Ideas what to do with front garden

[purplegrapess]

There's a small area of grass out my front, it's a sight for sore eyes it's incredibly baldy/patchy and no amount of grass seed will make it grow. I've just got a quote for artificial grass and it would be £620 😱 it's on a slope so I'm not sure what to do with it. Any ideas what to do with it that are not going to be so expensive?

Turn it into a flower bed?

I can't seem to keep them alive, I've got a few pots in the back which I've had for only a few month and they're a mess. Gardening is definitely not a strong point of mine. That would look nice but not ideal with someone as useless as me.

Just fill it with shrubs and you really can't go wrong.

omg that quotes ridiculous. would you be confident to try doing your own artificial grass? it's easier than you think. other options could be to dig it up and put stones down or dig it up and go buy some more turf to roll out.

Your not ridiculous you just need to weed and water pots. Personally I'd paint the flag stones white, get a trellis agaisnt the house, put some climbers in pots... And grow some flowers, from bulbs in the green part.

Plant it up with lavender bushes! Will look lovely and smell nice too. Please please don’t use plastic grass, when it biodegrades it will leave microplastics in the soil, leach into watercourses, the sea and eventually all our bodies. Not cool.

Pressure wash the paving.
Dig up the grass and replace with perennial shrubs (put in weed membrane too, though!)
Job done.

I'd plant it with shrubs. Or you could put in some gravelly stones and put lots of nice pots on that?

Or a rockery?

Yes please plant it up, artificial grass is absolutely awful for the environment.

Please please not the Astro turf, good shrubs. Evergreen if poss, tidy up the steps

Lavender, cheap and easy, they don't even need watering after they're established as I think they are drought tolerant. Good for the pollinating wildlife and smell nice. Just trim back once a year after the flowers die

Plant something instead of grass? Could make a lawn out of something else like thyme or clover

I'd put some shrubs in. Hebes are pretty and very easy to care for. Add in Rosemary and Lavender and you'll have a lovely scent too.

Jet wash or scrub the stones and place a few plant containers with bedding flowers on it. A bird bath and a little garden bench could be nice too if you think they'd be safe from being pinched.

Weed membrane and then slate chippings in your colour of choice (which are the byproducts of slate industry e.g. roofing etc rather than extracted just to pretty up gardens, so they're usually cheaper and good for environment). Blue, plum, green, or black/grey options for slate. Or you could mix the colours to make more interesting. It looks really pretty in the rain.

Obviously other stones are available but aside from cost and enviro factors I find slate easier to walk on as your feet don't sink into it.

Lavender only needs watering for first year if in the ground (unless mega heatwave), only needs feeding and pruning once a year. So low maintenance and difficult to kill. You could cut crosses in weed membrane to plant them to reduce weeding maintenance in between.

That's what I'd do anyway.

For example...

Oh and lavender comes in different colour flowers so you have options there if you fancied lavender but didn't want a sea of purple. White, pink, yellow, green, blue, lilac, violet. Plus different colours and shapes of foliage. And if it's French lavender you can have two different colours on one plant, e.g. white and purple, yellow and blue...

Downderry Nursery are good and do postal delivery normally, but you can see all the different kinds on their website.

What Lindy said. Hebe, and I would also say hydrangea too. Dig in compost to the soil just in case it’s not great quality and water every day for the first summer. Pots are notorious For killing plants so don’t be too put off.

Thank you for the suggestions! I did think of slate chippings/gravel but with it being on a bit of a slope would they just just fall to the bottom? Or am I being stupid? It's all completely new to me

No gravel or slate would be fine. there heavy when there all down so will stay where you put them.

Don't do plastic grass, you have a few options, I'd go for stones if you're not confident with shrubs.

It’s already edged so the gravel/slate will stay in, you fill it to the top of the edging.