Help design my garden

Hi, can anyone inspire me or point me in the right direction to redesign our back garden. I will try to get some pics up tommorow but it really is a blank canvas. We are in a new build so the soil is a bit rubbish, all rubbley when you dig into it and it has a slight slope towards the house. It's also on two levels. (dog loves jumping up to the second level down the bottom of garden and lording it over us! ) At the moment we just have it turfed with a small border at the bottom on raised bit, a few trees and lots of containers. Have a japanese acer waiting for a permanant home other than it's pot and would love a little section to grow my medicinal herbs . Oh and it is full sun most of the day (when we get any) Hard to describe without photos I suppose.

Have double doors opening out onto what is at the moment a small paved area. Would like either lovely cotswald stone paving here or raised decking.

Anyone know where I can go for inspiration and has anyone used landscapers or gardeners, would like an idea of how much one is as really don't have a clue.

Great to have such a blank canvas but almost too much choice.

There are some ok-ish free online garden design sites around on the web. I used one when i designed mine but can't remember which site. I'll try and find out and post you the link tomorrow but here's the result:



It's quite basic but worked quite well when i was explaining to the turf layers how i envisaged the whole thing working out.

I know what you mean about the rubbish soil as well. Our place was built around 20 years ago but it's ex council and all they've used is a clay like soil and its really hard to turn or do anything with.

From the way you describe it, it sounds nice already. I'll look forward to seeing some photo's tomorrow!

From the design shown above the area of turf we wanted doing was 20m square and to get that top-soiled and turfed we were quoted £550 which i thought was a lot for the area. I think they put extra labour on as we're mid terrace and have no rear access so they would have to come through the house.

So far we've just scouted round for free topsoil and stuff and saved a fortune in doing it ourselves bit by bit. My OH built my raised veggie patch for me and filled it with top soil which would've cost a few 100 quid:



It's full of top soil now but haven't uploaded any of those pics yet but gives you an idea of what can be done if you're DIY minded.

As i said look forward to seeing some pics and good luck with it! It's so rewarded though when you see it start to come together.

That looks great. Really like the raised veg patch. I could do something like that with my herbs to keep them in check (some are real spreaders). Might wait to DH has mowed the lawn before I post pics! lol.Though it's not too bad. Next door are having theirs all done up and I suppose I have a touch of the green eyed monster. lol.

We will need to get a hard landscaper in to put some steps in first. That's the priority. £550 does seem a lot just to turf. I think there are some that will come and give a free quote but not sure how to tell good gardeners from people just doing it because they think it's easy money (bad experience in past, can you tell?!).
Like the look of that planning tool. I will have a scout around to find a similar one.

Thanks for the advice x