Concrete

And another from me...

Well, we are starting to dig into it, I cleared a few square metres of long overgrown flower bed, we are planning to get in touch with a local small-scale landscaper regarding a quote for our fences (and hope the council will pay there share as one of the fences is theirs and they don't seem to be bothered looking into the matter themselves), we have erected and painted our new shed and will get in touch with a local scrap metal place tomorrow to see if they want the old metal one...

I would like to know, what do you gardening whizzes think of concrete in a garden? I don't mean just concrete slabs but actually an area of poured concrete? Because we want to incorporate a new barbeque area, as the current patio gets sun only at the end of the day, since the back of the house faces west and the sun takes until mid-afternoon to clear the terrace of houses and reach our patio. So we want to build a new seating area more towards the middle of the garden and have been thinking of making it of concrete. There won't be any lawn left in the garden when we are done, just flowering border on the left, our row of wonderfully mature conifers on the right and in between gravel and stepping stones. And right dead centre the new area for garden furniture, a low wall for seating on and a brick built in bbq. We also want a formal pond between the existing and the new patio (thinking 3 by 2 metres) and some dividing "walls" which should be not walls, not even trellises - we are thinking of making a frame of wire and have climbers slowly establish some screening between the areas!

As for sloping, the garden has a very slight slope away from the house (really not much) and even less of a slope from left to right. We might even incorporate a step down (it is only sloping enough for one step - two if we make it low steps!), using railway sleepers (which we got loads of!)

But really this time I was only wondering what you think of large areas of concrete like that...

Thanks in advance for any advice and critique!

 

Concrete is very permanent and very ugly - other than that .....

Having said that, this is what I did, but I put paving slabs on top to make it look nicer. The oft quoted method of putting down paving is on a bed of sand with 5 dabs of cement underneath. This strikes me as a terrible way as sand moves and cracks will appear. So I replaced sand by several inches of concrete, and replaced 5 dabs by a complete layer of mortar - and am still pleased I did so. But it is pretty permanent - so you must get it in the right place.

 

concrete is not a good choice for D-I-Y, i m not sure why you want it?
if i had loads of sleepers id be using them for some creative paths, steps, raised borders etc,did you check out the other thread on patio s?
PS sorry, but you have nt had many dealings with the council if you think they will share the cost of a new fence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ 02. April 2006, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Lady Gardener ]

 

Quite agree, and in time you will almost certainly want to adjust it in some way, but with concrete you can't!
Woman next door to me has just moved in and asked me what I would do with her patio conc. slab, as its got some superficial cracks in it. It's a good 6 inches above the ground and looking very solid, but cracked. I suggested leaving it there and laying slabs over it. Oh good she said, she had just had a quote for �£1500 to take it away!
If it's a large area you will probably need expansion joints in it or it will definately crack. So why bother with concete?

My daughter works for the council, and at the moment they are counting how many peoples jobs are at risk if they don't achieve target savings. Even if they promised you they would pay, I bet you would wait forever!

So what you have saved on the conc. you can spend on the fence! :D :D :D

 

LG, we did request for them to re-erect the fence themselves (we would then use their contractor to do the other fence as well and pay for that one ourselves). The fence in question is as old as the house (1940s) and falling apart in places - I have on Friday removed wildly-growing blackberries clinging to the fence for support and it was more like the fence clinging to the branches rather than the other way around! I stressed to the council that I want this as part of protection from anti-social behaviour, as children are running through our garden, stealing things (solar lights and even goldfish!) and throwing things at windows, making the idea with gravel groundcover a very bad one indeed, unless we get a new higher fence in. They put the request onto the system and said they would sens someone round to take a look and then get in touch with us about what would be done - in the new financial year which, as far as I know, started yesterday. Of course we would prefer for them to do it themselves - if not, we try the quotation approach!

Why do I want concrete? Not sure - just an option we talked about, it seemed interesting, "self-levelling" and no gaps for chair legs to fall into...

Oh and as for the sleepers, yes, some of them are also planned to go into a raised vegetable bed. They are all under the old shed for flooring right now - once that shed's gone we have about 5 square metres of sleepers to play around with!

 

Ok, then ask this way - what would you recommend for the second seating area? This is what we want: square, but one corner rounded off, with two sides edged by a low wall for added seating when we have friends round for bbq, a piece of wall slightly raised to accommodate a built-in barbeque... In total we are looking at 3 by 3 metres area. On the other sides of the low wall would be the flower bed, the other sides of the area are bordered by gravel.
Different type / colour of gravel that goes with the main gravelled area perhaps? With some paving bricks put down to keep the gravels from mixing? Is gravel a good base for a seating area?
We are still very much in the planning process - so open for suggestions! Foremost right now is to get the flowerbed cleared and prepared, and only when that's done will we start to work on the new patio...

 

Concrete doesn`t have to be bulky,square and clinical looking

Do a search for "ferrocement" on the net..you may be surprised what you can make with it.

 

i m sure that one can be creative with concrete, and in this case it may be best solution, its just that many D I Y disasters start with the cheapest solution and end with an expensive one.
PS the council will send peeps round to your house cos they get paid per mile, but don t expect a decision, if you get a new fence evry1 in the road will want one.
ps you can get plastic spikes or even taught wires to stop kids jumping over fence, why are they targeting you, if its a neighbourhood problem ask for policing

[ 02. April 2006, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Lady Gardener ]

 

it is a neighbourhood problem with the children, they are not just targeting us. They are usually at the front of buildings harassing people (the other day they broke down the closing mechanism on our front garden gate), we asked for policing several times, they come by a couple of times and then the patrols just stop again.
The reason why they are also targeting OUR back garden is because we are the only terrace (3 houses, we are the middle) that still has this feeble 3 foot "high" fence. All the other back gardens have had proper 6 foot fences installed by the council years ago. Why ours was overlooked I never know - we will replace the right hand one as it is technically "our" fence, but the property to our left is still owned by the council and it is also "their" fence, so they should deal with it as far as I am concerned. If they won't, then we just have to pay for it ourselves, but I am prepared to make a fuss over it - they fail to deal with the anti social behaviour AND they fail to provide the means to tackle it by ourselves!

[ 02. April 2006, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: wishaw ]

 

"but the property to our left is still owned by the council and it is also "their" fence,"

I am in much the same situation. Council wanted �£800 to remove the old fence (2 feet high, 80 years old and useless) and erect another - and that was only my half! I suggested that I would replace the fence if they gave me �£800. They refused.