Help me settle a garden design dispute please

[plantingandpotting]

Today I planned to section off an area of our lawn and cover it with cardboard and top with woodchip, to create a more defined area for the chair.

The reasoning is that the grass there looks terrible - it's shaded so is getting thin and mossy. I also dislike lawn in general and wouldn't have any in an ideal world.

Having planned to just crack on with it (as the garden is really my remit) DH countered that it's a terrible idea and we should just look after the grass better (I have no desire to nurture grass).

Open to be told I'm wrong here. Would this look good and add some depth / texture to an otherwise uninspiring area?

Pics for reference. I also planned to edge the area with these
www.homebase.co.uk/willow-garden-edging-100-x-35cm/13971224.html?switchcurrency=GBP&shippingcountry=GB&affil=thggps&affil=thgppc&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwydSzBhBOEiwAj0XN4OmLFrFWr4d_b2d7stl90RcxzIMP9pZnpPUhM_hlsz4sRWaUCshD1RoC6E0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

For some reason it won't let me add more than one pic to the post...

I've got quite a lot of woodchip in my garden, which is quite shady thanks to a large tree, one advantage is the pale colour which bounces light back up. It also fades to quite an attractive silvery colour. It is a very good weed suppressant but it does harbour slugs and my cat had taken to pooping in one area despite having a litter tray.

Yes, I love it too - already have the back bit (beyond the arch) woodchipped and I like the woodland feel of it. Also makes the soil there very fertile.

Sad about the slugs and poop though! Oddly our neighbourhood fox always chooses to poo on the lawn...right in the middle 😂

I think it would look fine. But there are also lawn alternatives that you can put in that will give you a green surface without being lawn (and without having to be mowed).

Is your DH planning on putting in the effort to 'just look after the grass better'? If so I'd maybe give him the rest of summer...after which time he'll maybe realise that grass just doesn't want to grow there.

I think your idea sounds fine. I'd probably end up putting containers onto all but the space needed for the chair.

Longer term... the grass doesn't look great further down either, maybe a more fundamental redesign should be contemplated at some point?

Under trees, aren't leaves likely to make artificial grass not particularly low maintainance?
I think the woodchip would look much nicer anyway.

Yeah that's where we've had a picnic table for the last few months that needs to go back to it's regular spot at the bottom of the garden 😅The grass there is in full sun though so it bounces back well with a bit of seed.

The lawn is his area to look after but the effort is sporadic.

yes each to their own but I'm not a fan of artificial lawn. Would rather use slate or wood chips.

I think it will look nice, although I’d not use cardboard but a weed suppressant membrane.

your plan sounds fine.

ok I'm off to get the bits. Thanks crew! Hope your gardens are flourishing <3

I didn't mean artificial grass, I hate the stuff.

I just meant plants which can be used as lawn alternatives. There are several, I have used a few before and they work well in small surfaces.

My only worry would be that you’d walk the chips into the garden. They might stick to your shoes I think.

But otherwise, sounds good. I’d definitely go for cardboard underneath, membrane is not very environmentally friendly, fails after a few years and then you have this half rotted half not thing left.

Ah right, sorry I misinterpreted that @CatherinedeBourgh ! I'm curious what plants you're thinking of for a shady area...wouldn't mind changing a bit of my lawn from grass.

DH is wrong. The woodchip will look much better and he clearly doesn't look after the grass.

For part shade like the OP has, I have used phylla nodiflora in the past. It's bombproof and looks best when heavily trampled, I have even seen it under cars in car parks. However, it loses its leaves in winter if there is a hard frost, so many people combine it with Achillea crithmifolia, Dichondra repens or Hieracium pilosella (or all three) which are less tough and vigorous but stay green in winter.

In sun there are more options, I am currently nurturing a thyme lawn in the sunniest spot in my garden.

I'm team wood chip.

The problem with keeping it grass is that you'll have to move the chair to mow every time and that gets old. I tried the grass method, got fed up of moving the chair to mow and used wood chip instead.

Doesn’t Hieracium pilosella like a more open position? I’m used to finding it in short well drained grasslands. My father had it on the lawn when I was growing up, and I’m pretty sure it kept away from the shaded areas.

It's possible, all my experience of these was in the south of France, where even our deep shade was quite bright. I didn't include Hieracium pilosella in my lawn, as it was somewhere we never went in the winter (next to the pool, under a holm oak, never in direct sun), so I stuck with the phylla, which went crazy. But I know others who put it in their mix. It's possible that it then did better in the sunnier places and not in the deeper shade, overall it gave a lovely textured tapestry. Though over time the phylla does tend to crowd the other things out ime.

For deep shade, they usually recommend Dichondra repens.

Being able to highlight these plants and look them up is wonderful ... I'd never heard of phylla nodiflora , but wiki has just informed me it's 'commonly known as the Turkey Tangle Frogfruit'.

I mean the woodchip is good but that sounds like a winner!

Sadly, for “warm, well-drained soil. Not a feature of my garden. the Achillea likes “moist but well drained”

We got rid of our scrappy non growing grassed area with a weed membrane then stone chips; larger ones that don't tread everywhere. It was the best thing we ever did after struggling with that patch of lawn for 10 years.

Dh wasn't sure about it at first, but now agrees it was the best thing we ever did for that area. We have an apple tree planted there and the stones keep the moisture in so the tree is doing really well.

Got it done within a couple of hours thanks to lots of cardboard donations from neighbors.

DH took one look and agreed it was a wise move. Vindication!!

@CatherinedeBourgh you now have me obsessed with Phyla Nodiflora. So pretty!! Will now work on telling DH we need to replace the remaining lawn with this

@plantingandpotting That looks lovely - you were right.