Assess the Site Before You Buy a Single Plant

Most British front gardens are small, exposed and awkward. A typical Victorian terrace plot might be four metres deep, north-facing behind a boundary wall, baked in summer and shaded by mid-afternoon. Before you spend a penny, spend twenty minutes with a notebook.

Check how many hours of direct sun the bed actually receives in June — front gardens on the shaded side of a street often get two or three, not the six you assumed. Test the soil by squeezing a handful: if it holds a ball that glints when rubbed, you have clay; if it trickles through your fingers, you have sand or chalk. Both are workable, but they need different plants and different mulches.

Also measure the path. Anything narrower than 900mm feels tight when you are carrying shopping, and a mature shrub leaning over the walkway will annoy you for a decade. Choose plants that finish at the size you want, rather than ones you must fight twice a year.

Evergreen Structure Does the Heavy Lifting

Kerb appeal comes from shape, not flowers. A front garden with three or four strong evergreen forms — clipped domes, an upright column, a low informal hedge — looks intentional in February, which is exactly when you need it.

Box is now a gamble because of blight and box moth, so consider alternatives that clip just as well. Ilex crenata gives you small, glossy, box-like leaves on a plant that shrugs off disease. Taxus baccata (yew) is slower but nearly indestructible, tolerates shade and regrows from old wood. Lonicera nitida is fast and cheap, though it needs two clips a year to stay tidy. For a compact dome, Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Golf Ball' or a clipped Euonymus fortunei will hold their shape with one light trim in late spring.

Repeat the same plant rather than collecting one of everything. Repetition is what makes a small space read as designed from the pavement.

Drought-Tolerant Shrubs That Earn Their Place

Once the bones are in, fill the gaps with plants that genuinely cope with dry summers and a hosepipe ban. The following are reliable across most of the UK, provided they are watered properly for their first two summers and then left alone:

• Lavandula angustifolia — plant in full sun, gravel-mulched, and cut back lightly after flowering, never into old wood.
• Salvia rosmarinus — upright forms make a useful grey-green column; hardy in most sheltered spots.
• Cistus — short-lived but glorious, flowering for weeks in a hot, free-draining border.
• Choisya ternata — glossy evergreen with fragrant white flowers in late spring; tolerates partial shade.
• Sarcococca confusa — for the shady, north-facing plot, with winter scent worth bending down for.
• Nepeta and Geranium — soft perennials that knit together the base of shrubs and hide bare soil.

The watering rule that matters: soak deeply once a week rather than little and often, and keep it up for two growing seasons. After that, most of these plants will fend for themselves.

Seasonal Bulbs: The Best Value in the Garden

Nothing delivers more kerb appeal per pound than bulbs, and nothing is easier. Plant them once and they return every year with no watering, feeding or pruning.

Layer them for a long season of interest. Push Narcissus and Galanthus into the gaps between shrubs in September, scatter Crocus along a path edge, and add Allium 'Purple Sensation' for a late-spring lift that dries beautifully on the plant. In shade, Cyclamen hederifolium will naturalise under a hedge and flower into autumn.

Let bulb foliage die back naturally for six weeks before tidying. It looks scruffy for a fortnight and feeds the bulb for years.

Gravel, Ground Cover and the War on Weeds

Weeding is the chore that kills enthusiasm, so design it out. After planting, spread a 5–7cm layer of horticultural gravel or bark mulch over the whole bed. Gravel suits Mediterranean planting and reflects light onto a dark frontage; bark suits woodland plants and shady plots.

Under the mulch, use dense ground cover to close the soil surface. Geranium macrorrhizum, Alchemilla mollis, hardy Dryopteris ferns and Hakonechloa macra all suppress weeds once established. Avoid landscape fabric under gravel — it clogs, tears and looks dreadful within three years.

If you have room for two large pots either side of the door, fill them with something sculptural and evergreen, and treat the pots as part of the composition rather than an afterthought.

A Planting Recipe for a Typical Terrace Frontage

For a three-by-four-metre bed in partial sun, try this. Two clipped Ilex crenata domes flanking the path. A loose hedge of Lavandula angustifolia along the boundary wall. Three Choisya ternata spaced evenly behind. A drift of Nepeta at the front edge, Geranium macrorrhizum beneath the shrubs, and 200 Narcissus bulbs pushed randomly through the lot in September. Gravel mulch, one clip in May, one cut-back of the perennials in March. That is roughly two days' work a year for a front garden that looks cared for in every month — and that is precisely what kerb appeal means.