B&Q Unloved Gardens feedback thread. Non-testers: add your unloved garden comments - £150 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

This thread is for the 20 Mumsnetters who have been chosen by B&Q to revamp their unloved garden.

Those selected have been sent a B&Q giftcard to buy the things they need to give their unloved garden a makeover. They're working to complete the makeover by the 28th, and will be keeping us up-to-date on how their revamps are going on this thread as well as posting photos.

Please do follow their stories and add your own comments if you want to show some support!

Below are the questions we'd like testers to answer but please feel free to add your own comments too. Please give us a bit of info about the garden you're revamping and what you plan to do with it in your response.

• Why is your unloved garden unloved? What do you want to change about it? What has stopped you until now?
• Where did you get your inspiration for doing up the garden from? What sort of style are you going for etc?
• Have you had much help along the way with the revamp? If so, who from? And what sort of help - practical or ideas-based?
• How did you find your shopping experience at B&Q? Were the staff helpful? Did you find anything in store you maybe didn't expect to beforehand?
• Did you use any of the help and advice that B&Q offer? This includes their videos on YouTube, leaflets and classes in store etc. If so, how useful was that help and advice?
• If B&Q could do anything more to help you next time you visit, what would it be?
• Have you had any feedback on what you've done with the garden from family/friends? Has the transformation had a big impact on you and/or your family?

If you're not an official tester but would like to be in with a chance of winning a £150 B&Q giftcard, please post on this thread to tell us about your own garden revamp successes (or failures!) - we'd love to hear from all MNers who have a garden makeover story to share!

Thanks very much
MNHQ

Thank you for the well wishes. I managed to get out there this evening and I have prepared a bed for planting. I'm not sure what to plant though. I might do lettuce or broccoli.

I've put a growbag on top of a couple of tree stumps and I have a courgette plant coming out of it.

So, small improvements today :)

- If B&Q could do anything more to help you next time you visit, what would it be?

A few more staff around the garden area would be good. Also, I found that it is sometimes difficult to see the price of things - the prices are not always clearly displayed in the garden area.

Too dark for photos by the time I got finished tonight.

So since the last photo, imagine this...

The whole patio is surrounded with a row of the same rocks that the wall is made from.
Have dug over the flower beds surrounding the patio, planted grasses against the right hand trellis.

Planted some gorgeous hostas in the raised bed, my lovely friends brought them to me as a gift, the darlings.

The heart planters hanging from the tree now have plants in them.

So still to do...

Put new handle on the garden door.
Paint it (if weather allows, been a bit wet)
Move some more plants from the front garden into the new flower beds.
Clean up the outdoor table and chairs.
A bit of tidying up....
And we're done :)

Is the deadline Saturday or Sunday?

Hopes its Sunday

Hope so too, DD's 4th birthday on Saturday so I need to get it all finished tomorrow really.

The deadline is Sunday thankfully, as we're nowhere near done.

Ds and I weren't feeling good on Wednesday but I thought it was the heat until we woke up to a deluge yesterday, to discover we'd got D+V which we've still got, which is why I'm posting this early, having just had to change ds?s bedding again. He doesn?t do unwell poor soul.

It?s not boding well for today, though at least things are drying easily in this weather.

Yesterday's list was supposed to be: finish painting the walls, breeze blocks and shelves, and cut and paint planter shelving and do lots of photo?s as well as sort out the camera and why it?s playing up and putting things into internal memory and letting us view but not retrieve them.

Looking in awe at some of what?s being achieved on here. (not sure our efforts are going to be quite as impressive.)

Sorry to hear you're unwell DoingIt. Sounds like you've caught a bad dose of something awful. I think we've all done brilliantly, given the heat, kids, school holidays, out of stock products, inefficient and, at times, confusing online ordering system...

My attitude to be B&Q has changed a bit. Some of their products are clearly rubbish. Others are good quality and competitively priced. There are way too few staff about to ask for advice and help in the store. What 'saves' them are those staff who are there go a long way to help. I've met a fair few now who've gone out of their way. I found myself liking them as people! They were chatty and understood my frustrations on the whole. I only wish they'd have a horticultural advisor advising them on plant and pot care (am very happy to do this myself - for a fee).

Lol Roma.
Yes someone who knows the difference between a fuchsia and a freesia would be helpful
My question about plants for shady areas with clay soul were met with a shrug. This is really where a good nursery or garden centre is a better bet for less experienced gardeners.

Sorry to hear you and DS are ill doing it.
Can you draught anyone in to help? Bribe them with promises of beer and BBQ when you're better.

Wow Cremola - that looks dramatic!

Roma - hows the finger doing?

Doing - I hope you feel better soon.

I ended up finishing at gone 9pm last night so need to take some photos of yesterday's efforts. I am awaiting a delivery of topsoil and compost today. Sorry B&Q, but for a bulk order your prices for these are not competitive.

I am still awaiting confirmation of what is happening with my order of chipping from Wickes. The latest I was told was that they would "try" to get the chipping from the store in Hanwell either delivered straight to me today or tomorrow, or maybe it will go via their Twickenham store. I am still really disappointed with their customer service. I had to be really insistent with them to get them to try and sort out the problem, even though there is a relatively simple solution.

Today is quite exciting for me as once the soil and compost is delivered I can get on with the planting, which is the best bit of course.

