Inspire me - gardeners ?

Hello

Seeing as there are some budding gardeners on here I thought i would post up some pics of my currently blank canvas of a garden for some ideas:

Bearing in mind I have a dog and a toddler of 2 I would be so delighted if some of you could give me some ideas on what to do with my garden !!!

this is the view looking down the first part of the garden from the back door.



and same section looking towards the house, note the black matting as we are going to deck that whole area


the garden then opens up at the next section and we have this:


its quite a large area and we are keeping the grass section which will be fenced off so that bruno can no longer get in there as its an absolute state due to him !!! we plan to scarify the lawn and replant some seed into it., before we built the extension and had to dig it all up we had a beautiful lawn

and from the opposite corner



any ideas or hints and tips would be most appreciated.
My thoughts are currently for a barked area near the shed for luca's climbing frame slide etc and the fence line i want to plant some trees and also have some flowering bushes but it will be open for bruno to pee and poop in....

Hi Dani,

firstly I would turn the shed so the door faces you - the length will then obscure some of the concrete block wall , you have greenery behind it from the neighbour you can then plant greenery next to it to obscure even more of the houses behind

I'm looking and I have a few ideas - if you give me a scaled floorplan of the shape and dimensions ( and things you want to keep, shed, climbing frame etc) I'll draw something up for you

oh, and are you up for teaching Bruno to go in one specific area?

what a brilliant space....let us see the pics when its finished please?

what a star !!
yes we do plan to teach bruno to go in one place - but realistically i will probably end up fencing ( even if chicken wire type affair) the lawn so that he simply cant get on there unless we let him, the lawn is in a real state and i hope to get it a bit better by scarifying it and relaying some seed etc.

we plan to put a barked area for luca kind of infront of the shed, but will do as you suggest and pm you an idea on sizes.

any ideas you can give would be most appreciated...

Will wait for the pm

though I would give up the idea of scarifying and seeding the lawn - I'd turn the earth, sprinkle blood fish and bone in it, even it up and then lay turf. Seed with a child and a dog - nope!

THAT WAS TURF !!!! LOL
this was it about 4 years ago when we got it put in !!!


cry cry - now its a mess... we cant afford to pay to get it turfed again ! so its grass seed or nothing ! will fence it all off though so they cant get in until its taken - Or am i dreaming?

no hun, you're not dreaming, but I was trying to save you some work. It can be done with seed, but it'll take longer. If you're prepared for that fine. I was just thinking my turf in my old house wasn't that pricey as I bought it from a farm shop at £2 a strip. I think it was £40 did my garden - but it wasn't as big as yours appears to be in that photo.

Oh Dani no wonder you're crying! When mine started getting bad, very muddy down the bottom, I just got my one who does to slap fresh turf on the top! Lol! He said you can't do that, but it's worked, now I have lovely grass again all over the whole garden, but that won't last of course with 2 dogs now!

Transforming a garden can be fun, I went from this:


To this!


by having the whole lot just dragged out and replaced with my own ideas, and I've gone Japanese with mine, it'll take a while to get going but it'll look good in another year or so. I also recently had all the old leylandi's taken out along the bottom which of course was my privacy which I've lost, but planted 15 red robins and laurel's at 7ft already so in a couple of years I'll have a great big hedge along the front like I've got up the side. Plan it, plan it and plan it again coz once it's in, it's too late to change your mind! I kept drawing on A4 over and over again, and I even checked where the sun was throughout the day too for the shade loving maples! Go for it, get some ideas in your head and cost it up, but as Pat has said, turf is the wtg, especially now when it's in abundance and cheap!

And here's my gorgeous 20 year old thick hedge, hedges are fantastic for privacy!

here's what we did with the old house - and that was £40 worth of turf.. of course, the helper is priceless..

oh and the area - about 50' x 15'

great girls, keep it coming !!,
our lawn area though is approximately 15 metres wide by 10 metres deep..... so quite expensive to returf it all.... it was around £900+ when we originally got it done..

the whole back garden is south facing and gets the blazing sun ALL day its a really warm garden, the longer channel going back towards the house still gets the sun, but is a wee bit windy as the back is so open, so we had planned to plant trees ( am thinking eucalyptus, and some fruit trees along the back fence line. I had also been thinkign of trying to put some kind of windbreak up in this area even if its trellis type of thing at the end of where the decking will be...

I also love magnolia trees so wanted a couple of them, and I want to put a willow/ or possible prunis /cherry type weeping willow thing on the corner of the lawn at the fence line... or thats the plan. Just been to the garden centre to price up the trees, about £25 for a smallish magnolia and about £19 for a eucalyptus. Not sure if you can order trees online at a better rate though ??

dani
anyway must go and plan this out for you Pat cheers
)