Would you spend 30k on your garden??

[Subsidence]

....If you didn't think its was your forever home?

We moved to a nice detached house 2.5 years ago. It was the best house we could get in budget with all the craziness of the 2021 market. It is a lovely family home, massively practical for family life. However, I love period houses and this is a 90s new build. My DH loves the house and area, but I really miss the character of living in an older property and would like to move at some point in the future, maybe in 5 years or so. But I am also conscious that to get the same sized older house in a good condition, could potentially be out of budget and I don't miss the high heating costs we used to have in our 1930s house! So potentially we could be here a lot longer than 5 years.
Anyway ....

We have a 3 yo. The garden is relatively small. It is south facing and becomes unbearably hot in summer. It has a small patio area and a raised lawn area. Ideally I'd like new patio, new turf, new fencing as it's all tatty and falling apart. Also a gazebo built with a bbq area so we could have some shade in summer. Plus some nice planting so it's not just a bare rectangle of lawn.

All the above would cost circa 30k including vat according to quotes. Or, we could just redo the fencing and live with the dated gross old paving and tired lawn.

If it was my forever house, I would have no qualms doing all the work. But we wouldn't recoop the money if we sold. Then I think, it would make it much nicer and useable for my toddler if we did the work. He loves being outdoors, but I hate the garden so much I prefer to take him to the park over sitting in the garden with him, so feels like a complete waste of space. Our last garden was beautiful and we spent a lot of money getting it done, but tradesmen prices were more affordable back then!

Please help!! Spend the money and have an outside space to enjoy for the next 5 or so years, or just do the fence?

It sounds a huge amount for a small garden. I’d expect to be able to do that for under a third of that price. Have you got several quotes? Is the gazebo something unusual? I just can’t imagine where this figure has come from.

I wouldn’t spend 30k on a house I didn’t intend to stay in long term. Why don’t you head on over to the gardening threads on here and post a picture or layout and ask what they’d do.

I would, yeah. YOLO and you may OL in this house. Live in the now man! Make your environment nice.

I would look at what you can do yourself with maybe £5-£7k. Pressure wash the patio and buy some really big pots and get a few impressive/statement plants. Re-do the turf. Paint the fence or just replace that element if it’s really tatty. Buy a sun sail (pergola if you are thinking of growing something up it will take a long time to establish well) - they’re easy to put up and fun/modern. Think about putting in a couple of flower beds - or even a little veg bed to grow plants with your toddler. Look on Pinterest or insta for planting inspiration. £30k is a lot to spend if you’re not planning to stay when I think £5k or so could be transformational.

I wouldn't, but £30k is a lot of money to me. I would only spend that sort of money on something that you would definitely get back when you sell. You can definitely tidy up most gardens for an awful lot less.

No because my husband does all his own landscaping aside from fencing ( used to do that but he’s getting on a bit ) , we did our garden a couple of years ago , built a longish path , sizeable patio , arbour , planting etc . I reckon including the cost of the wacker plate it cost about 4k and looks great .

Someone higher up said about buying bare root plants in autumn, you can still get them now to plant in the next month. I've just bought a couple of bare root rambling roses for our garden.

If I could afford it, yes I would. But ... Say you spend 30k and live there for 8 years, that's over a tenner a day each day that garden has cost you!

No.
that's a ridiculous amount.
But, as been shown above, that quote is ridiculous.
You could provide shade for a lot less than that.

My initial reaction would have been "yes, spend the money" BUT for £30k over 5 years, that's £500pcm without interest. I think when you put it like that - that's a decent whack on a new mortgage on a house you might actually love and want to invest in.

I wouldn't.

I dont think I would spend that much money on the house you've described. But its a personal decision based on your own circumstances and what other uses you have for £30k.

No lol bad enough repairing fences constantly with the wind storms we have nowadays

30k seems a huge amount for the work you’ve listed.

You could get the patio redone, sort the lawn yourselves( not rocket science) Scarify, lawn feed, moss killer.Or plant some wild flowers in it and let it grow.
Get some lovely new plants from the garden centre for a nice border.
Repair the fence. Do you really need a new one?
Gazebos don't really cost a huge amount.

I’m sure with some planning and doing some work yourselves you can get the wow factor at a fraction of the cost.

£30k?!?!? No. Unless acres of it

Well I definitely think your quotes seem super-high (but I know materials etc have shot up lately) - you can definitely reduce somewhere if you repost looking for budget ideas.

But what I would say, looking down the lens with a now 18 year old, is this: actually the years that your DCs spend in the garden are short, actually. By the time they're in late primary the park with friends seems like the outside place they're spending the most time. Therefore, I'd do the work. Make it a pleasant space to enjoy now with your DC. And actually, another way to look at it is you have a 'room' that's unusable: I bet in any other context you'd get that sorted?

