Design and construction

Gates and gardens

What does your front gate say about you? Do you even have a gate, or is the entrance to your property open? Sometimes plants, or pillars, can create the way in, or a path or driveway shows the way to your front door.

Is your house your castle? I know I’d like to get home sometimes and pull up the drawbridge. We all scurry through our front gardens to get ‘home’ as quickly as possible and almost ignore this part of our property. We park the cars and the garden is secondary as we fumble for keys, carrying as much shopping as possible, or retrieving small, sleepy children from car seats.

Your front garden says so much about you. Years ago, you would always see women outside their house, sweeping down the front path and closing their gate to the world – shouting at short-trousered boys to “Get off that wall, you!”. We rarely stand around in the front now and pass the time of day with passers-by. Our home is a closed space, defended against the unknown.

If you decide to sell your house, a prospective buyer will often drive by to look at the house from the outside. Does your front garden do your house justice? Does the outside reflect what they’ll find inside?

If you have pillars for a gate, then do add one to your property. There is something very reassuring about closing the gate behind you as you come home. If you have small children, a gate will stop them careering out onto the road. Even running onto the path has its dangers if a cyclist or skateboarder has decided to use your path for practice.

Larger properties can have automatic gates, with opening devices inside your car that operate as you drive along the road approaching your drive. A large set of oak gates with an entry system will cost around £10,000 and will make your home completely secure. Metal ones are less expensive and more contemporary, but make your home look more industrial.

Antique gates are available from reclamation yards and there are some wonderful historic pieces available. These can be used inside the garden too, by creating somewhere very different for climbers. Think of using these instead of trellis or fencing, or use a large, oldgate to divide up your garden.

Have a look at the Drummonds website for real inspiration. It sells architectural antiques and reclaimed building materials. See: www.drummonds-arch.co.uk

Plants

Going grey

When we talk about colour in the garden, we often think of purples, pinks, whites and blues. The colour grey rarely gets mentioned, but grey is the perfect backdrop to all of these colours. Grey keeps things calm and ordered. It’s a restful colour and grey plants should be used in key groups to provide a break between brighter coloured areas in your border.

There are grey plants that also have texture and depth to its foliage. They look velvety and sumptuous. Stachys Lanata is the woolly Lamb’s Ears plant. I can’t resist pulling off a leaf and rubbing it against the children’s cheeks as though they were still tiny. The boys complain (“get off Mum!”), but the girls curl up like kittens. I’d like to carry a leaf around in my pocket every day. They remind me of the flannelette sheets is had as a child on winter nights.

My other favourite grey plant is Artemisia. The finely cut foliage – like filigree – looks fabulous with deep burgundy red roses and is great for cutting and bringing indoors too. Sedum – the ice plant – has a grey-green leaf that is so useful right throughout the year. It starts off quite early in spring and has the additional benefit of the flat flower heads in late summer that the butterflies and bees find irresistible.


Things to do

Overgrown borders

Everything’s gone mad – especially with all the rain. The plants have all recovered from last year’s drought and sent out exploring root parties to find the water table. They don’t have far to look. Trees seem to be covered in large, glossy leaves. Our island is green when it’s usually a crispy brown colour this time of the year.

The fruit trees were covered last year – they were so stressed from the lack of water they thought it was their last chance to produce – but this year the fruit yield seems lower. Don’t worry about this. They’ll drink and repair this year and reward you with abundant crops next year. Let all of your plants have a recovery year.

Check large shrubs and cut them back after flowering if they need a prune. Remember that some shrubs will flower on the growth they make this year. If you prune them back too hard, you’ll lose next years flowers. Keep cutting back the flowering herbaceous plants, and they should send up new flowering spikes. Cut off spent roses – unless you’re waiting for the hips – and cut back climbers as they finish their first flush of flowers too.

The garden is so abundant at this time of the year. If you feel it’s getting overgrown, don’t be tempted to start cutting back too hard and making space. Enjoy it. It will all be there to sort out in the winter but, for now, let the garden have it’s head and go mad. It’s been waiting for this moment.