Inspiration for a newbie on this garden please (on a budget)

Hi all,

I was after some inspiration for ideas of what I can do with my garden please



Since this was taken, the flags are now sloping dramatically more towards the conifers (the cause behind this has been recitified)

Although I don't want the flags, and I don't know what else to have with a limited budget and lack of skill! I had thought about artificial grass for my daughter to play on as I would like something low maintenance for personal reasons, (is artificial grass a dirty word around here?) . I don't think real turf would grow as it is very dark in this area.

Skill wise - underneath the flag stones there is concrete....I don't know how I would go about putting soil on that and grass growing, nor how I would level the ground, but I'm willing to try stuff out and learn.

Any advice is helpful, thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for your reply armandii. To clarify your idea, do you mean take out 4 rows of slabs from the conifers inwards and put pots plants on the ground?

 

If there is concrete under the flags that would be a big job to remove and as ARMANDII said those conifers would make trying to grow anything there extremely difficult.I think artificial grass would look rather nice and then I'd go for containers

 

Thanks, that's certainly an idea.

I was more tempted by something with turf or fake grass (unless I get hounded off this forum for mentioning it!?) for my little girl to play on, the area is about 50 metre squared, so quite a lot of scope for playing area AND perhaps another area. One thing that had tempted me is putting half grass/fake grass and half something else like block paving etc, but I have no clue about laying this kind of thing.

 

What do you mean by containers sorry? Potting plants? or those fancy wooden sleeper structures which contain little trees?

I thought the concrete under the slabs may mean it's hard work :( I wonder if I could spray stones of some kind around the concrete base and lay artificial grass on top of that!? I told you i'm a newbie lol :P

 

I don't know anything about the artificial grass,wondered if you could maybe lay it on top of the slabs if you'd prefer not to remove them and save work... The 'containers' .Large pots that you can plant up with plants of your choice.It looks like you have some ornamental grasses in your border already so you could plant the planters up with some too.There's some really colourful and attractive varieties to choose from

 

It's a large "blob" in the centre of the slab, I will take more than one slab up to see what the pattern looks like. Can I assume it's a case of digging up the cement blob and going back to scratch and putting new soil in to get it level, then planting grass on top?

No, is there an easy way to tell?

I now have them stopping my land subsiding into the area a 10 foot descent just behind those conifers! [/QUOTE]

 

grass is so cheap compared to artificial I'm really tempted to try it, it's just I have 200ft + trees surrounding me which means it only gets a flash of daylight at certain times of day, hence I'm worried it won't grow and be a waste.

I really can't tell the soil type yet as I've literally no idea on the drainage. I live in North Staffordshire though so I'm quite likely to have some clay in there.

I am inspired by your helpful and encouraging posts to try and dig up the concrete blob underneath the flags and see what is there, maybe I could just level the ground with top soil and try grass on it.

Your garden looks great!

 

I'm going to buck the trend, CG, and suggest you cost out artificial turf to see if it's feasible. A combination of shade and conifer roots, whatever the soil type, is not going to produce a great-looking lawn. Then you'd need to mow it regularly.
If I was you, I'd invest in a no-maintenance surface that would be kind to your little girl's knees, with a few big pots of colourful flowering plants.