30k is a ridiculous amount, the materials cost no where near that amount. It seems like landscapers are charging an absolute fortune for work these days. I would recommend sourcing materials yourself and finding people to do specifics tasks rather than giving it to one company as a complete project.

God no... but I only have 22k to do my whole reno house and garden of my forever home.

30k would be 1/3rd of my houses cost.

We spent what to me was a lot of money on our garden last year. And I love it. It wasn't supposed to happen we were just getting a new greenhouse, which then needed a new base. To get to the greenhouse needed the broken concrete path redone. Then the lawn the otherside looked awful and mowing was difficult as it wasn't very flat. So then the patio at the top of the new garden looked awful, so...and before you know it we were lots poorer! :D
So it would have been better if I'd planned it, but then I'd never have spent the money. We love how it is now, everytime I look out the window I feel happier than looking at the old garden. It's a bit suburban tbh but we live in the middle of nowhere so that doesn't matter, lol.
Someone said it's a tenner a day, what's that two coffees?
Who knows what the future holds, as long as you can afford it and it'll make you happy. Maybe you can economise but I wouldn't lose sight of what you really want or that will just make you feel you shouldn't have done it. I don't know if you're down south, we're in the sw and labour is very pricey, so everything costs.

This is the after, I know it looks fairly ordinary, but it functions and it's easier to maintain. And now we have lots of empty space for plants so can go shopping! :)

Hmmm. I'd spend it. You only live once. Your toddler will only be young once. You could waste his whole childhood not enjoying the garden and saving up for a better house... that's a bit of a waste isn't it. Better to make the most of what you've got and enjoy life even if it pushes the new house plan out another year.

With the state of the economy the housing market isn't going to be great any time soon so your 5 years for a new house could easily end up being 7 or 10... and in the meantime you haven't really enjoyed the one you have.

I really feel you - just in the process of spending a bomb doing cosmetic improvements to our house which wasn't meant to be a forever house but we've been here 10 years and realistically with taxes etc going up we aren't going anywhere for a few years yet and it's starting to get so shabby it wouldn't sell without a facelift. Husband is LIVID as he sees it as a waste of money 🙃

Grownup life is boring!

I'd be wondering how much of that quote is clearing and waste disposal? We are in the North so might be different but we paid circa £8000 for 30m2 Indian stone, a decked area about 15m2 and 21m2 turf on a blank slate soil new build garden. Granted after working with the soil he did say he'd charge more for the same in future but I wonder how much you could save by potentially taking the patio/ fencing up yourself and hiring a skip? Does the lawn really need turf or could you improve it gradually with some scarifying/ treating over the next few months. I'd also be inclined not to spend 30k I won't get back but if you could limit it to new patio/ fencing only you might find the cost more acceptable and that you get a bigger proportion of it back.

I would pay to fix the fencing and patio, and then find alternatives to the rest, for example get a lawn expert in to sort out the grass, buy a really good big sunshade etc. I think there is a compromise to be found and nothing to stop you doing the gazebo and barbecue area as a phase 2. It would make your life easier if it's done and you will enjoy your garden more

30k sounds a lot for what you call a relatively small garden? What size is it?

We paid 8k a few years ago for removal of an orchard, returffing one section, fencing, a raised decking area, built in hot tub and gazebo. This also included electrics.

We spent 25k a few years ago, and I'm certain we did re-coup this when we sold a couple of years later (London). Our garden was sloped and the main scope of the work was to dig out and flatten it, and build a retaining wall at the end. We then got new turf, new patio, new shed. It immediately became one of the nicest and most useable gardens in the neighbourhood, and as it was also south facing and we bought some nice furniture, was a massive selling point. We got almost asking price for our house last year at the height of the price crash. I think since Covid people really value having nice private outdoor space.

Honestly I think 30k is completely nuts. Triple nuts if you are already wishing you'd had the money to buy a house more to your taste. Spending 30k on a garden is 30k you won't have to spend on upgrading to a house you like better. What an absolute waste of money.
There's a million things you can do in a garden that cost virtually nothing. Why do you need new turf if you already have a lawned area? If it's got weeds in and dead patches, that's because you aren't looking after it and you can spend a stack of money on returfing it and it will still end up with weeds and dead patches. Just google lawn care and do a bit of work to make the lawn look nice, put some plants in and look after them. Buy some seeds for under £1! If the garden looks tatty now because you aren't looking after it or planting in it, you can spend 30k and still have a tatty miserable garden if you don't make the effort to look after it.