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What should be priority?
Sumbee
Posts: 7
Hello,
We’ve has a bit of a falling out over the garden this weekend and spending money trying to fix it up. The garden has been neglected due to shift work, not having a clue what to do and breaking the lawn mower. We want to be able to enjoy the garden again over the summer especially since we now have weekends together.
The other half has had a quote for artificial grass (approx £4000) and normal lawn (£2000). He’s convinced that this is the priority. It doesn’t tackle the gravel area which is full of weeds as they’ve broken through the plastic. What do you think is priority and what should money be spent on? TIA
Garden when we bought the house
Garden now
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Whoops! It's got away from you a bit
............... I'd say priorities depend on how much time you have nowadays to devote to maintenance (as well as budget of course) .......... no point in spending money on stuff that needs a lot of keeping up if you just don't have the time or interest to do it.
How many hours a week will you honestly be able to spend working out there ... from say mid April to the mid October ... honestly?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hello Dovefromabove!
Realistically it will be one weekend a month due to other commitments (friends weddings, holidays, uni work etc). I think the gravel area needs a lot of attention before tackling the grass while he’s the opposite way round.
Do either of you have any interest in gardening?
If not, money spent on hard landscaping and easily maintained shrubs under planted with spring bulbs would be one way to go.
Can you afford to get someone in to cut the grass at least once a week and trim the edges at least once a month from April to October?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Dovefromabove - getting someone in to do the maintenance would be ideal once it‘s all sorted. It would be finding someone local to do it would be the challenge. We don’t know many people in the area and most of our neighbours have concrete gardens.
Pansyface - as much as I would love to leave it due to being overwhelmed by it, longer term we want to rent the house and I don’t think renters will appreciate it.
Longer term, both of our jobs will take us away from the area so it needs to be a straightforward garden for renters to be able to deal with. For the gravel area do you think we need to do the following: week kill, remove the gravel and plastic, rake to further remove the weeds, layer sand plastic sand and then lay slabs? Is this a project for beginners?
What area (grass or gravel) would be your priority?
I was thinking the same Pansy, someone on here wanted a meadow just like that and couldn’t get it right. Lovely aquilegia there and lots of other beneficial plants.
That must be home to loads of different butterflies and bees. Frogs and hedgehogs. I see the OP has already started with the weed killer though, so probably best to get it turfed over for the first job then cut it weekly.
Interesting... it does look like you have a fantastic wildflower meadow - people spend ages to achieve that!
I always think that you have to be honest about what you want from a garden - will you be sitting out and relaxing, entertaining, have little people, need low maintaianence but to look good? etc. The 'grass' could be hacked down and mowed, with the only commitment being a cut a couple of times a month so you can spend the time and money on making a decent gravel/patio area which could have as many or few plants as you fancy. An artificial lawn is a big investment - would you actually 'use' it or is it just to look green and need no work?? I personally think that £4K would transform the rest of the garden plus buy a good lawnmower...
You will receive plenty of ideas on here - good luck and have fun.
Hello Lyn and Joyce21 sorry I missed your posts.
The OH doesn‘t have a natural interest in gardening and due to the limited time we can give it we need to bring it back to basics. The spraying was done on the gravel section of the garden and not the grass. Lots if things have shot up through the plastic under the gravel.
Disappointingly we don’t get many bees.
Hi Doghouse Riley,
That’s very sensible advice. Neither of us can do midweek and we wouldn‘t be able to do more than on weekend a month in the garden. This isn’t through lack of commitment to the task but greater geographical pulls limiting our available time.
I would love to have a long term plan. My planning currently runs up to August. The OH is stuck on artificial grass being the answer and doesn’t understand th maintence required. There are lots of trees nearby and its windy and exposed so we usually have a lot of leaves. We will only be around once a month to gather them. I don’t think he’ll be up for gathering when it’s cold and wet. This is why I don’t view artificial grass as a solution.
How can I best persuade him to focus on the area closest to the house?