Today's task list is to half fill the beds with the turf that came off the lawn when we rotavated, and with the soil from the footings. The new topsoil will go on top, and the grass from the turf will improve the soil from the garden (but will be buried deep enough that it will rot down rather than sprout).

When the topsoil and compost comes, I will finish filling the beds and will dig in the compost into the beds.

I can then dig up the herb garden from where it currently is and dig compost into the lawn area and level that. I have the weed proof matting to put down, but might wait until I know the chipping is coming before I lay that out.

I also have a bit extra over-stock to take back to B&Q - a few more bags of cement and about 15 concrete blocks. This should give me a bit more to spend in B&Q, so I will see what plants they can do that fit my criteria of being either edible or medicinal. There should be one or two that I can get - I'm thinking honeysuckle, pelargoniums (scented geraniums), maybe ajuga, and possibly a lungwort if I am lucky.

Oh, and I have an old garden table that is perfectly sound, but looking a little tatty. It has already been repainted once about 6 years ago, so I think it will do for another scrub down and coat of paint.

Haughty - thanks for asking. It's bandaged still and I shouldn't really use it though havw been. It still gets wet in terms of all the water I'm using so I have to rebandage at least 4 times a day. It IS healing though but looks angry and sore still. Guess I'l pulling the wound open a little with every lift of brick/paver. Steristrips came off by themselves ages ago and hvnt bothered returning to hospital to get them reapplied. You've done amazingly well -such alarge project!

Well Ive finally been released from the triffid plants in my garden to update on this thread.
My poor garden has gone feral. We decided a few years ago to keep an area "wild" well little did I realize that this wild area would require more work than the rest of the garden. There was a little bit of bramble growing which I left because it would encourage caterpillars etc hell no it would take over the entire garden within a year, it has even gone across the grass which I am pleased to say, after many long days pruning and trimming, we can now call a lawn. The work continues and I will attempt again to post photos over the weekend. (I actually lost the camera in the bramble on two occasions. It resembled the hedge in Harry Potter that tries to 'absorb' Fleur, if only it was more like Devils snare and would shrink in the sun our job would be so much easier.)

End section of garden is finished. Just shed and trampoline here now, no rubbish.

Our middle section has been paved with safety rubber tiles and the B&Q playhouse nearly constructed..just plastic panes for the windows and the door to fix on. Slide and spinning toy in place.

Plants, lights for our section on the nearest to the house section have been arrange and water feature placed in correct spot but pump will be next months purchase.

Still need to pot loads of plants into their final homes. Finish playhouse. Put up three panels of trellis. Build and paint B&Q Cascade Plant Shelves.

If miracles happen and that lot is completed early enough, we'll do fence panels and posts but I suspect that will be after Sunday now.

Still our garden is starting to look quite good. I sat out there this evening in the dark planning what I am going to do first thing tomorrow (move sacks of sand and spare rubber tiles to behind shed...should just take an hour or so.)

Very quick post as we have a couple of hours before it promises to become serious, and apparently non stop, deluge.

Roma ouch! I hope it heals soon.

Terra, not really unfortunately.

Mrs Weasly

Not very well ds brushing down walls. (lots of bribery in play!)

Painting walls, note that sky which is now grey.

A suprised visitor discovering he can no longer blend into the background.

Another vistor, making no attempt to camouflage.

Roma - have you tried hydrocolloid dressings? They work best for open wounds (I have one working its magic on the large piece of skin I am missing from my elbow from the last time I crashed my bike), but they do provide a complete seal over the wound and keep it moist whilst the skin grows back. They are water resistant too.

Thursday's efforts was these two small beds/planters.

This one will be my strawberry bed. I made it from some bricks that were in the garden, some glass bottles (that contained fancy apple juice - I am not a complete achy!), and the old fire surround.

That's not the strawberry bed! I don't know why I seem to be posting a different picture to the one I intended.

That picture is the small planter. The frame is a picture frame.

This one is the strawberry bed.

Yesterday, I painted the insides of the beds. I wanted to have one more day for the render to dry, but needed to get the topsoil I had delivered into them, which would then make painting the inside difficult, so I decided to do that first.

As you can see, I did take the curved bits of the back of the seats, and am much happier with the result.

Haughty, no I haven't but sounds just what I need. Do I just buy them at Boots?

Here is paving done yesterday. Quite pleased with it and it looks so much better than that concrete base. I am leaving dh the walls to paint today and tomorrow whilst I take the kids out of the way (they can t yet jump on the trampoline as pavers still setting). Chairs were reduced at B&Q to £15 each. Two others and a matching table are coming on Tuesday (earliest they can deliver)

I also had a shopping trip to buy some planters. I wanted separate planters to grow mint, and other more invasive plants, so that they don't take up the whole beds. I also have some particularly special plants that I would like to show off - a Chilean fruit bush, a Caper bush, and a Tea Tree bush, so wanted something to put those in.

So, I took a trip to my local roofing reclamation yard and picked up these old chimney pots! Chimney pots are actually pretty expensive, but I asked them to give me their chipped and cracked ones, and got this lot for £80. I am a bit disappointed that they only had 5 tall ones to sell me (and wasn't really wanting to pay £35 for an undamaged one), but I can always change the short one if/when I come across a replacement.

I am planning to paint them the same colour as the beds.

Roma - Boots do sell them but they are quite pricy. I am using the Duoderm Thin ones, which you can sometime find in an independent pharmacy. (Although the ones I am actually using at the moment I bought from Amazon in a bulk buy, as I seem to be getting through a lot this year).