How much to spend on garden? (How long is a piece of string)

Evening all.

My back garden is really starting to grind me down.

When I moved into the house a year ago, the back garden was a pure disaster. Don't get me wrong, I understood this before I bought the house, but I got the house considerably cheaper than the going rate for our area, and I don't mind hard work, so I'm not grumbling.

The lawn was dead. The reason being that the clay soil was compacted to the consistency of granite. Significant areas of 'top soil' were what most of us would call sub soil, and there was all sorts of bricks, rubble and paving slabs strewn everywhere, plus old carpets and household waste.

A year on, I've dug most of it, added a bit of compost (my big heap up the land isn't ready yet), seeded a small lawn area (to be expanded later), and put the start of a hedgerow in. The bricks etc have been sorted and stacked out of the way, and the rubbish has gone to the tip. It is coming on, but it is taking far too long, and this is grinding me down.

Part of the reason its taken so long is because I've been through a skint spell, so I'd say I've spent less than £100 in total so far. However now I'm not so skint, not loaded, but no longer flat broke.

So, if I decided to chuck some money into it, how much do you reckon I should throw at it (realistically). Not to make it a paradise, but to make it so I don't feel overwhelmed when I go out there, a year after taking it on, and still see an empty garden.

Also, what do you think would give me the biggest gain for the least expenditure?

For example, I could accelerate the lawn development by buying turf instead of sowing seed. I could improve the soil much quicker by buying manure in bulk rather than waiting for my big heap to be ready, or I could put in some small hardscape features using the bricks/rubble etc I've salvaged.

I know its an opened ended question, but I'd love to hear your opinions.

Lets say I set aside £300 as a lump sum to spend this month. Would that be enough/too much, and what would I spend it on to get the biggest leg up so to speak?

 

Of the choices you outline I would wait for next Autumn and sow grass seed rather than put turf down.

I put turf down around this time of years a couple of years ago (details and pictures on my blog). I had to water it daily, and by the time it had rooted properly, and I could mow it, it was quite tall and I never managed to get the height of the grass down to a reasonable level that season - so it was a bit shaggy. It was beautifully green though ...

But OTOH that might give you the most comfort for your depression - there is nothing like a nice lawn to set off a garden, even if the borders are not well weeded or in great shape.

But I take a long view in the garden - our garden is huge piles of soil and rubble at present, left over from last Autumn's hard landscaping. I know it will be taking shape by the end of this year, and am happy to live with the consequences. But I have plenty of space ... it would be a bit different in a confined space.

I would definitely spend money on manure. And hard landscaping. And also bedding plants from the garden centre to give me colour through the Summer (but I would make myself grow them from seed for Year Two :thumb: )

In case it makes you feel better!

Before:


Current Work-in-Progress:

 

Blimey,

Where to start Dave.

Find Spent Mushroom Compost Near You

I'd go for the above rather than just manure, when I worked on the mushroom farm we used to deliver trailer loads for £15, probably a bit more now I guess.

Its got a salt content, but that would suit your seaside themed plants, and you'd be sorted for mushrooms for the next year or so.

With the rubble, get some lime mortar & build a "ruin"

I could talk you thru how to build something that would look hundreds of years old in just a few days.

Bundles of willow(withies) are about £10, you can weave allsorts of fencing, edging panels with them, for instant height & visual effect etc.

Bulk bags of sand/aggregate are about £40. Paths, sand dune features etc.

Get on freecycle & ask for plants etc. Someone was giving away turf on ours this week, but you could use the hot weather to your advantage & grow some lawn from seed.

Geotex is good, and reasonably cheap, cover the ground you haven't got time to finish, weight it down with some of the rubble, then at least the weeds will be getting killed off while you are doing something else. Even covering it in aggregate would give you an instant effect, you could then re use the stuff elsewhere.

With my West Bay Plot, i've nearly got the main bit finished, but all the rubble & stuff has ended up in that neglected bit I mentioned on another thread, at least it is all in one bit.

