The Garden Edit: 7 Design Ideas for a Fabulous Front Garden

There’s a clear distinction between your home’s front and rear gardens.

More often than not, front gardens are a gateway to the rest of your home rather than a space you spend time relaxing in. This can result in them slipping down the priority list or receiving a more pragmatic approach when it comes to design.

But if you’re looking to show the front of your home a little TLC and boost its kerb appeal (even if you’re not selling), this Garden Edit has you covered. We’re going to be sharing a number of ideas that will help you beautify your front garden, creating a welcoming and stylish entrance to your home whatever its size.

Let’s dig in.

Champion symmetry

With most homes, it can be harder to pull off a wild, whimsical country garden look in the front garden. Instead, we’d recommend keeping things more structured and symmetrical. 

For pathways, keep them centred and straight from gate to door (where possible), providing nice even spaces either side for solid bedding plants or a mix of lawn and flower beds. To champion neatness, we’d suggest giving front garden features like paths and flower beds defined borders that strengthen that sense of symmetry.

Go for an evergreen design

Bright blooms are perfect for summer but, come winter, your garden could end up looking sparse and barren without an evergreen design approach. 

To make sure your front garden ideas provide year-round foliage that you never tire of, think carefully about your choice of plants. There’s definitely a place for seasonal blooms, but be sure to complement them with a backdrop of evergreen shrubbery and other decorative touches like hard-wearing lawn ornaments.

The idea here is to ensure that, even in the deepest depths of winter, your front garden has a sense of cheer and colour, despite the unpredictable UK weather.

Keep it practical

From visiting guests to delivery guys, as the entrance to your home, the main purpose of your front garden is to guide people to your door. It also needs to be relatively low-maintenance, as you don’t want to spend hours keeping it in check. 

With this practical approach in mind, keep the layout and design relatively simple and functional – save your meandering walkways and brimming flower beds for the rear of your home.

One idea that keeps maintenance low while delivering a chic look is tiling. Ideal for small front gardens, this idea is guaranteed to make smaller areas feel bigger and keep them looking smart for years. Finish with small clusters of potted plants to add texture and character, but keep them well-pruned.

Complement the structure of your home

When it comes to your front garden, there’s a lot to be said for matching your planting choices to the structural elements of your home, such as windows and doors. This can help to create a sense of cohesion and harmony between the building and its natural surroundings, and to conceal ugly features like ventilation grates.

To pull off this look, go for low-lying plants under windows, then switch to taller plants or climbing trellises between windows and alongside doorways. This undulating height beautifully draws the eye along your property to key focal points. 

The same principle of spacing and heights can be echoed along the other boundaries for a truly unified feel.

Think about long-term kerb appeal

You may not be intending on selling your property any time soon, but it doesn’t hurt to put the right foundations in place early for a stylish front garden. That way, if you come to sell further down the line, you won’t need to do too much to spruce up the front exterior of your home and wow potential buyers.

When designing your front garden, try to consider not only what you like, but what you think other people would like when it comes to making a good first impression. 

We’d suggest keeping the overall design simple and neat to ensure minimal maintenance and universal appeal. For pathways, keep durability and style in mind, favouring a stylish outdoor stone-look tile over concrete slabs to give a sleek and timeless finish. 

Choose climbing plants wisely

Covering up an ugly facade with pretty climbing plants can be a highly effective way to boost the aesthetics of your home’s front garden.

However, some climbing plants can be more pesky than pretty, so choose wisely. Plants like ivy, Boston ivy and climbing hydrangeas attach themselves to mortar, brickwork, guttering and more using suckers. In the long run, this can cause a number of structural issues. 

Instead, go for climbing plants like wisteria, clematis and roses, which can be grown upwards using sturdy wooden trellises that can be attached to the wall and removed if needed.

Avoid trees

If you’re looking to maximise space and aesthetics in your front garden, we’d suggest you shelve any ideas for planting trees.

Firstly, even small tree species can take up a lot of real estate, which is a precious commodity in front gardens. This is especially true if you’re looking for small front garden design ideas, so we’d suggest you opt for shrubs instead to add a little greenery. 

Secondly, it’s important to remember that trees have deep roots and, even if situated away from the front of your house, there’s a chance these roots could begin to interfere with the structural integrity of your home.

Whether you’re designing a small front garden on a budget or you have a larger area to play with, getting creative with the space will instantly make it feel more welcoming and appealing.

We hope the above ideas will give you plenty of inspiration to create your dream front garden, whatever your goals and tastes are.
When it comes to garden paths, check out our extensive range of durable outdoor patio tiles for a winning combination of fashion and function. You can find even more inspiration for your home on our interior design blog.