The front herb garden
Andrew Oldham sings the praises of a herb front garden
I once had a front garden full of dahlias and it was admired by neighbours and by the Wednesday Walkers, the rambling group that passes our cottage once a week. They would stop and take photos of the colours lapping over our front wall, but then we got the builder in. I have forgotten the job he was doing in the house, but he took it on himself to bury my dahlias under four feet of plaster, pea gravel and stone. It was an interesting look to come home to, and what made it even worse was that it was a Wednesday and the walkers saw and looked at me in disgust.
We are all responsible for the death of the foliage-laden front garden: ease of parking or a place for our bins have created spaces that are more concrete than chrysanthemum.
As I watched the Wednesday Walkers leave, tutting I knew I had to do something that would address the fears many of us have around front gardens: being judged and being time poor. After removing the rubble, I was still left with a load of stone and pea gravel and it cried out to be made into raised beds. Stone as edging soaks up the sun during the day and lets it out at night as heat.
Our old stone cottage is warm in winter and cool in summer, our ancestors knew a thing or two about how the climate worked. If I was to create a new front garden, I could go further than the labour-intensive dahliaI could create a garden that fed me, added to nature and didn’t require much tending.
Use the power of nature
The best gardens are those that have developed with nature, gardens that bring in bugs and birds. So I decided to create a low-maintenance herb garden. Now before you start to say: ‘A herb garden as a front garden?’, let me give the reasons for it. Many new-build properties have kitchens that are close to the front garden and they have terrible soil. Many old builds, like my cottage, have been so bashed around that it is pointless to argue where the kitchen was, will be, or is at any time. However, returning from work at the end of a long day and being met by the smell of marjoram, fennel, and chives beats off-road parking any day of the week. It invites me in to sit down, have a nibble, decide what herbs I need for my dinner, and often dictates what I will eat as the season rolls on. It will also bless you with a flood of bees, butterflies, birds and moths drawn to the herbs, benefiting the soul as the herbs help the stomach.
The stone was used in a serpentine sweep and I incorporated the pea gravel into the soil. Herbs love free-draining soil and will thank you for it. However, as a front garden is a sp
