Help my Garden

[BoeJiden]

Help me with ideas for my small and ugly looking garden. The middle is plagued with sogginess in the winter, so when the kids play football it is an almighty mess. What can I do or plant? Most of my neighbours have fake grass but I don't want that.

And while we are at it, can you critique my front plants please? Anything to make it more attractive looking. Thanks ☺️

Will they continue to play football in the back? If so, hard wearing grass seed and some creeping/rambling plants to go up the fence to give it a bit of life, perhaps.

I am keen on native plants and also finding the right things for the conditions. You could have ferns, with some cottage plants around for height (hollyhocks, foxgloves etc).

Maybe a dwarf cherry or acer if you want something ornamental.

Thanks @ForKeenLimeOtter when you say "hard wearing grass" is there a specific variety? I don't think the grass is the problem more the drainage. I would love trees as well, will look into your recommendations.

There are grasses that are more tolerant of heavy use or boggy ground. Sorting drainage is a bit more challenging - you could dig in lots of sharp sand or dig a french drain/trench. But drainage is all affected by the soil type, neighbouring properties, surface water etc. Difficult to give a simple solution unfortunately.

For better drainage you probably need to work on improving the soil by adding loads of compost/organic matter. (Obviously depends what's underneath the garden, as builders' rubble won't improve!) Could you raise the lawn slightly by putting compost on top of the current lawn and then lay new turf? Then troughs around the edges with a small selection of repeating plants, eg. ferns in the shade, lavender in the sun, campanula in the sun which will spill over the edges. You could have climbing plants up the fence as a previous poster suggested too.

I've done a dodgy drawing of my vision!