My patch

Well I have no excuses, for 13 years all I have ever done is cut the grass, and nothing much else. Our patch is a strip 30mx5m, with 60m being grass, and the lower 30m nearest the house being grey chips (hardcore/type 1 stuff). I hate it, the wife hates it, the kids love trying to eat the chips...
Now that Im part-time (and watching the twins while the Wife is teaching), I find I have more time to do things in the garden...



From the ground you get a better sense of the size...


This shows work just beginning, I've built my new fence, and I was dry laying some slabs to get a feel for the size I wanted the patio area to be. As you can see there are a lot of chips, and it's not just a few inches worth, they are about a foot deep. It has to do with drainage, the land behind the gardens slopes down behind my shed, so all the rain water runs off the fields right down our garden. Luckily we now have a major drain system carrying all this water away to the burn across the road from our house (and it didn't cost us a penny due to flood damage to nearby council properties).
It's also worth noting, that while I was digging the trench for the wall around my shed at the rear of the garden, the ground is full of roots from the large Sycamore tree you can see on the right! There are a lot of weeds up here, including brambles (Jam yummie!), nettles, which although Im determined not to use weedkiller, I might have to resort to it, if I can't get them under control!
After posting a few questions on here, it was decided to slab as much as we could, and remove the rest of the stones, infill with topsoil and turf...
Pricing topsoil was a shock, it ranged from £70 to £165, eventually we found a local supplier who charged £25 + vat for a 900Kg bulk bag + free delivery... well done guys


Here you can see the new turf laid (relaid yesterday), the area between this and the patio is where my freebie tin shed will go, ideal for me to keep my telescopes and astro gear/computer kit in. The shed base can be seen lying on the existing grass. I still have to figure out how to stop the weeds and meadow grass coming in from next door, which gets cut once a year - there used to be a hedge here as well, but the neighbour tried to trim it with a chainsaw, presumably drunk, and the result was I had to dig it out, a shame as it was great for the birds, who now take comfort in the hawthorn bush near the shed and in the Sycamore tree off to the right.
This year my only concern is this lower 1/3 of the garden, making it nice for us to sit out in, and for the babies to crawl, play without eating all those horrible grey stones!!!
The next part is get the base laid for the new shed, then remove all the type 1, down the right hand side, and infill with soil and turf. I also need to finish turfing right up to the path on the lower left! Hopefully leaving enough space between the path and turf on both sides for a little border which I can put some nice bee friendly plants in :D
I'll post updates and photies as I go along, but in the mean time, I have a pallet of 20 3x2 slabs that are lying in my neighbours garden, along with another bulky of topsoil. I suppose I'd better go and lift them round the back to my garden before she throws a wobbly

Graham

 

Hi

Well now you have started:yess: , I coudnt cope with seeing all the neighbours it would drive me mad.

I like the saying
" high fences makes good neighbours"

Keep us posted

Spruce

 

A decision I regret now, was that I opted for a 4' fence, rather than a 5' or 6' fence as on the left hand side. All because I couldn't face boring 20 3' holes for the stabs with my £5 ebay manual hole borer! Lazy so & so!!!
Will have to find some nice small trees/bushes that will give us some privacy without interfering with overhead cables...

 

Thanks for starting the thread.

What's with all of the washing lines that seem to cross into each garden, but sadly seem to start in your one?

 

In this day and age... overhead power cables, the substation is in a neighbours garden 3 doors up (went on fire a few years ago, quite scary!). They run right down all the back gardens on this side of our street. Funnily enough the other side has their cables buried! Lucky sods!!!
Others are phone cables (the mast is in the back right hand corner), and in the foreground is our much needed washing lines - with young twins the washing machine is pretty much on constantly, and these pictures are unusual in that there's no washing on them lol
Once the new shed is up, I'll get a whirly gig thingy so I can do away with the washing line - it always nearly chokes me when I'm cutting the grass!!!

