Greening Grey British Front Gardens

Most front gardens are under-used and under-loved. I read a shocking statistic that over 7.2 million front gardens have been paved or cemented over due to lack of parking and ease of maintanence. If you think about the acreage of potential flower growing and wildlife havens that is destroyed, it's time to reclaim the front garden.

They often have to be mutli use areas, with bins, bikes, car park space and front paths taking up the majority of the space. The important thing is to maximise the potential wildlife areas, such as this sedum wheelie bin housing Garden's & Stuff created for a client. This front garden was turned into a urban allotment dispersed with edible crabapple trees, perenial fruit bushes and raised beds.

Even if you do have a paved over space, you can rectify this by creating containers that can irrigate themsleves and planting a large number of plants to attract wildlife. The RHS has launched the Greening Grey Britain campaign to try and stop the increase of 'grey' in our front gardens.

From the RHS website -

"The RHS 2015 Greening Grey Britain Report reveals that three times as many front gardens are paved over compared to ten years ago, a total increase of 15 square miles of ‘grey’, and that plant cover in front gardens has decreased by as much as 15%. Over five million front gardens now have no plants growing in them, 7.24 million are nearly totally paved over and four and a half million front gardens are completely paved over."

If you would like any advice on how to make the most of your front garden, please get in touch. We try and make all our wheelie bin housing, sheds and bike covers out of reclaimed timber, with sedum rooves. Let's try and reclaim our front gardens and get GREENING GREY BRITAIN!