Persevere or quit?

Lets say you're working on a little project in the garden. It is unfinished but already you're having doubts about it.

Do you persevere and see what it looks like when it's done, or do you just blitz it and think of something else?

If you're going to pull the plug, how do you decide at what point to do so?

 

If a job's worth doing it's worth doing properly in the fist place or not at all

 

If the worm of doubt has entered your brain............... leave the project for a couple of days and have a good think. Can it be made to work ? If not bin it and start again with a more do-able specification. You would never be happy with it otherwise.

 

Depends what the project is, I think. Need a tad more information. Is it just planting or does it involve construction? Will it cost money or just time and effort? Is it easily reversible if you don't like it or will you be stuck with it if you finish it and don't like it?

 

If your not happy with it stop. It will only bother you later. I'm forever changing my mind

 

I'd just stop if I had doubts about it and do something else instead. I'd hate to carry on with it just to see if it looked alright when it was finished because this turns it all into a right chore. If it's no good when it's finished you'd have to blitz it anyway and if you have to change it all at that point it may cost you even more money and it will have wasted your time.

 

......And then discover you hate what you've produced and demolish it! I'd quit while I was ahead!

 

Take a break during which you look at your overall garden plan and think over all the reasons why you started the project in the first place. If it still fits in with the plan, you can clearly think why you started that project rather than any other one, carry on. If not, cut your losses.

 

Basically, what I've done is, I built a patio a couple of years ago, which I'm happy with. But I left a gap about 3ft wide between the patio and the house, to make sure I didn't mess with any drains etc, to keep access to the wall of the house in case it needed work, and to ensure water didn't run off my patio into the wall of the house causing damp.

Separately I had a load of old bricks taking up space.

So, I've laid out the bricks in the gap between the patio and the house, such that it makes a sort of floor, but not secured in so that I can easily move it all if I need to.

Trouble is, I've run out of old fashioned bricks, and am down to newer featureless bricks (the kind with total consistency in appearance and the three holes through the middle, proper functional but dull as ditch water building bricks).

I have left two squares empty of bricks, and planted fatsias in there.

It looks pants. The wife thinks it looks ok, I think it looks 'better', but it just looks pants.

I'm hoping that once I've finished (I intend to sweep sand into the gaps between the bricks, and some nice light coloured pebbles in the holes with the fatsias) it might look a bit better, but I'm currently not happy with it.

I'm now faced with two options. I can either try to get hold of some more proper old fashioned bricks, which will look better than the featureless dull ones I have, but it still might look rubbish and then I'd have more bricks taking up space, or I could bin the idea and start again.

The only two reasons I'm leaning towards persevering are 1) Its nearly done, and I have plenty on my list for this year so I don't want to lose too much time and 2) I'm a bit skint at the moment, and this is costing me next to nothing (maybe a bag of sand and a bag of pebbles to buy - about a tenner altogether).

I think the bigger problem is that the back wall needs either sandblasting to get all the old masonry paint off, or repainting, and anything I do to improve the gap between patio and house wall just emphasises that the wall looks grim.

 

It sounds reasonably OK to me. Couldn't you get a few old bricks out of a skip and leave the fatsias out? Or just stand some pots along it. And repaint the wall - that won't take too long, you might even get some paint off freecycle. Anyway, are you sure the wall isn't just fashionably distressed? Personally, I love a bit of peeling masonry paint.

There you go - achieved. Next!

 

Did you use slabs to create your patio Clueless? If so could you get some more and use those, perhaps spacing them with some coloured gravel surrounding them giving this sort of effect, it will also allow water to drain away.

http://www.rgbstock.com/bigphoto/omdPt1K/decorative+garden+gravel2

 

Why don't you just put the boring bricks at the bottom and/or behind of the fancy ones?

 

I can easily source more bricks. I need about 20. The lady across the road has loads in a pile out her front, which she probably doesn't want (I would of course ask first). Failing that, I can just put my rucksack on and go down the beach. There's an area where loads of old building material has just been dumped. There's a whole group of volunteers set up to tidy it all up. I could do them a favour by collecting some bricks.

I did, and I have a load left, but it wont really work unless I level and firm the ground, and I must confess I can't be bothered

I've put them at the back, but you can still see them.

Good idea. Remember its full shade there though. I did find out that heucheras and coleus take those conditions. Both offer a lot of colour, so that might be an option.