Front Garden, Mount Merion

Style: Contemporary urban front garden

Size: Approx. 12 x 20 m

Features: Evergreen structural planting with colourful summer flowering perennials.

The design brief was to create a lush welcoming garden with lots of colour for the summer and all year round interest.

The planting design of this front garden is based on both shady and sunny areas and plants that thrive in these conditions. The winding line of the mixed perennial border – a mixture of woodland and sunny - welcomes the owners and their visitors with its lush green planting and splashes of hot colours of perennials.

The planting scheme is anchored by evergreen Ilex aquifolium and the Portuguese laurel hedge in the background. The eye is drawn to the soft textural foliage of the Japanese maple  Acer palmatum ‘Deshojo’

Magnolia ‘Susan’ heralds the spring with its heavenly scented deep pink blossom.

The mature silver birch tree provides dappled shade and is under-planted with the tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica. They are the most impressive of all the ferns that can be grown in our gardens. The large, dark-green, roughly textured fronds spread in a canopy from 2-4m in diameter and are formed in flushes every spring.

The front of the border provides interest for sunnier parts, with plenty of flowers to attract essential wildlife, including the perennially popular Achillea, Phlox, Aster, Persicaria cultivars.

Evergreen grasses Carex ‘Frosted curls’ and Carex flagellifera are interweaving with perennials and gives softness and movement to the planting scheme. 

Carpet roses are perfect colourful goers for the most of the summer.