I'm starting to clear that bit now, but limited to 6 bags of rubble at the tip per calendar month & the alley is too small for a skip lorry:DOH:Could take years.

 

Doing well there Kristan, but I wouldn't leave the piles of rubble on those tree roots for too long, they wont like it.

 

Hi there, I am sure someone with far more experience will be along soon, but I have got some thoughts which might help.

I completely appreciate where you're coming from. I too struggled with my last garden, it had been owned by an elderly lady and it had some pretty scrubby shrubs, a very lumpy lawn and some really strangled tatty plants. It also had about a million miles worth of bindweed. Over-whelming didn't even cover it!

I started at the end closest to the house so I could at least see something reasonable from the kitchen window. When I started clearing the bed, I found quite a lot of geranium plants (the hardy, blue flowered type) which I ended up using as a sort of mini hedge, splitting the plants and re-planting along the front of the beds.

I then began to fill in the backs of the beds with fairly plain, yet reliable plants, things like Alchemilla Mollis, heucheras (actually not plain as they come in so many different colours), ornamental grasses, heathers, lavender and shrubs like spirea's.

I took cuttings from anyone who offered and dug little bits of plants from my mums garden and transplanted them into mine.

I created a veg patch and grew a few scrappy salad crops and some very wonky carrots. That felt brilliant as the seeds didn't cost much but I felt such a sense of achievement when I actually ate something I'd grown!

Ok, so I didn't 'design' the garden but after a couple of years, the tiny bits of plant I'd taken from mum's and friends began to fill out and then I could start making space for things I actually wanted, replacing plants when I could afford it.

It's really hard when you haven't got a ton of cash to make big changes that show straight away. I think, if you have £300, I would spend it on something reasonably impactful. Perhaps you want a patio? Maybe you could do that first and work outwards from there creating beds as and when you have the cash to fill them?

Good luck, don't lose heart

 

Good point, thanks. The rubble is not on the trunk (bit hard to see from the picture) but it is on the roots. The left most tree (which does not have rubble on it!) is coming out, so that we will be able to "see" the hedge-lined-avenue we have created.

Left pile (and the one at the back) is top soil. That's to go onto the old tennis court. The soil was foul after we lifted the surface off, so its been left "fallow" and rotavated to get some air into it. (Farmer also pulled a chisel through it to create some drainage).

Anyways ... what should I do with the rubble? its a mix of the tarmacadam and top quality Type 1 aggregate.

My thought was to rip up the grass on some of the paths we are making, and convert them to hard paths instead. That would give me some more topsoil / "loam" for other parts of the garden. But I'm nervous about committing to hard paths when we aren't yet sure exactly where we want them!

The other alternative is to double-handle it, again!, and store it somewhere else in the garden where it won't be in the way (but it will get full of weeds and things, of course)

Ideas on a postcard please

 

Seems we all have rubble that we don't really want then. In an ideal world we'd take it to a recycling centre, have it crushed & take it home again for use in building/potting mixes etc.

There was a machine the size of a house that turned up on a local building site. It "ate" the building that was there & then the brickies knocked it up with new cement & built the new building with it.

I'd bag it up for now Kristen, untill you know what you want to do with it.

I was taught on the Ecological site management course, not to allow anything to be stored under the canopy of a tree to prevent root damage.

 

Hi Clueless

Before you throw your £300 at the garden, I would get yourself a cuppa and just sit in the garden for a while and have a good think about what your aim is with the garden.

Scour the local free adverts and see what folk are wanting to get rid of. Have a word with the local farmers and see if any of them have some manure they can deliver to you. You may find one happy to do so just for beer money.

I would then target the area nearest the house. Do you want a paved area? Some decking? A shed? Again, by looking at stuff folk are getting rid of and what you already have you will be amazed at what you can do.

Stick to what you can achieve this season. Sound sto me like you are a bit overwhelmed by the garden and just need a kick start to get you going again. Don't spend anything until you have decided exactly what you want.

