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Our daughter's new house is some 2 feet above the pavement; the front
lawn starts atop a stone retaining wall. There is a strip of flower bed
on top of the wall, and then a lawn (about 4-5 m) to the house. The idea
would be to replace this bed with a sort of hedge, or maybe more of a
border, that would act as a kind of lace curtain. Obviously at night one
would have to draw the curtains, but she would like to be able to leave
them open during the day.


"lace curtain" is a good start. Very often, just a gauzy veil is
enough to distract the eye from what's beyond. Unless it's the only
sitting out spot, I would kill the lawn and plant the whole frontage
into one gorgeous distraction for passers by. Their eye won't go as far
as what's inside the window. You can do this fast and cheap by covering
the grass with cardboard cartons, then (HD) membrane, then gravel. Leave
some areas of gravel "open" , and scatter in the plants. I would not
worry too much about having all evergreens. Bare winter stems and
skeletons can be effective screens. I'd choose plants which grow to the
desired height but don't look too like a solid dense block.

Buddleia; established plants make a very fast tall screen in summer,
very pretty, and can be cut to ground level in winter.

Bamboo (in large buried container; I don't trust any of the so
called "clumpimg" ones not to invade, especially in rising summer
temperatures)

Phormiums. The plain green tenax will easily make 6ft of elegant
grey-green foliage. The exotic flower stalks are as tall again, and will
stand all winter.

The smaller bright coloured leaf ones also look great.

Cortaderia richardii (like a more elegant pampas, but far more
flowers, and a much longer flowering season).

Miscanthus gigantea (non invasive, tall, doesn't fall over,
fabulous soft rustling noise)

verbena bonariensis, crociosmia Lucifer, seasonal bulbs. Dierama.

Cornus variegata elegantissima ( good screen in summer, striking
red winter stems)

Some rounded evergreen mounds. These could be hebes, euphorbias, even
some conifers., cistus, spanish broom.


Janet.

Thanks, Janet - I will pass this on.

I have been trying to picture this in the context of the house. The lawn
would certainly be no great loss. My one concern is that in spite of my
daughter's touching faith in my gardening and artistic talents, actually
I was badly misled by whoever originally suggested that I should study
art as I am absolutely hopeless at trying to envisage what the end
result of even a basic room arrangement will be, let alone a bit of
living landscape, no matter how small. As a result I tend to plan
endlessly and still invariably end up with serried ranks of things.
Obviously at heart I must be a market gardener! Or a general? Perhaps
the system of casting bulbs about and then planting them where they fall
might work with plants? (Not the actual throwing, of course, but just
something to represent them?)
Or am I making too much of this: we should just get on with it and hope
for the best?

--
Klara, Gatwick basin