How much to pave garden

[MinnieGirl]

We live in a Victorian terraced house. Two up two down, tiny front yard and a small garden with a side return.
The grass is in a state and after illness, hubby struggles to deal with the garden. So we are thinking of turning it into a courtyard garden. All paved apart from one border, and nice containers.
The main difficulty is we are almost at the end of the row of terraces. There is a rear alley but to access it you need to go along another alley turn left and then along to our house.
We are in the south east… but what would you suggest is a reasonable price including labour?

Please don’t do it. Paving your garden is an irreversible loss of habitat that our biodiversity impoverished country really needs. Plants provide all sorts of services - they keep the temperature down, absorb water, filter air to a degree.

Get rid of your lawn and plant a selection of low shrubs; they’re very low maintenance, and it would be cheaper than the paving. They’re a lot lower maintenance than containers.

Paving of gardens is also a major cause of flooding as it reduces the soakaway available. If you do want to do it please at least gravel it rather than pave it.

Thank you for your comments, but I don’t want to plant shrubs…I already have several trees in the border, and I don’t want gravel. We would be putting in drainage.

What size is the back garden? You can measure and probably estimate a price for the actual basic materials (stone tiles, hardcore etc) then you can add some money on for waste disposal (grass / turf). If you know the area in m2 you can approximate the labour needed too, normally a couple of hundred pounds per man per day in my experience.

its gone up massively since covid for materials and labour…..just get some quotes ….no good asking on here

But OP wants paving 🙄

I'm sure she does but there are implications to paving greater than her wants.

im sure OP will get exactly what she wants 🙄

Mumsnet don't like paving or artificial grass.

Just do what you want for your circumstances and house/garden.

If you don’t use cement pointing between the slabs, and have a permeable substrate, the water gets to the edge of the slab it lands on, then goes into the ground through the gaps.

we were quoted between 7 and 13k to patio part of our garden approximately 25sqm.

south east.

I think you’re right.
@MinnieGirl I’ve seen successful patios just digging it out a bit, permeable membrane, pea shingle and square edged slabs laid on top. As it’s only human traffic, no need for deep excavation and tons of sharp sand and cement mix.

Thank you that is very helpful.

instead of paving everything, why not have gravel in some areas with paving in the gravel.

that is (a) cheaper (b) much better for drainage and (c) would let you plant a few plants in the gravel if one day you decide you want to.

something like this

OP DOESNT WANT FUCKING GRAVEL

Having had paving and gravel I would go for gravel as it’s actually lower maintenance. No cleaning with gravel or pointing coming out.
I wouldn’t have any plants in the ground, just in pots. Make sure there’s a really good weed membrane down. If weeds do pop up either pull them or weed killer quick
I’ve had paved yards before and atm have a large gravel garden, small grass and patio garden and a paved yard on different sides of the house. The gravel takes a couple of hours a year to keep looking good and if the weed membrane had been a decent one it wouldn’t even be that

Well, maybe she would if it had paving stones in it. Best of both worlds.

A) Cost your materials. Double it. Add vat.

B) Cost your materials. Triple it (for access being a pain). Add vat.

That does look very pretty but gravel isn’t something I would consider.