The plot of land from the house to the roadway is usually called a front garden, and the fence separating it from the road is called a palisade. In a small area, most often there are flower beds, a beautifully designed path leading to the house, an arch in flowers, compositions of low trees and stones. This is the place where you can embody the most daring design decisions, and the opportunity to create an original front garden in front of the house with your own hands.
Before you start decorating the front garden in front of the house, you should get acquainted with the variety of adjacent territories and their features.
From the point of view of openness, front gardens are divided into two types:
- Open – without a fence. The area adjacent to the house is perfectly visible both from the porch and from the roadway. Most often it is a neatly trimmed lawn with flower beds and a path leading to the entrance.
- Closed – fenced off from the street by a hedge or fence (forged, brick, wood, wicker, stone, metal mesh).
The open front garden is clearly visible from the road, shrubs, flower beds, decor are visible. High barriers are excluded
A striking example of a closed front garden is a courtyard surrounded by a high hedge. No dust or noise penetrates the roadway
Some designers, when drawing up a project, ask the owners of the house what is more important for them: personal preferences or the opinion of neighbors and passers-by. Depending on the opinion, the front gardens were conditionally divided into two types:
- Russian type. Everything that is outside the windows of the house should, first of all, delight the eyes of the owners, rather than guests and neighbors. Accordingly, the view from the windows will be more attractive than from the road. Most likely, the site in front of the house will be closed on all sides by a fence, albeit not always deaf, or by a dense hedge. But it will be decorated with all the heart: and painted wooden decor, and clay figurines, and numerous lush flower beds.
- European type. Everything here is arranged according to strict standards. The verified geometry of the lines, neatly trimmed shrubs and trees, smooth lawns, impeccably decorated flower beds and paths. An open type is often used so that any passer-by can appreciate the quality and level of design.
The front garden in the Russian style is distinguished by the presence of many wood products
On the European courtyard, everything is calculated and thought out: from the shape of the steps to an exotic plant in a flowerpot
Some homeowners choose front garden designs based on their style: romantic, Mediterranean, Japanese, rustic.
Many people ask: how to decorate a front garden with your own hands quickly and inexpensively? This is easy to do by building a simple picket fence.
Low-rise picket fence, painted white, blends in perfectly with the surrounding greenery
A low picket fence only conditionally fulfills a protective function, most likely, it serves for decoration and zoning. Simple, but neat and even front gardens made of picket fence are an option for owners who want to try their hand at improving the plot on their own. Having at hand a small set of tools and materials, you can slowly assemble a curly or the simplest hedge for a front garden.
Required wood material:
- bars with a section of 100×100 mm;
- boards 25×80 mm;
- horizontal strips (crossbars) for fastening a picket fence 40×100 mm.
Tools and additional materials:
- shovel;
- saw (jigsaw);
- a hammer;
- screwdriver (drill, screwdriver);
- self-tapping screws, bolts, nuts, washers;
- mixture for concreting;
- hinges for wickets.
To begin with, you should dig the pillars into the ground at the same distance from each other, starting from the corners. A more practical option is to install them on concreted metal anchors: a hole is pulled out, a pipe (tin or asbestos-cement) is inserted into it, a galvanized anchor is inserted into the pipe, all this is poured with a mixture of sand and cement. Crossbars are screwed to the posts, boards are screwed to them. Externally, the wicket is a part of the fence, fixed with a loop on a support post.
The diagram clearly shows how to properly fix the boards on anchors and crossbars
The next step is painting the boards and posts. In order for the picket fence to serve for a long time, it should be treated with a special composition against mold and fungi, and then paint based on mineral pigments and alkyd resins should be applied. This combination will protect the wood from decay and preserve its natural texture.
You can learn more about the technology of erecting a fence from a wooden picket fence from the material:
A bright and cheerful picket fence will turn out if the boards are painted in different colors. If you have children, they will be happy to help.
It is not difficult to build a front garden with your own hands, it is equally important to learn how to take care of it. Here are some tips for picking up your picket fence:
- Wood perfectly absorbs moisture, so it is necessary that the elements of the picket fence are at least 15 cm above the ground. For the same reason, you need to get rid of the thickets of grass growing along the fence.
- The picket fence needs to be renewed about once every three years. In this case, you can change the color of the fence – the appearance of the front garden will immediately change.
- The tree dries up, cracks appear that can be easily repaired: carefully putty, and then wipe with sandpaper and paint.
- The hinges on the gate must be lubricated so that they do not creak.
Another option for a picket fence is metal. Its construction will cost more, but it will also last much longer.
How to arrange a front garden without using complex technical techniques and construction? Of course, with the help of plants.
Vegetation must be selected based on the general style, as well as depending on its orientation, practical or purely decorative. Consider several groups of plants:
Fruit and berry bushes and trees
Sprawling apple and pear trees are more suitable for the backyard; standard plants will become a decoration of the front garden. These are not the usual bushes, wild and unkempt, but crowns decorated on an even trunk. Standard currants, raspberries or gooseberries look unusual, but this is just that neat decorative touch that will give the front garden some sophistication. It is better to buy a properly designed tree in a nursery, where specialists know the secrets of its cultivation.
A neat rose on a trunk can become the focal point of a front garden
With the help of short trees and shrubs, you can create a hedge. For this purpose, hawthorn, barberry, rosehip are suitable. Their delicate flowers will decorate the front garden in springtime, and bright fruits and foliage in autumn.
You can learn how to grow a hedge in the country from the material:
An arch in a hedge with flowering plants looks romantic and a little mysterious
Coniferous plants
Beautiful, geometrically correct compositions are created using small coniferous and spherical trees. There should not be many of them, since plants lose their attractiveness from overloading the landscape with plantings of the same type. An exception is the device of a hedge: trees are planted in a row in front of the facade or along the perimeter of the entire site.
With the help of coniferous trees in the middle of the front garden, you can arrange a small rockery, the main thing is that the plants are low
It is better to choose breeds that easily tolerate a haircut: boxwood, yew, dwarf spruce, thuja. Tall trees are absolutely not suitable for decorating the front garden – they cover the facade of the house and the rest of the decor with their crowns.
Flower beds and flower beds
If the climate permits, the best option is continuous flowering beds, which can delight the eye from early spring to late autumn. Otherwise, you can use decorative flower beds, decorated with stones or arranged in clay and wooden pots. To make the flower beds unique, the planted flowers are combined with garden figurines, rocky hills, and wooden crafts. Mallows, roses, peonies, dahlias, asters and phlox look great against the background of the rest of the greenery.
The material on creating a flower bed of continuous flowering will also be useful:
When arranging flower beds and flower beds, you can use the most daring color combinations, for example, red and purple
Even a modest wooden fence can be made luxurious with a lush flower arch.
Climbing plants are successfully used, especially when the front garden is divided into several zones or they want to protect it from the roadway. Clematis, wisteria, honeysuckle, kampsis, climbing roses or vines are allowed on the trellises – in a short period of time they are able to create a real green screen.
It is not necessary to build a front garden using traditional principles. You can combine design techniques, stylistic nuances, various materials – the main thing is that the site in front of the house is in harmony with the building and is attractive.
