Gardening Up Front Gardening Up Front Brian Baldwin Go for a walk in your neighbourhood and you may notice a trend in gardening style. More and more people have begun challenging the neighbourhood norm by venturing out from the privacy of their fenced back yards to garden in the front where both they and their neighbours can enjoy the plants they grow. With this trend, the large front lawns which have traditionally dominated the North American landscape have begun to surrender precious ground to planting beds which bring more colour, texture and life to the fronts of our homes.
Horticulturists are often quick to criticize the over-use of front lawns.
A less obvious reason for criticizing front lawn is that turfgrass represents about the lowest possible level of gardening creativity. If you don't believe that lawn imposes a limitation on your inventiveness, try to think of one imaginative thing that can be done with a lawn other than alternating the mower tracks to diagonal every second week. While this level of novelty may keep an accountant amused for decades, most people will eventually begin to see limitations in its entertainment value. With its talent for stifling gardening creativity, it's little wonder that horticulturists criticize our over-dependence on lawn. Don't get me wrong.