Inspiration needed for my concrete garden! Please help xx

[ziopin]

Please help me. I've recently moved into a lovely house, with a bloody awful garden(please see my contact page to see how awful it is - I've uploaded some photos there)

Obviously I need some inspiration. DH is handy with his hands, so no problem there!

Thinking of decking the top area and maybe slabbing the bottom? Any other ideas welcomed xx

Lots and lots of pots. Or you could make some raised flower beds with a nice brick border (mum has some of those on her patio and it really makes it look a whole lot more homely).

Any potential for putting a small amount of grass down?

God that is awful

A lot depends on whether you're prepared to dig up the concrete and paving

Agree with RubberDuck, lots of pots for a quick fix, and/or raised beds. I don't personally like decking v. much but it'll be a great improvement on this. Another alternative may be some sort of pebble effect - depends what sort of 'feel' you want to create.

we put three of these together to create raised bed effect. Looked good. These sandpits come with a liner so you could treat them like huge tubs ontop of your concrete

No cant put grass down, the concrete area at the bottom has a steel plate (used to be the old garage) underneath, so no grass! I love grass too, but have got plenty of that at the allotments!

If your garden is grassless, how about creating a mediterranean style courtyard, these often have lots of pots. You could have lots of geraniums, rosemary, thyme, bay, lavender, olive, pittosporum; all do really well in pots. I would suggest going to a nursery, as you get bigger plants for the same money as ones in garden centres. Plant in terracotta pots. You can also have urn style pots empty, as features.

I think you can get paint for external concrete yards, if you fancied tarting it up as a temporary measure. Look at what you can reasonably do this year; time, effort and cash permitting and view the garden as a work in progress, always evolving. A lovely book for reference in garden planning is Garden Design by John Brookes, published by Dorling Kindersey, it covers how to make a plan of the garden you want and how to devise planting schemes, choose landscaping materials, etc. It has taken DH and I 6 years to get our garden the way we want it!!!!!

I would suggest matching blue pots of various sizes, so you've got some colour even when nothing's flowering.

and paint the brick walls to match the house, to brighten it up.

Loads of pots and cover the rest of the concrete with gravel to soften it a bit!

I'd fix stained (green maybe) trellis panels to the walls and add climbers such as evergreen clematis armandii, jasmine and solanum for scent and flowers, would then add pots (agree on all one colour) filled with scented flowers and herbs - lilies, lavender, agapanthus, rosemary, mint, perlagoniums etc etc.
Don;t ,much like decking but agree its nicer than concrete. How about old bricks, setts or nice paving slabs instead?
This link might provide some inspiration
www.charlotterowe.com/small_private_chiswick.htm
Would suggest you borrow some books from the library, there are loads on container and courtyard gardening.
The crocus site (www.crocus.co.uk) is great for reference and inspiration.

This is a great book for inspiration for small-ish gardens
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Little-Gardens-Anthony-Noel/dp/0711214360/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214 646848&sr=8-1

is it sunny or does the shed thing at the end cast a lot of shade?
if sunny, go mediterranean (lavender, grasses, agapanthus, lilies, scented things like stocks, pelargoniums, some phormiums or agaves or structural type things so there's interest in winter)and a big trough of herbs. get something climbing up the shed - a clematis or rose suited to a pot.
you could also grow some food in pots - tomatoes, salad leaves, aubergine, you can grow beans up a wigwam in a pot. and leave room for a deckchair!
if its shady grow hostas in pots, things like nicotiana, buzy lizzies, ferns, hydrangea, camellias (in ericaceous compost, they like acid): lush foliagey things. honeysuckle is good in shade.
if it's expensive/ timeconsuming to arse about with new flooring (tho brick would be lovely) you can get quite a difference quite quickly with pots.
best thing about a courtyard is if it's small, scented things will be really powerful in that space so major on them

is it sunny or does the shed thing at the end cast a lot of shade?
if sunny, go mediterranean (lavender, grasses, agapanthus, lilies, scented things like stocks, pelargoniums, some phormiums or agaves or structural type things so there's interest in winter)and a big trough of herbs. get something climbing up the shed - a clematis or rose suited to a pot.
you could also grow some food in pots - tomatoes, salad leaves, aubergine, you can grow beans up a wigwam in a pot. and leave room for a deckchair!
if its shady grow hostas in pots, things like nicotiana, buzy lizzies, ferns, hydrangea, camellias (in ericaceous compost, they like acid): lush foliagey things. honeysuckle is good in shade.
if it's expensive/ timeconsuming to arse about with new flooring (tho brick would be lovely) you can get quite a difference quite quickly with pots.
best thing about a courtyard is if it's small, scented things will be really powerful in that space so major on them

If you're going for pots, get the biggest you can afford and carry. They'll look more dramatic, will support bigger plants and need less watering.