 

Well the weather recently has been terrible! Yesterday, I donned my waterproofs and had a go at laying the 3x2 slabs for the shade base. Jeez,
if I knew how heavy they were, I'd have got 450x450s :DOH:
Anyway after 4 hours of puffing, panting, grunting, groaning, the odd cuss, a few plasters, a couple of bottles of Irish Cider and the base was laid. This morning, I've noticed some of the slabs have moved - probably due to my lack slabbing skills or of padding down the stuff below enough, or because of the amount of water that has fallen. So now I'll need to tweak them, to bring them back up level again! :( Why can't Harry Potter not just come and visit and cast a wee spell!


Grass trimmed along the front of the slabs, and relaid (again!), hopefully this time I won't be lifting it up again!
Next is to deal with the chips on the other side of the path, and get the topsoil down, and turf laid...
My summer holidays are going to be over in a flash at this rate lol


SF

 

I've been raking up all the chips as I've been working away, and keeping them to the side to use under this. There's about 4" of chips, plus about 2" of sand on top. I think the sand has sunk through the chips... I probably should have went and hired a whacker thingy and gave it a good going over first!

 

I'm guessing sharp sand, as I think that Ican see it to the left hand side.

I must have laid hundreds if not thousands of 3' x 2' concrete slabs at shopping centres throughout the South East.

Ideally you want a compacted road stone sub base, followed by a compacted and screeded sharp sand layer.

I'm guessing that you don't have the compacted sub base, but they still shouldn't have moved overnight.
Although I wouldn't normally recommend this, If you don't fancy digging it out and laying a sub base, you may still be able to get away with mixing some cement with the sharp sand, don't worry about adding water, screed and compact this, then screed it again, set a string line along one edge, carefully lay the first slab, then scrap away any ridged sand that is against the edge of the slab, position a trowel in a vertical position against it, stand on the slab that you have already laid, and gently lower te next slab into place. The trowel can then be removed and te slab pulled in tight. The trowel is placed in this fashion to prevent pinching and damaging the slabs. You can then just repeat the process over and over until they are all laid.

 

I really should have put the bricks round it first, JWK, to stop all the rubble/sand escaping out the sides. Something I still have to do, before the wife notices my mistake :/
I've got a few bags of cement in the shed, so I'll try your method EdddieJ as soon as the weather picks up. Once the shed is built you won't actually see 90% of the slabs, but I don't want to leave them the way they are either. And lets face it, when the wife sees them (either now or when the sheds up), she'll say "What's wrong with that slab? And that one? And... " Better fix it now before she notices lol

 

There is an easy way to get around that one... Pass her the tools and politely explain to her that if she thinks that she could do any better etc :D

 

Oooh, that's a dangerous route to go down. I used to try that one on my wife until I got a bit wiser

The response usually starts with something like, 'I never stop all day, when do I have to do it, what with blah blah blah, blah blah, and all the blah blah blah rant blah more rant blah blahstill ranting... rant rant more rant.....

 

Are you sure you want your freebie Tin shed there
Does it need to be there ?
Would it not be better where your turf is, if it needs to be at that end of your garden
If it does not need to be there would it not be better down by your original shed ?
Not having seen the other end of your garden ie house end, are you not going to end up with a small square of turf with no light due to the new shed ?

Just a thought

Jack McHammocklashing

 

Spent about a week trying to figure out where to put said shed... Where the turf is would have been the idea place - that's where the wife wanted it, but it would be blocking a neighbours window. Being a considerate bloke, I deciced not to put it there (read that as the neighbour is a roaster). Has to be close to the house so we can keep the twins big buggy in, rather than humf it up the stairs into the flat.
The area doesn't get loads of light, but gets it all morning, and later in the afternoon, so hopefully the grass will be ok

Eddie, if my wife laid the slabs, she would have lifted the phone and got someone in to do it - being tight as I am, I was determined not to lose that battle lol