White themed front garden in Brighton, Sussex, with a bespoke recycling store and spiky exotic planting.
Large family garden within an area of beech trees including a formal garden and prairie style planting and wild flower lawn.
Front garden in Brighton, Sussex, with Victorian tiled path, black slate paving and bespoke bin store.
Coastal front garden in Hove designed to create a small patio terrace area set amongst lush, mostly evergreen plants and chosen to increase privacy and for its coastal location.
Front Gardens
Planning
Although usually smaller than our back gardens, front gardens have a lot to do.
As well as being somewhere we are likely to be walking through all year round, they also provide any visitors with their first impressions of you and your taste.
So in all, a front garden needs a path to the front door, often a place to park , be attractive all year and sometimes screening for functional items like bins all in a space likely to be smaller than the back garden.
What this amounts to is that a front garden needs very careful planning!
New Laws
Another factor in planning your front path and parking area is recent legislation concerning the use of non-permeable paving.
From October 2008, you will need planning permission if you are going to cover more than 5sq m with a non -permeable surface that allows water to run off onto the public highway. At Green Rooms we are able to design a garden with a proper drainage plan using materials that allow rainwater to penetrate the ground below, ensuring that you combine driveway paving with an attractive and welcoming garden. This also means we can ensure we design the space without the need for time consuming and expensive planning permission.
Front Path
Your path should be planned broadly along the natural 'desire line' from the road to your door and have clearly defined edges with structured landscaping or a barrier of planting.
It is also important to design an arrival area at the front door. Create a welcoming atmosphere, with attractive planting in pots or borders and a light, so you can find your keys at night!
Planting
We use the front garden all year round so it’s vital it contains some evergreen and strong structural planting elements. Formal gardens work well in a smaller space and Mediterranean planting can also work. For example a central olive tree standard with lavender hedging. Climbers can be useful to soften fencing that is used to screen things like bins. Plants with strong smells are particularly welcome by the door.
At Green Rooms we pride ourselves on our knowledge of plants and putting them in the best place for you and ensuring they are planted where they will thrive!
Services
At green rooms we are a full service garden design and build company which brings you the convenience of having only one point of contact and some cost benefits too.
However we also like to be flexible and can tailor exactly which of our services you need for a totally bespoke garden solution. For the sake of clarity we split our services into design, build and planting.
We also offer a free consultation to help work out everything you want from your garden or space.
Design
A number of design services are offered. At it’s simplest you may only need a simple layout plan for a beautiful low maintenance planting scheme. At the other end of the scale large complex projects will have detailed technical plans, mood boards and 3d computer generated simulations.
Green rooms recently designed and carried out the work for a total make over on my garden. I thoroughly recommend them for all aspects of the design and works process..Rachel Thomson
Five Ways, Brighton
Build
Green rooms has a team of landscapers with many years of experience, who can complete all aspects of our landscaping projects. From initial clearance to all forms of garden and landscape construction, as well as making sure everything is clean and tidy before we leave!
They have knowledge of what will look good in your garden and it's great to be given a full set of plans. I would happily use them again and recommend them to friends and family.Pamela McKellar
Hove
Plant
Planting is about having plants that look good in places where they will thrive. This takes design skills and detailed plant knowledge of the sort that we pride ourselves at green rooms. It also takes a thorough understanding of your own personal style and what you want in your garden.
From the initial planning, to the building of the pergola, then discussions about the plantings we were very pleased with the way the project was undertaken and absolutely delighted with the finished garden.Joyce Clegg
Sussex Square, Brighton
