**Location:** White Park Close, Middlewich
**Project Type:** Front Garden Transformation
**Services:** Indian sandstone path, raised planter, artificial grass
We recently completed a front garden on White Park Close in Middlewich. The brief was short: maintenance-free, with kerb appeal. A returning client wanted the front to look looked-after from the road, without a weekly mow or a border that dies the first dry fortnight. The existing drive stayed. This is a front garden, not a new driveway.
## The Brief
Kerb appeal on a mock-Tudor frontage is the view from the pavement: a clean line to the door, a proper place for the bins, and planting that still looks like a garden. Maintenance-free is the rest of the year: no wet clay lawn to avoid from November to March, and no bed that needs weeding every Saturday.
Those two things usually fight each other. A cheap roll of grass looks tidy for a month. A planted front looks good in May and tired by August. The job here was to do both, and keep the tree that was already on the plot.
## What We Built
Three pieces, read as one front:
– **Sandstone path and bin area.** Fossil buff Indian sandstone, 900 × 600, from the drive to the door, with a hard standing for the bins so they are not parked on the lawn.
– **Raised planter.** The same fossil buff walling, built as an L around the existing tree. The tree stayed. The bed is ready for planting — we are going back after the holiday to plant it up, and we will add a finished shot then.
– **Artificial lawn.** Lisbon 38 mm pile on a compacted MOT base and grit sand. A rectangular green that holds in January, with no mower and no winter mud.
## Why These Materials
Sandstone on a brick-and-timber house is the material that belongs there. Porcelain would have been a different, colder front. The [porcelain versus sandstone](https://cheshire-landscape-gardener.com/porcelain-vs-sandstone-cheshire/) guide is that choice in full. Here the stone is fossil buff, so the path, the bin pad and the planter wall are one colour, not three products fighting the elevation.
Artificial grass is the maintenance half of the brief. On Cheshire clay a living front lawn is often a sponge from November to March, which is the opposite of kerb appeal. A carpet only works if it is built like hard landscaping: excavated, stone underneath, sand bed, a real edge. That is the line on the [artificial grass Cheshire](https://cheshire-landscape-gardener.com/artificial-grass-cheshire/) page. This lawn sits on MOT and grit sand, not on the old soil.
The planter stops the job looking like a show-home strip. Kerb appeal is not “no plants”. It is plants that do not need you every weekend, with the tree you already had kept in the composition.
If you are paving a frontage rather than keeping the drive, the [front garden planning](https://cheshire-landscape-gardener.com/front-garden-planning-cheshire/) page is the 5 m² and clay note. This plot was path, planter and lawn.
## White Park Close, Middlewich
*White Park Close, Middlewich*
## Would You Like a Similar Front Garden?
If you want a Middlewich, Northwich or Knutsford front that looks finished from the road and does not ask for a Saturday, get in touch.
**Get Your Free Consultation:**
– Call us: [07742 611273](tel:07742611273)
– Email: [jason@cheshire-landscape-gardener.com](mailto:jason@cheshire-landscape-gardener.com)
– Or fill out our [instant quote form](/instant-landscaping-quote/)
We offer free site visits and detailed written quotations within 48 hours, covering patios, driveways, artificial grass, front gardens and all aspects of garden landscaping across Cheshire and Greater Manchester.