Help - ideas for transforming a slabbed garden

[TeaChocKitKat]

Posting here for traffic.

I've seen a house I've fallen in love with and we want to put an offer on. However, the outside space is utterly depressing. The garden is a triangle shape but it's entirely slabbed over. Does anyone have any before and after pics or ideas of how I could transform it into something lovely? I need green and plants! DP says we can just get some pots but that just isn't cutting it for me. I really need a proper garden.

We patioed over our garden, its courtyard sized, about 20 by 30 foot. Its filled to the brim with really nice pots, terracotta, on stands, at varying heights in little clumps, higher shrubs round the outside, we have a massive bamboo in one, plus a eucalyptus in another which was bought looking like a little weed, it is now about 30 foot tall and needs chopping back again.

In summer when its growing, its really green and colourful, we have small pots hanging on the wall and bizzie lizzies flower all year without any help

I love it because you can change things easily, weed easily, move things around.

Have a look at neighbours’ gardens to see what underlying soil is like. Is it a new-build? The thing that would concern me would be whether the current or previous owners slabbed it over because it was rubble-filled or very poor soil, rather than just because they weren’t interested in gardening.

I've seen quite a few paved courtyard gardens on TV gardening/design shows - if you get big pots and plant up with the right stuff they can look amazing!

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/real-gardens-tiny-tropical-courtyard/

Here's one for example.

Sorry, I should have said its not a new build. It's a cottage that was built in around 1820. The house is full of character but the garden has none. It really let's the house down.

We had this. We took up the paving slabs (sold them on Ebay for a couple of hundred quid) and laid wildflower turf. We got gardener friends in to help, so it wasn't free, but it wasn't all that expensive either (a few days at £200 per day, plus £250 for the turf and £100 for some more plants.)

They were new paving slabs that weren't in keeping with the house. The back of the house has a paved yard with original york stone so we're keeping that.

Have a look at Arthur Parkinson, his first book is called the Flower Yard. He has lots of videos and books now but here is a taster.

It sounds fabulous OP, you could pull up the odd slab here and there and have fixed planting in those bits.

My back yard (terrace) is slabbed. I also have it full of pots plus a couple of mini greenhouses. I also have a good size seating area.
The trick I think, is to have loads of pots of different sizes to give different heights. I have some half whiskey barrels so big plants can grow. I also grow climbers up the back fence.
I haven’t got a decent pic without people but here is a snapshot to show what I mean about different heights

In my old house I dug up a strip of concrete to make a bed, it’s hard work…you need a lot of topsoil/compost to work in.
i would start with pots and then longer term you can lift sections and turn them into permanent beds.
i also grow tomatoes, chillies and lettuce not just flowers so pots can be versatile.

Yes we had 9 pots of toms this year