Urban front garden

A question about : Urban front garden

I have bought a house in what is a reasonably rough part of South London. It's one of the few places where large Victorian houses are still relatively affordable.

I'd quite like to do something quite nice in the (small) front garden which is reasonably theft/vandalism resistant. At present it's been concreted over but I have plans to change that. I don't however particularly want to spend lots of money on plants only to see them stolen/vandalised.

In the longer term I'm going to grow a hedge, but in the short term I'd quite like some ideas on how to get a bit of colour in there...

Best answers:

• If you have any ground not concreted over, just get a box of mixed annual seeds and shake over ground and rake in. Can't get anything cheaper and no-one's going to be bothered nicking annuals
• Avoid small trees and one stemmed bushes, as they are easily snapped, and ruined as a result. Consider prickly bushes like Berberis, Osmanthus heterophyllus, holly. Buddleia come in all shapes and sizes, are very fastgrowing and bring butterflies. Annuals in between, grown from seed, will make a good colour display in summer. Groundcover from ivies and periwinkle ... There are some charming dwarf varieties.
  Avoid a rockery, or it may end up in your front room.
  It's well worth doing, as it can help encourage others to do the same, and helps pull the area upwards.
• Thanks both. At present it's all concrete so no space for wild seeds unfortunately.
  I have gingerly attempted a single pot with some cheapish petunias which so far have lasted for 2 weeks which is encouraging. I will look up the other suggestions too. I might start them off in the back garden and move to the front when they're a bit bigger...
  There are a few lovely gardens - in between the gardens filled with mattresses however!
• I have been through the same in East london. Ended up with an old bath tub as the main feature. Now chock full of flowers and some herbs. So far - 3 years in - has remained theft resistant. It does attract some comment!
• Bricks, stones or lumps of concrete in the bottom of pots may deter the casual thief, or at least put their back out when they try to lift it expecting it to be light!
• You could carefully drill 5mm holes near the base of the pots, then loop through some flexible wire and secure ends together with a saddle clamp.
  Nicking one pot would be a hassle, nicking several that are lassoed together would need truck
  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stainless-St...dp/B008P7K1I6/
  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoisting-Lif...dp/B00DGWSKVU/
  Alternatively, drill some anchors into the concrete and wire each pot to the anchor.
  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Am-Tech-Clos...dp/B00FQLPX4Q/
  But nothing is safe! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...piary-dog.html
• How about a nice rose bush. Something with nasty thorns?
  Or Pyracantha ?
• The problem with roses that get vandalised is regrowth is slow, and if broken at the graft, you get rootstock regrown. Pyracantha I like, suitably spiney and sharp.
• You could try Rosa Rugosa https://rhs.org.uk/plants/details?plantid=5054
  It is a lovely and tough bushy rose, lovely scent, with spines, anyone trying to nick it would be on a suicide mission
• Are you presuming that your pots will be stolen or have your new neighbours told you that people steal from gardens?
  I'm asking because I live in a not so great part of South London and Ive never had anything stolen from my driveway or the pots by my front door. Alot of my neighbours have some really nice pots and they never go missing.
  However, a friend who lives about 5 min drive away even has rubbish stolen from her drive!! She has a housing estate at the back of her house of which the entrance is just 2 doors away. She says it's some of the residents from the estate. Her car has been broken into whilst on the drive too so if you're by an estate then you may have a problem, if you're not I doubt you'll be plagued by garden theft.
• Because the front is mainly in shade so not much grew there anyway and is quite small, I've had stones put down on the weed proof fabric and just have planters which I swap with winter and summer bedding.
  I just use the cheap plastic pots now so it doesn't matter if they go awol.
  My area isn't great (large transient population) but certainly isn't a bad or unsafe one. But having had some nice planters go walkabout, then a couple of months back a heavy pot taken from the garden and chucked through the back window of a neighbour's car (we have no idea why), I now don't put anything out that would be expensive to replace or would cause a lot of damage if it got thrown.
• Thanks everyone. It actually proved pretty tricky in the end. The concrete proved very difficult to break up so we only managed to break up a thin strip wide enough to plant a hedge. The rest we've simply covered in stones which look better than what was there at least.
  We've also laid a mock Victorian path. All in all I'm quite pleased with the result. Given nothings been vandalised yet, I might add some pots as it's still looking a little stark!
• those tiles are gorgeous
• Blimey it looks lovely. All it needs is a couple of large pots, two thirds full with permanent shrubs plus room for seasonal plants to give some colour.
• Looks gorgeous. I love the tiles too.
• Looks gorgeous, and that concrete under the stones will be like industrial weed suppressant.
  We have some berberis bushes at the front of our house, if you're looking for something spiky, these deff are, been skewerd several times while cutting them back (got overgrown before we moved in) ouch!
• That looks so pretty, and I'm another one who loves your tiles