• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Beautify Balham

Beautify Balham

Striving for a greener, cleaner and more beautiful Balham.

  • ABOUT
  • LITTER PICKING
  • TREE PLANTING
  • Balham In BloomBALHAM IN BLOOM
  • DONATE
  • OUR PARTNERS
  • OUR FRIENDS
  • CONTACT US

Hedges

Pollution Busting Plants for Front Gardens

June 16, 2022 by beautifybalham

No matter how small your front garden is, with careful planning you can make it a beautiful and pollution-busting space.

A front garden full of plants is a home, and provides food, for wildlife. Plants do have a hard time with pollution since the leaves need to ‘breathe’ – which means that anything that limits that exchange, such as airborne gasses or if the pores are blocked by dust and grime, will limit their potential.

Balham Front Garden with Grasses and Olive Trees

To create structure: think about a hedge and a tree – both good defences for pollution. However small your garden is, good choices for trees are Amelanchier Lamarckii with their white blossom in spring, followed by black berries and good colour in autumn.

Cordon and espalier trees are space saving too, and offer screening. Stepover Apples take up very little space, as do Crab Apple trees. Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticle’ – an ornamental pear – is an exceptionally good tree for small urban gardens, with its upright, narrow shape, and branches that are smothered with white blossom early in spring. The leaves turn a vibrant red and purple in the autumn before falling and, some years, the tree will produce small inedible brown fruits. It does best in moist but well-draining soil, and in full sun.

Balham Front Garden Box and Olive Tree

Small urban gardens look good with topiary. Box is the choice of many London gardens, although it can succumb to box blight and box tree caterpillar. It responds well to being trimmed, and thrives in the shade and most well-drained soils (chalk, loam or sand). It’s excellent for growing in containers, as topiary, and for training as feature plants.

Yew Ilex Crenata and Lonicera Nitida are excellent alternatives, and are not as slow growing as people think. Yew offers all round greenery with red berries in the autumn. Choisya is also a good alternative as a hedge with its white flowers and glossy green leaves. Pittisporum too makes a great hedge, especially the Variegata, as its leaves add interest.

Pittisporum topiary in Balham

Walls and fences can be clad in small urban gardens. Trachelospermum ‘Jasminoides’ is evergreen with white scented flowers in the summer and is suited to the warmer micro climates of an urban garden.

Euphorbia Characias is great for front gardens as it is evergreen and architectural, offers year-round structure, and has striking acid yellow flowers which team up well with spring tulips.

Urban gardens need hardworking perennial plants – such as hardy geraniums which flower for a long time, do well in the sun or shade, and go well with many other plants. For a contemporary look, ornamental grasses tick the box. They look good for months and don’t take up much space.

One of the hardest looks to get right is the wild flower meadow with plants flowering everywhere. Instead: opt for defined flower beds, straight lines and solid planting. Structure works well in winter too. The easiest way to do this is with a clear path and big pots on either side of the front door.

– Kirsten and the Beautify Balham Team

Filed Under: Beautify Balham, Gardening, Hedges Tagged With: Planting

Hedge Fun

February 21, 2022 by beautifybalham

So many of the lovely Victorian houses in Balham are being returned to a modern-day version of their former glory, undergoing a whole host of restorations and improvements.

We are usually asked to restore the downtrodden (and often dug up) front gardens, something we do with great enthusiasm, skill and pride: new mosaic paths, Yorkstone porch steps, low brick walls, railings and gates – all beautifully proportioned and a fitting welcome
into the lovely living space beyond. Perhaps the biggest concession to modern times, though, is the paving that usually goes in front of the bay window. ‘Low maintenance, please’ is the main reason here, coupled with today’s added hassles of dustbins, wheelie bins and ‘somewhere to put the bikes’.

This all looks great but often, in my view, lacks a softness that is easily remedied with some planting. Furthermore all paving is proven to exacerbate flooding in urban environments. There are many, many options here including pots, shrubs, ‘lollipop’ bay trees, formal parterres (if you’ve got the space), specimen trees and loads more.

My top recommendation, though, is the much maligned and massively underrated hedge. Don’t be put off by the woody and overbearing privet relics of the past. A new evergreen hedge, like Yew, Bay, Privet or Lonicera will serve you in so many ways. Situated in the traditional strip just behind the low front wall, they bring softening greenery to your front garden combined with a high degree of privacy from passers-by.

But hedges are so much more than just a lush screen. They soak up excess surface water after rainfall and masses of greenhouse carbon dioxide at night-time. Better still, research has shown that they absorb traffic noise and traffic pollution, filtering many of the harmful particulates from exhaust fumes. More hedges make for much cleaner air at home and in
the wider community.

And the low maintenance? Well, a haircut once a year, two at the most, is all they need. And if that doesn’t represent a great investment, I don’t know what does.

Chris Martin, of The London Front Garden Company Ltd

Filed Under: Beautify Balham, Gardening, Hedges Tagged With: Gardening, Hedges

Primary Sidebar

BLOG

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3
  • Why you should install a water butt in your garden
    Why you should install a water butt in your garden
    Have you ever considered all the rainwat...
  • The Bees Knees
    The Bees Knees
    When thinking about the word pollinator ...
  • The Triangle Garden at Chestnut Grove
    The Triangle Garden at Chestnut Grove
    Armed with forks and trowels and wearing...
  • Balham in Bloom 2022
    Balham in Bloom 2022
    Beautify Balham held the presentation of...
  • Balham in Bloom 2022 Prizes
    Balham in Bloom 2022 Prizes
    We are incredibly excited for the culmin...
  • Pollution Busting Plants for Front Gardens
    Pollution Busting Plants for Front Gardens
    No matter how small your front garden is...
  • Beautify Balham Nominated for a Tooting Heroes Award
    Beautify Balham Nominated for a Tooting Heroes Award
    We are thrilled to announce that Jean Mi...
  • No Dig Vegetable Beds
    No Dig Vegetable Beds
    Not many of us relish the idea of diggin...
  • Birdsong in Balham
    Birdsong in Balham
    As International Dawn Chorus Day approac...

FOLLOW US

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

Copyright © 2023 Beautify Balham · Privacy Policy