Grass

Sometimes I will get a call that starts with, "its a bit of a jungle" or maybe "I've let it get out of hand" this can mean anything from the grass hasn't been cut for a few weeks to nothing has been done for five years and there are tigers living in the shrubbery.

This particular customer had let things go a bit, lots of over grown shrubs weeds in the border, but mostly the grass needed cutting.

 I went over all the grass with a strimmer first, then raked up the cuttings, before running the mower over twice.   After that it looked surprisingly like lawn.

This was over a year ago, since then I have been going back every couple of weeks and have started to sort out the trees and shrubs as well as keeping the grass under control.

Simple Low Maintenance

The brief for this job was to clear the over grown garden, and put something in that would require little or no maintenance.   There was also a pile of waste to get rid of, fortunately we are licensed waste carriers so this was not a problem.












First off we had to clear all the weeds out and get that rather large tree stump out the way.

Next stage was to lay some landscape membrane, to make a nice edge, hold down the membrane and to retain the gravel that was going in latter we laid a line of my favourite rope top edging along the edge of the concrete patio that was being left.

Finally the gravel goes down, a few stepping stones added, and that's the job done.   I would have liked to introduce some planting or maybe some sort feature to add a bit of height but that did not fit with the owners requirement for minimal maintenance, and low cost.

We have been back once, a year later t repair the fence and weed the gravel, now that's what I call low maintenance!!

Patio

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to sort his patio for him.   This job should have been a nice simple one, the existing crazy paving had been lifted by some rogue tree roots, so the job was to lift the paving, dig out the roots (the tree had already been dealt with by tree surgeons) and then re-lay the paving.

Of course nothing is ever as simple as it sounds, the first problem was fitting the paving back together, the second was when the builders merchant forgot to deliver my sand, and then sent it round lose on a tipper instead of in bags, which meant I then had half a tonne of sand left over which I had to clear up before the BBQ which was my dead line.

I know some of these pictures are not of good quality but they do show the process, and the chaos while the job is being done.

I did make one important change to the design, the original paving went right up to the wall of the house, amongst other things tis really mucked up the drainage, and partially blocked off a couple of air bricks.   Instead of this I put a "French Drain" all around, this is a small trench filled in with pea shingle, as well as helping the drainage I rather like the way these look, and have been using them ever since.

Caterham

This is a total makeover we recently completed in the Surrey Town of Caterham,, just a couple of before photos, the rest are the completed project.

As well as the obvious clearing, paving and gravel we repaired the trellis, pruned the cherry tress, and treated the fencing and shed

 As well as being a lot lower maintenance I think the new garden gives a lot more sense of space and brings focus onto the specimen plants that have been retained.   The rope top edging ties in with both the prexisting bit that we kept and the style of the house, it also gives a nice neat edge to the border.

The paving circle gives a firm base if the owners want to sit out and enjoy the garden, it also breaks up the expanse of the gravel.

I am particularly pleased with the new trellis I put up on the house to support what is a very fine climbing rose, in the winter when the rose has dropped al it's leaves the trellis will give a nice contrast with the white wall behind.

All in all I am very pleased with this whole garden, I think it is very easy on the eye, and satisfies the owners requirement for low maintenance, while still managing to retain enough interest in the planting.