houses around here, the front garden is low maintenance, no maintenance, or – and I hate to say it, because I love my town – neglected.

But actually, the words “low maintenance” don’t have to mean soulless, municipal or sterile. A low maintenance garden can be interesting, floriferous, and bouncing with life. It just needs some thought and planning.

The first thing is to consider the hard landscaping. Paving the whole front garden doesn’t just give a lifeless look to a property, it can cause other problems. When the surface is sealed under an impermeable skin of stone, brick or concrete, rainwater has nowhere to go, except into a hard-pressed sewerage system. Flash flooding and pollution of waterways and the sea may result. Also, soil that is locked under paving may start to dry out and shrink, and cause subsidence and cracking.

Paving in moderation, however, is fine. Combine it with gravel and flower beds – both of which soak up rainwater – and you have an interesting and relatively easy-to-care-for garden. A small square or circle of lawn gives the eye somewhere to rest, and will attract ground-foraging birds such as blackbirds and thrushes. But, remember that it must be mown weekly during the growing season – which demands time, as well as somewhere to store a mower. If you want to bring in wildlife, flowering and berrying plants can also do the job. The most powerful attractant, of course, is a pond – which will entice all manner of birds and insects. There’s no reason not to have a small pool in a front garden, provided you have a gate to prevent small children from gaining access.

Plants make a front garden compelling: people will stop to look at a conclave of snowdrops or a troupe of daffodils, but they rarely pause to admire a patch of cobblelock paving. There are many plants that are not too demanding, but all need a good start in life. Soil in front gardens, especially in built-up areas, is often tired, lacking nutrition and liable to dry out. So, if you’re doing a big planting job, make sure to add lots of organic matter to the soil. And, while you are at it, be sure to dig out all the perennial weeds such as dandelion and bindweed. The organic matter, which could be well-rotted manure or compost, makes the soil more fertile, and helps it retain water. But even with beefed-up soil, most urban gardens are still on the dry side, so it’s best to choose plants that can tolerate a little drought.

Bulbs are the most unfussy of plants, yet they also pack the biggest punch. If you choose the right varieties, and plant them properly (at a depth equivalent to three times their height), they will return automatically, and increase in number year after year. There are bulbous plants for every season; snowdrops and crocuses start in late winter, daffodils and bluebells follow in spring. Summer brings out the roundy-headed alliums, from the dainty A. sphaerocephalon to the football-sized A. cristophii, and autumn gives us the shocking pink nerines.

Besides the bulbs, you need a few well-chosen perennials (which can include ornamental grasses) and some shrubby things for structure. If the garden is large enough, consider a tree, to draw the eye up and make the space seem more expansive. The birds will thank you for the tree by using it as a song post.

A FEW UNFUSSY PLANTS FOR FRONT GARDENS

SUNNY

Bulbous: Snowdrop, crocus, daffodil, small species-type tulips (such as Tulipa tarda and ‘Little Beauty’), allium, nerine.

Perennial: Euphorbia, hardy geranium, globe thistle (Echinops ritro), Phlomis russelliana, large sedums such a ‘Herbstfreude’ (also known as ‘Autumn Joy’).

Grassy: Elymus magellanicus, Stipa gigantea (needs space), S. tenuissima.

Shrubby: Rosemary, cistus, rock rose (Helianthemum), Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), pittosporum.

Groundcover: Bugle (Ajuga), black lilyturf (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’.

SHADY

Bulbous: Snowdrop, bluebell, Anemone blanda and A. nemorosa, Cyclamen hederifolium.

Perennial: Aquilegia (some are short-lived, but they self-seed), bergenia, Geranium maccrorhizum, Japanese anemone, male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas), hart’s-tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium).

Grassy: Pheasant’s tail grass (Anemanthle lessoniana), Carex ‘Evergold’.

Shrubs: Box, holly, skimmia, mahonia, Christmas box (Sarcococca).

Groundcover: Bugle (Ajuga), periwinkle (Vinca major and V. minor).

Friend of the birds and bees?

Join like-minded people at the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland’s Wildlife-Friendly Gardening seminar at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, on Saturday, March 5th. Speakers are Éanna Ní Lamhna, Dermot O’Neill and Niall Hatch. €65 (includes light lunch). Booking essential: 01-2353912; rhsi.ie