Postcards from the front garden: Summer 2021

My goodness, it’s now Autumn and I’ve not posted anything about the front garden for some time. I thought I’d share photo’s of the front garden I took over summer so you can see how it’s growing.

June: not long after the previous hedge alongside the street footpath has been removed and new plants added.

View from the left side of the footpath. To the left is the wooden bin store, then you see a couple of young trees and lots of plants, though most are still young as they were only recently planted. It is bordered by a green beech hedge.
From the left side of the street footpath
An overview of a border with bright oranges, reds and yellows, and a mix of foliage. There are also some wooden planters and terracotta pots, plus a small birdbath towards the top right.
The house side of the front garden
And overview of the garden and the front of the house from the right side of the footpath. It looks a bit bare as the plants were only added recently and it will take time to fill up.
From the right side of the street footpath.
Blue papery-like flowers, with a bumblebee hovering on the right edge.
Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’
A yellow poppy with papery like yellow leaves, with cream and green in the centre.
Meconopsis cambrica – Welsh poppy
A couple of stems of small deep blue flowers.
Salvia x sylvestris ‘Viola Klose’
Looking at a section of a border with orange, red, yellow and blue flowers and green foliage.
Geum ‘Mrs J. Bradshaw’ (red) and ‘Totally Tangerine’ (orange)
A collection of small orange flowers.
Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’
A tall stem with lots of individual purple-blue flowers. Those at the bottom are fully open, and those at the top are closed and look cream as they develop.
Lupinus ‘Gallery Blue’
Several yellow-gold flowers on the top of a green stem.
Primula bulleyana

July: it’s filling out even after just a month.

An overview of part of the front garden from the right side of the treet. There is a mix of planting including two young trees, a horse-shoe shaped paved path, more plants and the house to the rear.
At the beginning of the month.
Looking at a yellow flower that saucer-shaped, from the side angle. You can see a tall yellow Pisil in the middle (female parts) and lots of light-orange stamens underneath it. It is surrounded by closed green buds and dark green foliage.
Hypericum perforatum ‘Hidcote’ – St John’s Wort
A single red buttercup-like flower with orange pistils and stames in the middle.
Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’
A c. 60cm tall perennial with purple spikes and in front of it is a low growing matte of purple bell-shaped flowers.
Salvia x sylvestris ‘Viola Klose’ (above) and Campanula ‘Clockwise Deep Blue’ (below)
A larger daisy-like flower with flame orange and yellow petals and a blackish middle.
Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’
Several small purple flowers with a Painted Lady Butterfly on one, which is black and orange.
Aubrieta ‘Kitte Blue’ and Painted Lady butterfly
A single flower that has several layers of petals, with the top layer showing the brilliant orange and yellow markings.
Potentilla ‘William Rollison’
A beautiful red flower with it's petals hanging below in a relaxed fashion, from the centre part, which has yellow stamens and pistols around it's edge, and is black in the middle.
Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’
A collection of several small purple bell-shaped flowers, with the focus on one to the middle-right.
Campanula ‘Clockwise Deep Blue’
Several deep red upright flowers.
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’
A single open orange flower with lots of unopened flowers beside it.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Carmin Brillant’
An view of the street-facing edge of the front garden. In the forfront is a bush with bright yellow flowers and to its right, a perennial with 30cm long stalks of purple flowers. Behind are flowers of other colours including orange and red, as well as a thick green beech hedge.
Hypericum ‘Hidcote’ (yellow, left) and Salvia nemorosa ‘Ostfriesland’ (purple, right)
A clump of small sky-blue flowers
Lobelia Trailing Fountain Blue
A snapshot of part of the front garden at the end of the month, with lots more growth and a mix of orange, red, purple and blue flowers.
At the end of the month.

August: lots of growth and colour. A lot more yellows flowering now too.

Looking from the left side of the footpath over the garden. A mix of plants in blues, purples, reds, oranges and yellows, plus two young trees, a quince in the middle and a Acer griseum on the left.
From the left side of the street footpath.
Several stems of star-shaped red flowers with orange sections in the middle of the flowers. Along with the stems of flowers, you can see the green sword-shaped leaves of the plant.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Red King’
Multiple stems of star-shaped yellow-orange flowers. Along with the stems of flowers, you can see the green sword-shaped leaves of the plant. Beside these are other plants including a mix or ornamental grasses, and orange flowers.
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Irish Dawn’
Close focus on some star-shaped bright red flowers on a stem with other flowers still as buds.
Crocosmia ‘Twilight Fairy Crimson’
A section of the front garden looking from the house towards the road. It's filled with plants of different colours including yellow, red, orange and purple.
The yellow here is Rudbeckia fulgida var sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’. And you can see the purple Verbena bonariensis has taken off.
Multiple stems of flowers that are a mix of red, orange and burnt orange colours. This is the different stages of this plants' flowers. The newer flowers are deep red, then orange then burnt orange.
The different stages of flowering of Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’. The youngest flowers are red, then they change to burnt orange, then orange.
A section of the front garden, focusing on the young Acer griseum tree in the middle of the photo. If you look close you can see the mix of peeled back bark along the trunk. To either side and under the tree are grasses and flowering perennials.
The bark is starting to peel and create that specific Acer griseum form. I look forward to seeing this in December with the winter light shining upon and through it.

Just a reminder, this is how it looked at the beginning of June.

And overview of the garden and the front of the house from the right side of the footpath. It looks a bit bare as the plants were only added recently and it will take time to fill up.

The garden in late August.

Looking from the right side of the footpath over the garden. A mix of plants in blues, purples, reds, oranges and yellows.
From the right side of the street footpath, towards the end of August. The Verbena bonariensis has self-seeded and is really doing it’s thing. I love it!
An overview of the front garden from the from of the house looking towards the street. In the middle is a quince tree with a path around it. On both sides of the path are a mix of flowering plants and evergreen shrubs.
Looking from the front door towards the street, at the end of the month. The garden has really filled out.

We had planned on adding a short fence railing to the garden’s street side, and this has finally been done.

Here was before…

Looking from the street towards a house, mainly hidden behind a large mixed hedge. Below the hedge is a wall separating our garden from the footpath. This was taken in April 2021.
Back in April, before the hedge was removed.
With the hedge gone, new plants have been added and have been growing over the summer. The wall separating our garden from the footpath has nothing sitting on top of it. This is the front garden yesterday.
The previous day.

I went for something a little different, but I think it’s quirky and lovely. What do you think?!

Voila! Looking straight on, the new fence railings have been added along the wall separating our garden from the footpath. They are black steel with a top and bottom horizontal line and some wavy mixed vertical-like likes with rounded heads. They kind of look like stems of plants. A bit quirky and not like the normal straight ones with balls or arrows on top.
New railings – early September.

I am very pleased with how the garden has filled out. The major work of redeveloping the front garden has now been finished. There is, of course, general ongoing maintenance, and some editing to do, particularly before the Verbena bonariensis takes over. Overall, I feel like my aim to make the front garden a ‘hot’ (as in colour) garden, is getting there. Now, to add more bulbs for next Spring…

This is just looking at the railings a bit closer and at an angle. You can see lots of plants behind them, including a mesh of tall purple Verbena bonariensis.

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