4 Amazing Small Front Garden Designs

Many households now have two, three or even more cars, as more youngsters live at home with mum and dad for longer. This has led to the paving over of many small front gardens making them bleak, unattractive and also bad for the environment as precious rainfall is lost to the main drains. However, with creative professional design, your front garden can be both functional and beautiful.

Here are some of our more recent small garden and driveway designs:

Make it Warm and Welcoming

If parking is the priority in your small front garden, and you still want it to look warm and welcoming:

Identify areas where you don’t need to drive, such as corners and edges and add beautiful plants to soften and add colour to the space.

Design the space so the eye is drawn to the front door, by installing a generous landing in a contrasting finish or colour to the driveway.

Maybe flank it with attractive plants in stylish containers, to make a welcoming and inviting feel.

Consider your driveway paving materials:

A good landscape professional can offer alternatives to the standard brindle concrete block paver - remember the surface material is a relatively small part of the overall cost. For just a bit more investment you can choose something that’s more original and that really compliments your housefront.

Designing For Privacy

This is something of a challenge as open, easy access for vehicles is usually a must in a small front garden. The obvious choices are high fences or walls and solid gates but for kerb appeal, consider something other than standard close board fencing or plain brickwork:

There are a lot of very nicely finished timber fences available now and a little detailing in a brick wall really lifts it visually.

If you are obligated to keep fences or walls below a metre high at the front, sensitive and strategic planting behind the front fence can help.

If you have enough depth, you can also set taller plants or other screenings back from the boundary. You could consider situating your driveway to one side, which makes this easier.

Fancy or Plain Paving?

Contrasting coloured drive edges, patterns or motifs in the hard surfaces are popular and can work to good effect.

Always ensure a strong contrast, as wear and soiling of the surface with use will dull the original colours, plus:

Be careful of over-elaboration, which can look twee or fussy in a small front garden space!

It’s sometimes better to make the associated landscaping the star of the show and leave the drive as a more neutral area.

Where detailing does work well is to use it to lead the eye along the ‘desire lines’ you want visitors to take (usually towards the front door).

It can also clearly delineate pedestrian spaces from car parking areas.

Ecological Solutions

Drive surfaces that are porous help retain rainwater in the garden and reduce pressure on the main drainage system. As an alternative to block paving consider good old-fashioned loose gravel for a traditional look (and an early warning of approaching visitors, wanted or otherwise)!

On sloping gardens gravel will gradually move downhill so instead, choose gravel with honeycomb stabilisation trays which retain the natural gravel look and also the gravel itself.

As long as you don’t expect stripes and a rich green carpet, grass can also be sown into similar trays for a really ‘green’ driveway solution. This works particularly well for occasional rather than routine parking, as the latter can cause the grass to die out due to shade.

A Unique Challenge

Your small front garden has to fulfil many functions:

It must look great all year round, as you see it every time you leave and return home!

It presents the face of your property to the world.

It’s a buffer from the public domain beyond.

And of course, you have to be able to park cars on it!

This makes for a unique design challenge which Haywood Landscapes have risen to on multiple occasions, across Kent and the South East.

Book a call with us to discuss your front garden design solution, or if you’re not ready yet, take a look through some of our garden creations.