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

Ds was off again yesterday so I was working alone, cleaning up the remains of old wall to paint with masonry paint (we plan to do the walls too) and re-use to build w/c accessible pot shelves/planters.

At the moment it's all doing the looking worse before it gets better trick.

Big shock to discover all the breeze block holes are full of house rubble that?s been cemented in, (some concreted) this is surely not normal practise?

Still lots to go and am going to have the most toned arm muscles imaginable by the end.

You can just see one of the B+Q decking tiles we're going for, in the right hand side of the pic. This one is piled with blocks and earth and is acting as a tester to make sure they will be fine with the amount of weight I want to pile on some of them as no one was quite sure what the weight tolerance would be, but thought they would be fine. So far it's seemed very robust and unbothered which is excellent.

I forgot I had eye protector and dust mask pulled up on the top of my head when I went out for milk!

Wrong picture for decking tile, try again:

I went to B&Q for a few more plants this morning, I had planned on getting 2-3 evergreens to fill some gaps, I ended up with 13 large potted various items and 5 trays of bedding tray plants (some dead) but lots had been reduced to 20p/50p and £1 so it came to £21.05 (including 1 full price item - what i went for!) for them all. BUT there were only self serve checkouts open, I didn't know what to do with so many reduced items, the sales person was lovely, she went to get another trolley to put them in after they were scanned and helped me and told me not to worry when I dropped a plant, probably the only dry one and the soil went everywhere, she said I'd keep her busy! I was mortified but she was genuinely lovely and didn't know I was a gift card/promotion person as she was sweeping up at that point.

Now I just need to plant them all...

Lissie bright is good, sorry parents comments upset you, but your garden?s for your tastes, not theirs, and as you can see we all love it too.

Beehaving I also love your board. I haven?t got anything like that all neatly arranged but this project has brought it home to me how ?technologically behind? I really am, so in the future I might!

We're just off to pick up some bricks and sand and then get on with more of it.

Lissie i think your deck and fence look gorgeous.

I am hugely impressed at everyone's progress.

Haughty glad i'm not the only one, it's great you got it sorted in the end, but yes, i think b&q need to take note that their bulk delivery ordering service deson't always work well

what a wonderful haul Tallulah, you've inspired me to pop over to B&Q at lunchtime, fortunatly i work just around teh corner

we have been very busy, i'm going to try and put up a few pics

i'm sort of stuggling with the filming bit. i've done a couple but they're just a few seconds long, it seems hard to film a whole minute for some reason. and my family won't co operate :(

i hope a larger number of shorter films will be ok?

right i'm going to try and do some photos....

here's my pinterest

let it not be said i lack ambition!

nice cleaned up driveway

nearly all cleared ( by hand)

smart front door ( at Last)

whoo hoo trellis all ready fro a wisteria

weedy boarder, i've strung string a ling it in a straight line and once it's been dug over i'm going to trasplant the turn we lift from the lawn to reduce the depth and (hopefully) have a neater edge rather than lawn blending in

we lifted the strepping stones and tried marking out the curve with flour, which teh dog licked up so in teh end we did it by eye

here is the first piece of turf being lifted!

DP & DS hard at work in the blazing sun

Done!

we cut it out to a depth of more or less 10mm. the dragons teeth are because the line of the old stepping stones deviated from where the new path is going.

i do intend cutting a bed down each side of the path but this is going to have to be done at a later date i think

the next job is to clear a strip under these horrid conifers and put the railway sleepers along heer to make a nice neat edge

imagine my excitement when buried under the turn i discoverd a nice brick edge!!

whoops - here

i'm thrilled with my edge - cleaned off

my haul

although i have to fess up, i got the sleepers locally. they were bigger, better and cheaper than b&q's

lovely colour cremola isn't it amazing what a difference splashing a bit of paint around makes?

Back to B&Q to exchange paint for walls - no problem. There was a very helpful chap this time called Mark on the paint section (Scotswood Rd branch). He went out of his way to help.

Last night I did some Internet searching to find out the amounts of sand/cement we would need to lay/fix patio.
It was all Greek to me so I thought we'll just ask I store for some help. Hah.

Woman at customer services desk was fine, checked on two planters we'd ordered, out of stock til' 22nd.fine.
She gave DH the serial number of the slabs from previous order so that he could go and get some extra.

He told her he needed some help with how much sand/cement ect he needed for laying the patio and was told that someone in that section would be able to advise him on the amounts he needed. Great.

Two members of staff were asked, no one could help with amounts of sand/cement needed. No effort, just a shrug of the shoulders and "sorry, I dunno"

So he ended up just wandering around aimlessly, found some sand and something called pave fix, hopefully it will be the right stuff and enough of it.

He did feel that they were possibly a bit understaffed, but this is a retail outlet not just a trade store, people buying from here are novices and need some help. Not all that impressed today.

I have booked the day off work tomorrow, and will be going first thing to the hire shop to pick up a Rotorvator to break up the ground, followed shortly by my B&Q delivery! Exciting day!

I probably won't be able to bend my back by the evening, but it will be good to make some real progress.

I haven't yet finished with my delivery saga. I was planning on ordering everything in one go so that I didn't have to pay a delivery charge, but with this stupid system for ordering stuff from the builders yard over the phone, I could not make my order for slate chippings at the same time, as they have to come from the garden department. This means that I will probably have to pay a delivery charge for the chippings, even though I was ready to order them on the same day.

The only reason that I didn't place the order yesterday was that I had spent so much time being messed around that I ran out of time. I might try and argue it out with them when I do go back to make my order.

Ween, that's awesome, it makes such a difference doesn't it? I've bought a few things from Home Bargains and Poundland too.

Creamola, that looks brill, what a lovely colour!

I am absolutely shagged. I've been digging the "flower beds" up today, I found an ants nest in the root of my xmas tree and the previous tenants obviously had nice stones, which are all covered my mud.

My shoulders and back are killing and my hips are so sore.

Why thanks everyone . I am v please with colour: it is Fern weathercoat byhome base sorry b&q but it was the exact shade I wanted and I just saw it and bought it! Lol
Dh has surpassed himself today by stripping the trees we plan to remove while I was at work!
It's made a vast difference to the space - now looks HUGE! ( just the trunk stumps to be dug out now )
I can now start to visualise the finished garden and am excited