My husband and I live in a house which is in the corner of where two streets of terraced houses meet. This means we have a really wide front garden and a really narrow, triangular back garden. It was absolutely barren when we moved in and we beginner gardeners, we kind of threw some things together 5 years ago but now we're ready to upgrade it and hopefully make it our forever garden. 

The garden is divided into two sides with a path up the middle with borders on each side (we want to keep these borders). On the narrower side is a small veggie patch which we want to keep, so it's only the other (larger) side that we want to renovate. Right now it's just lawn with two small trees but the lawn is just not surviving the summers here anymore, and we want something more full of life and biodiversity.

The design vibe is very cottage garden, slightly wild, lots of native plants and pops of colour. Think Miss Honey's garden from Matilda!

Important aspects

• zone 8 with quite sandy soil (southern part of the Netherlands)

• the garden is south facing with not much coverage, so really gets baked by the sun in summer 

• we are having increasingly hot and very dry summers, so the garden has to be able to withstand that, and also to be able to manage it in case we get a very wet year

• we want something that looks full and green all year round (especially as it's our front garden), with bursts of colour in spring and summer 

Existing structure/features

• we want to keep the two borders that lead up the path to the front door 

• at the bottom is a border where I grow some carrots and onions. It would be nice to keep this but not essential, as the new design can incorporate both blooms and veggies

• in this border is also a little library which I also want to keep 

•  we will still need to be able to access the tall hedge at the side to trim it. It belongs to the neighbours and they are not open to removing/replacing it 

We have no idea where to start and get a bit overwhelmed when looking for ideas. We are open to a lot of different things, so please throw ideas at us!

Help us de-lawn our front yard!