Front garden

[plasticpigeon]

Hello. Does anyone know what the front garden of a late Victorian/early Edwardian terrace would have been like??? My garden is around 10 ft long, the house is 15ft wide and thankfully I still have a blue brick path leading to the front door. I know I don't have to be traditional, but so often when I find out what traditional is, it is better than anything i would have come up with myself.

 

[angrybird]

I think the gate would have probably been wrought iron,all the Victorian terraces around my area seem to have ones like this ,and of course most towns and villages had a Blacksmith.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks Angrybird. Luckily we still have a wrought iron gate and a sandstone wall with crenellations on top, so it is the area behind that needs some plants in it that i am wanting to do something with.

 

[angrybird]

Oh sorry! thats me not reading it properly
Have you had a look on Pinterest? they have quite a few victorian front gardens on there.I have found quite a few good ideas from my searches.

 

[essexbearhunter]

Mumsnet had a similar thread:
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardeni...ential-Victorian-Edwardian-garden-have-looked
It mentions the TV progs by Gay Search which I remembered (May 2000)

Jane Webb Loudon wrote several gardening books and her husband wrote in influential Encylopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture.

The Place of Home: English domestic environments, 1914-2000
By Alison Ravetz, Professor Alison Ravetz, R. Turkington contains some interesting insights.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...ge&q=Terraced house gardens Victorian&f=false

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks EBH, I have just bought the front gardens book as it was very cheap. I have an electronic copy of Loudon's cottage farm and villa architecture so thanks for the tip about his wife's publications. I really would like to get the front of the house looking really old fashioned, as I am not allowed to go as far as I'd like inside but can do what i like outside.

 

[Keith Bowman]

I think the gate would have probably been wrought iron,all the Victorian terraces around my area seem to have ones like this ,and of course most towns and villages had a Blacksmith.

Just to set the record straight for future reference, that is almost certainly cast iron, not wrought, and would not have been made by a blacksmith. The Victorians were very good at cast iron - eg Crystal Palace and most big railway station roofs... the gate is in good company.


Pedantic? Who? Me?

 

[plasticpigeon]

However, I think my gate is probably wrought. And for the record, my house is on the left and obscured by the privet, or Ligustrum ovalifolium as some people on this forum prefer. I thankfully don't have that stone cladding or plastic windows.

 

[Keith Bowman]

Agreed! The gate in the new pic is wrought - the other one up above is cast.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'd keep it very simple - rectangular clipped box edging, then either grass or gravel, a box ring in the middle, then within the ring a massed planting of hebe Blue Star interspersed with white alliums. Or, if you can be bothered, change the annuals with every season and rely on cyclamen bulbs for the winter.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Hello Joce, thanks for the input, we are going to have a privet at the front and down the side between us and our neighbour as there is already some privet there but if clipped closely it will look quite like box. I would quite like a bit of grass too as you suggest. Is a box ring an area enclosed by box? That sounds quite formal but I don't think we have enough space for that as the garden is probably only 10 ft deep to the wall, but some kind of bed in the centre would be nice. I'll take a pic of the tiny front garden to show the small space I am talking about!

 

[Penners]

Agreed! The gate in the new pic is wrought - the other one up above is cast.

I agree. I also think that most of the cast patterns are considerably more attractive than the wrought models. Casting allows for very attractive finials.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think formal is good, you don't really have enough space to pull off a blowsy cottage garden. Privet sounds good. A small circle made of clipped box can really be very small indeed, and in the middle either a large stone or lead planter, or a circular bed as before mentioned. It's basically making a simplified knot garden.

 

[Penners]

Privet sounds good.

Excellent idea. It's always good to make your garden as privet as possible.

 

[wobs]

I recently aquired two books in the Hull Then & Now series (books 2&3), which features many houses around us (although not our cuurent house). Most are obscured by lovely cast iron fences, but I'm pretty sure I can see small hedges in the front gardens. These houses are mostly from late 1800s and 1900s.

So I would echo the recommendation of box hedges. Beyond that, I'm not a gardening expert.

Our previous house is actually in book 3.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I'm pretty sold on the idea of something formal now thanks to Joce, and have found quite a few images of town house front gardens such as this one that I like the look of. I definitely want lavender down the path.

http://www.sheilahassock.co.uk/portfolio/?album=1&gallery=12

It seems that gravel paths feature quite heavily in tun of the century front gardens, and that seems a good low maintenance solution. However how would one remove box clippings from the gravel? Would it be really bad to consider swapping the clipped box for something more constructional, like blue brick or edging tiles to make it even lower maintenance?? I saw beds edged in brick at the black country museum which looked quite attractive, in a make do and mend kind of way.

Here is a pic of the space in question, quite small, and unfortunately the task of making it nice will be compounded by having to find a place for 2 bastard wheelie bins. However the most pressing question at the moment is green or golden privet for the front hedge as I will be shifting stuff round this winter.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think you need it to be green, the golden is less architectural. Formal gardens make walls in dark green with yew, or box. I would go for box over privet personally but it's up to you.

No, if you make it with bricks it will look absolutely awful, you can't break the rules of formal gardens like that.

When you're trimming box or privet onto gravel get a good sheet down - like this
http://www.garlandproducts.com/category/garden-tidy-range/garden-sheets/heavy-duty.html

Tuck it right under your plants, and clip carefully using proper topiary shears not electric cutters. Then simply fold up your sheet.

 

[Moo]

Monty Don is not replacing his box hedges, because of box blight. What about yew?

 

[Penners]

I don't think there's any way of totally concealing the existence of your wheelie bins, but I think you can do better than just leaving them "naked" in your garden. I quite like this willow enclosure:

It comes from these people (with whom I have no connection):

http://www.amberleyproducts.co.uk/

 

[plasticpigeon]

It would be nice to hide the bins, but at that price?? Looks like another project to add to the list.

There are two things about a privet hedge that appeal. One is that I believe privet hedges were grown in cities as they could deal with the polluted environment, and also I have lots of privet, probably enough to make either a yellow or green hedge, although the only green I have is what is at the front. There are lots of plants planted closeley so they could be spread out but they are small so would take a while to fill out. This picture is in the Gay Search book recommended by EBH. It just uses wooden edging to the beds, it's not as attractive as box but not so bad and similar to what I saw at the black country museum, so there may be a historical precedent.