Garden Makeover Thread

[TeamRick]

Inspired by a thread a while ago by grannygarden work on my garden starts tomorrow and I thought I might document it here and maybe others could share ideas/photos of their garden makeovers!

I used to have a lovely garden but we had an extension starting a year ago, it was absolute hell, a straight forward 16 week build which turned in to 8 months of a lying twatchops of a builder and my garden was trashed.
So we've had a push on getting the fence painted this weekend and we're ready to go!

Jazz I look forward to seeing your photos!

We have put left over sand in the bottom of the beds plus stuff we want to get rid of like the slate bits we have elsewhere, then the old soil then the new top soil.

Wow quick work TeamRick! Glad to see everyone preparing their soil well, good stuff

I'm sorry this is not exactly ' Love your Garden' it's all taking a bit longer than expected!

My decking is now nearly finished!
After and before pictures!

Its looking absolutely fantastic. I have garden envy!!

Cant wait to see more photos.

lovely garden - well done.
We did ours over the last two years, also with raised beds. We put drainage pipes in at the back of the beds to help with drainage. My garden is a cottage (ish) garden and the best climber is hunysuckle - flowers until late September. Can't wait to see pictures of it planted up

Ooh this thread is right up my street!

Hi Rik glad to see you're all finished inside! Garden is looking fabulous!

We finished our garden last week- builders were great until the end when they lost interest, so we ended up sacking them. Best decision we made!

Thankfully we got a different company in for the garden who were absolutely amazing!
Here's our before and after!

Two more...

@Baxdream looks fantastic. I love the patio, what have they used?

Hi Bax , good to see you, the garden looks amazing! You must be thrilled to be all finished!

Sacking builders? Who would have thought it felt so good eh? 😬

Our problems are rumbling on a little, when we got the Building inspectors round for final sign off it turned out we didn't have the Thames Water build over agreement so we're doing that retrospectively. The architect hadn't replied to emails! Why can't people just go what you pay them to do!

I've done my first bed today!
This is the most shady one, fern I pinched from my mum's garden, jasmine to start climbing up the fence, a lovely new hosta, a crocosmia I managed to rescue from my old garden (one of my favourites) and 2 new bizzy lizzies for some colour!

I'm pretty pleased with it, having the beds higher really shows the plants off I think.

My friend coming to finish off the garden on Tuesday so I best start planning my next bed 😀

I’ve found Knautia is a good long lasting perennial. It give a good structure to my cottage garden. Lasting well into the Autumn.
Have you thought of a repeat rambling or climbing rose for the trellis? I’ve planted City of York and Claire Austin. They’re now full of bud.

Looks fab BTW. It’s so exciting planting a new garden.

JT thank you for the suggestions, I didn't think I was keen on roses but just googled rambling rose and they look stunning!
I might have to have a rethink!

It is looking great TeamRick. My Albertime Rambler is doing really well, but it has quite vicious thorns. It is deep pink when in bud then opens to a peachy pink. For an early display my Thornless rose Banksaei Lutea was stunning.

Things that I have been really happy with in my new garden are Valerian, Thalacrium Caraway, Angelica and Circium. Total no fuss and I left all the seed heads on for a Winter display.i never had any of these in my old garden, they were all MN suggestions

Winter

Granny Those roses are gorgeous, I think it's the thorns that put me off!

Your garden is just stunning!

Been to the garden centre again today, bought quite a selection but it's too wet to go & look st the names

I did get Agapanthus, lavender, white lavender and quite a few others.

I googled what to plant with agapanthus found the look I was aiming for and then went armed with a list!

I've also started a plan of the garden, what I've planted where so that I can see what grows well, what doesn't and also know where to plant bulbs in the Autumn so I don't dig anything up!

Bad news, today's garden work put off by the weather! 😞

Zephirine Drouhin climbing rose ( from David Austin) has a lovely fragrance and has no thorns. It also is repeat flowering, some climbers on,y flower once.

I take photos because, I can never remember what is where.

Ooh I love a garden thread. That is looking awesome teamrick

I'd say buy some bedding plugs now & pot up into smaller pots with compost, manure & feed & they will grow quite a bit by the time you come to plant out. We have some sleeper raised beds too & I love them . Have some things that have gotten too big (including bronze fennel which I really recommend for height & long interest), so I'm relocating. But a garden evolves & im a stick it in & see sort of gardener!

Has anyone done any research on longlasting furniture? I'm after some metal or plastic but can't find anything that I love.....

Looking good everyone! @TeamRick can I ask how much it cost to get your raised beds done..?

We have railway sleepers out the front and they're starting to rot. I'm a bit frightened about what the cost might be to replace them hopefully they will have years left, but I don't know how long they usually last. And I'd quite like some on the boundary the other side of our hedge...

Hi Orcinus we had 65 sleepers, with the sand, concrete and the metal supports that are fitted on the inside it came to £2000 from Jewsons.

I can't remember the labour costs but that probably won't help as I'm getting 'mates rates'!

We didn't use all the sleepers but he used them for the base for the decking- bit worried now you're saying yours are rotting / I thought they would see me out!

Buck I am definitely of the ' put it in & see what happens' type of gardener too! Good idea about the bedding plants.

I am trying to hold off buying too much, my old garden looked amazing up into July and then nothing so I know I need to hold off for Autumn colour!

The garden work is finished! Just need to tidy up, sort out my pots, plant my beds and get my garden furniture etc out of storage!

Then sit back and drink gin & tonics! I love it!

It looks amazing, just have to enjoy it now.