Grass verges outside house wrecked

[hmfair54]

Not sure if this is the right place to post but I'm looking for some advice from anyone who has grass verges outside their house.

We have a grass verge outside our house that we use to park on that is now absolutely wrecked because of the awful weather we've had this winter. We do have a driveway but it's short and narrow and only fits one car. Our street is extremely bad for parking and we would have to park our second car in the next street to get a space. We've tried to save the grass by parking elsewhere but if we don't park on the verge, other people will (neighbours/visitors etc.) so it's futile.

What would be the most cost effective and easiest thing to get it back to looking presentable (it's just a mud bath at the moment)? Would you put paving slabs down even though it might not look pretty or would you try and reseed the grass and invest in some rubber mesh to go over it?

Thanks in advance

Do you own it? You can pave over it if it's not yours.

You can just reseed it in the spring.

If you want to stop people parking on it you could put a rock or even a rockery in the corner. Or plant a tree right in the middle.

Is it owned by the council, in which case DI don’t think you can do anything, except reseed it.

I'm 90% sure we own it (a few others in the street have placed paving slabs) but would obviously check before I did anything.

I'm leaning more towards reseeding to keep it looking nice but I'm concerned the damage is already done because the soil is so churned up, I don't know if seeds would take to it. I'm not a gardener though so not sure it works like that? Plus, like I said above, even if we don't park on it (which we will need to as we have a LO on the way) others will and I don't want to be in the same situation next summer.

Check your house deeds, they should say where your boundaries are.
If you own it then I would be tempted to either dig it over and gravel it, or put fake grass down (not sure if it would get damaged by being parked on though!) No point grass seeding it.

I don't suppose you do own it if anyone is parking there. It must be common knowledge that they're council property.

You need to prepare the verge ready for sowing grass seed. Round here the council do it by pouring loads of new soil on top of the ruined verge and sprinkling shit loads of seed. They re did our neighbours like this a couple of months ago, but they carried on parking on it and now it looks worse than ever. If you did sow seeds you'd have to stay off it until it was established.

Pisses me off when people park on grass, especially in this weather when it gets churned up to mud. So what if you own it or not, do people not have any respect for anything these days? I put big rocks on the edge of ours years ago, followed by many neighbours, we don't own the verge but I'm sick of it looking a mess

Grass mats might be your best option. You can't pave it if you don't own it.

You also need to preserve it as a soakaway for rainwater. Artificial grass or paving won't do this and you will end up with excess water there you don't want it.

You can't expect grass to take the weight and friction of a car daily, I'm surprised it ever looks OK? If you own it I'd put some heavy duty flags down but they'll need properly laying to look right. It would drive me mad my car tyres being full of mud let alone looking at a churned up mess outside!

Our council put concrete grids on ours. The grass grows in the gaps so it doesn't look so bad. I don't know if you can buy them yourself.

There is absolutely zero point in taking the time and effort to reseed it if you plan to continue parking there. The ground will just keep getting churned up. Grass isn’t for parking on.

Exactly as @JuanSheetIsPlenty says! Any form of repair work is totally pointless unless people stop parking there for a while, while it takes.

U need to check if u own it. Do you usually mow it etc?

Thanks for your suggestions everyone.

It's the first winter we've had in the house so we weren't aware it would be a massive issue (bought the house last spring and grass looked immaculate even in front of houses with more than one car). But we've had a very wet winter so that won't have helped.

I agree that grass isn't for parking on but the trouble is that we have two cars (and will continue to need two cars) but the street we live on is narrow and overcrowded so the only way to park two cars is to have one on the verge and one on the drive. And even if we don't park there others do or drive over it to park in front of another house! Pain in the arse!