A few seeds, plugs and bedding plants will make things look a whole lot better in a short time. A lot of the big companys' are selling off the end of thier stock of bedding plant plugs, really cheaply now. Your local nursery may be doing the same.

Some pictures of your garden and the materials you have available might help us to make suggestions.

Good luck mate

Chopper.

 

Chaps, thanks for the tips and motivation.

Kristen, good advice about the lawn. I've got a 'temporary' lawn growing pretty well. It is a long way off perfect but the plan was to get something down asap, and then do it properly in autumn. It only covers a small patch though.

Ziggy, I like idea of building a ruin. I was thinking of an 'old' wishing well. I have plenty of bricks, but better, I have some big, weathered sandstone blocks. By pure chance, my mate told me today his neighbour has an old wooden wishing well that's just going rotten and he doesn't want it, so I'm going to bag it and do it up a bit.

Chopper, it seems you think as I do. I've sat out and chilled in every part of the garden, not conciously thinking, just observing and imagining. I've got a good idea of what I want to achieve, and I think I'vce figured out all the microclimates. Now it just comes down to implementing it, and that's the costly bit. I'm patient, and don't expect it to be right this year, but at the same time I need to see some rapid progress now, just to spur me on. The ground is not really ready for planting yet, with the soil being dud, but it soon will be now, because...

... I've just ordered 300 litres of spent mushroom compost. That won't be enough to make the soil right, but it will take it from being completely knackered to merely poor, and then I can improve it as I go along.

It cost me £159 off ebay. It will be delivered as 60x50 ltr bags, so I'll be able to carry it through the house, which is good because there is no access by road to the rear, and I didn't fancy getting a bulk bag and then barrowing it through the house.

Seperately, another mate has sourced me about half a tonne of sharp sand/grit, and the same again of rounded gravel/pebbles. The sharp can go into the soil, and the pebbles will find a new home running along the back of the house, between the lawn and the house.

Just ordering the compost has made it all seem possible again

 

Clueless1 I can really sympathize with that feeling of being overwhelmed by the size of the task ahead of you. Can I suggest that you don't go down the path that I took and rush into getting plants into the ground before you have really thought through what you want from the garden in the long term. I did just that and ended up with some inappropriately placed plants that didn't survive being moved... and that proved to be an expensive waste which I could have done without. Chopper has the right idea, sit down and really think it through first.

If you want some quick results that will give you a feeling of having achieved something, concentrate on any hardscaping that you intend to do. I've just cleaned, re-grouted and put some Cotswold stone chippings around the edges of a patio and anyone would think I was Slartibartfast, I'm so chuffed with the result. ( showing my age there, what! )

The finest garden in this area belongs to a lady who, together with her late husband, spent the first six years after they moved into their house improving the soil in the garden with spent mushroom compost and fine gravel before they got around to any serious planting... the rest of us just look at it and weep. Whilst we struggle on clay she has a nice friable soil that everything she has planted thrives in.

 

Have you got a thousand glaciers poised & ready to roll over Africa ?:D

 

Hadn't thought of that. I was just going to "heap" it somewhere less prominent ... but bags would be easier to sort out later. Its a big heap though, and I've done bag-filling before with a JCB,. which was slow and tedious!, and I wonder how long the bags would last?

But when I come to use one I could borrow a telescopic loader from a local farmer, rather than having to hire a JCB and Dumper to move it, which would definitely be a bonus.

Food for thought, ta.

 

Not anymore ziggy... but the G&T's were nice and cold.

 

Ziggy , Skinner - Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - classic stuff The quote below was my favourite from Slartibartfast............

Arthur Dent: Are you telling me you originally made the Earth?
Slartibartfast: Oh, yes. Did you ever go to a place - I think it was called Norway?
Arthur Dent: No. No, I didn't.
Slartibartfast: Pity. That was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges.

 

"My name, my name is Slartibartfast, told you it wasn't important"