When we arrived at this job we were greeted with a very long lawn on a usual “afterthought” rear garden that we find on most new builds. The ground was incredibly uneven, and very soft in places. The other aspect to this garden that was quite challenging, was than no boundary fence, wall, or even the garage, was square to the house in any way. But this was something that not only we overcome, but made a bit of a feature with.
The first job was to strip the unwanted turf and barrow it to the skip. This then gave us a blank canvas to mark the design out onto the ground, and calculate the levels of all the features in the garden. After that, it was back onto the digger and barrows, to dig out the pond saving all useable soil for the raised beds, and to help us level
the plot up by filling in the low side to the garden. Then it’s back onto the barrows, bringing in the sub base for the paved areas.
The next jobs were the oak pergola, and to make a start on the paving. We did both of these simultaneously as we had the man power on site to do so. The pergola was built completely from green oak. If you’d like more info on the pergola, I have featured it in one of my earlier posts. The paving we used was buff Indian sandstone paving. These slabs are very ready available. They may go by different names as many companies sell them, and name them slightly differently. They are available from most large hardware store chains, and is relatively inexpensive. We laid this paving on a wet 6 to 1 sharp sand mix. Always lay the paving on a slight slope (usually 1cm per meter) and always think about where you want the rain water to end up, or more importantly, not end up.
We added some 100mm square sets as an edge between the new gravel areas and flower beds. These were laid on the same 6 to 1 mix as the paving slabs. We also imported in some large rockery stones to add to the pond, and also edged this with the same setts as earlier.
The last 3 jobs left to do on the construction side of things was to point the paving, bring the new fresh topsoil in, and bring in the gravel. We pointed the paving with a “brush in” pointing. If you are buying this from a builders merchants, always haggle them on price. As I am in the building trade, I usually get a trade discount, and I know for a fact, they put a lot of markup on landscaping products. Then it was back onto the barrows for the final time, for soil and gravel.
You can see in the last picture how we coped with the change of angles around the pergola. Overall the job went well. A major transformation for the client. And for a small plot, an incredibly good use of space. A very enjoyable build, and once planted, a very nice space to enjoy the summer. Another happy customer. 👍
As I say with all of my posts, feel free to ask anything about this project, or landscaping in general.