We were tasked with bringing a touch of the South of France to this large front garden space. Their love of big palms and grasses lead the design and we worked closely together to draw up a plan that combined both impressive architectural specimens and softer planting. The front garden is south facing with great light so we were able to use many plants that are common to Mediterranean and Californian gardens. We sourced three beautiful olive trees, a multi stem Eucalyptus debeuzevillie and a huge Chamaerops humilis to be the main attractions along with a lovely, mature Nerium oleander. We then combined these with grasses such as Pennisetum, Festuca and Stipa as well as small flowering shrubs and perennials.
We found and fell in love with some unusually large Astellia and these worked really well to help blend the more architectural elements of the planting with the softer, grassier planting. It may seem an odd choice but we also used some Cornus alba ‘Siberica’ with the grasses and perennials. The red stems look really striking against the other plants – making it all a little more unusual. Finally, we used Dodonea to screen the the parking area from the house. The colour of the foliage works beautifully with both the olive trees and the eucalyptus as well as picking up on the red brick tones of the house.
We love the end result as do our clients. It is a great to see a front garden space focussed on greenery rather than vehicles.