The death of the British 'front garden' : Have you concreted over yours yet?
Scott Cheg
Posts: 393 Forum Member
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http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32780242
I remember as a kid all the front gardens were immaculate on our street, no doubt to give a great first impression of what was inside
Now with more houses having 2 or 3 or even 4 cars and a requirement to park them... And also a general laziness that makes gardening seem not as worthwhile.... Seems the front gardens days are numbered.
Ours is gravel...
More and more urban flooding caused by the desire to concrete over all our garden spaces... Patios etc...
RIP Front Gardens
I remember as a kid all the front gardens were immaculate on our street, no doubt to give a great first impression of what was inside
Now with more houses having 2 or 3 or even 4 cars and a requirement to park them... And also a general laziness that makes gardening seem not as worthwhile.... Seems the front gardens days are numbered.
Ours is gravel...
More and more urban flooding caused by the desire to concrete over all our garden spaces... Patios etc...
RIP Front Gardens
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Comments
I had all the paving taken up in the back garden and laid to lawn.
People are now to busy or lazy to do gardening. It is sad seeing so much concrete now which does aid the flooding along with the un-kept ditches where most of the water use to go.
Not many seem to take a great deal of pride in theirs nowadays. Saddens me seeing so many unkempt shyteholes .... doesn't take 5 mins to pull up a few weeds and have a sweep up. Lazy gits!
We make the most of the paved area but having large shrubs and bushes, we have mexican orange blossom, a buddleia, lavender, big rosemary, some cottage plants, huge planters for our toms and 3 other bushes that I dont know the name of!
Our back garden is about half paved and half grass and beds.
Only one car fits on the drive though so if we wanted both of them, we would have to change the front garden.
We did that 20-odd years ago to fit two cars width wise, so this is nothing new. The tarmac is water-permeable/porous and if this was compulsory for all types of driveway materials, it would reduce the excessive water runoff problem.
And roadway parking should be banned unless the driveway is fully occupied!
Im not sure Im suggesting its anything new!!
I save the space for my OH by parking outside when I get home from work and leave the drive free for when he gets in. When I park in the drive, by the time he gets home, someone has parked outside
I did a job for a bloke once who's entire aim was to ensure every last CM was able to be used to park cars as he was a car nut, made a fortune flogging the plants he wanted ripped out to others but now he's older and not quite so wanting 5 "project cars" anymore and his friends don't turn up so much he's regretting the fact that the place is a sterile strip that his kids can't really play as much as he would like.
Not you but the media (or RHS) are suggesting that it's a new thing, last 10 years, but it's been gradual over the last 25 years or more. I can remember people doing it back in the 1970s!
I take your point about having to protect your parking space outside, people should only be allowed to park outside other people's houses if they are visitors, or have first turned their front garden into a driveway and it's occupied (or soon will be). Mandatory driveways for all car owners, the RHS would love that!!
Currently my back garden has a shed in it and a rotary clothes-line. If I could have the extra space at the back, rather than at the front, there'd be enough room to make a proper little recreational area.
Back gardens are where it's at. :cool:
I know of so many streets that used to be beautifully kept with front gardens full of flower beds, magnolia trees, ornamental cherries etc.
Now they've nearly all been ruined with ghastly tarmacked drives, and boring gravelled bits.
And that's not just down to parking. Some of these houses have garages and a drive besides. Why the **** does no-one keep their car in the garage anymore? That's what it's for.
A typical urban 1930s semi now has:
- a wholly tarmacked front area, often with no visible flora at all (apart from possibly a solitary cheap plastic planter with some dying supermarket petunia in it)
- gravel.
- UPVC windows - Aaaaarrrghhh!
- and... this is the worst... a massive flat screen TV mounted on the chimney breast in the front room, where they've ripped out the period fireplace to make way for it.
Contemptible.
Then again my road access is at the back. It used to be all grass, weeds and hedges when we moved in. Now the end 4m is hard landscaped, with a small drive, shed and wheelie bins space. The rest of it is now lawns, flower beds and gravel, and even the driveway has a car port/pergola over it with plants growing up it, and will hopefully one day have a green roof.
I think keeping green spaces is very important to make an area look and feel nice, and there should be rules about driveways being absorbent to help prevent flooding.
However my front garden (and all the ones on my road) is so clay-ey that even though it's all grass, flowerbeds and gravel it still becomes waterlogged in the rain and runs off down the hill to cause the stream in the greenfield below us to flash flood regular, but the council don't seem concerned and plan to build houses on it.
I do think front gardens look nice but I'm just not cut out to be a gardener and it is hard to find time when you work full time. We also have a reasonable sized back garden to look after.