What to do with garden

[IAmMyBelovedsAndMBeloveIsMine]

Hello All,

I'm buying a property with a 140ft south facing rear garden.
Any suggestions on what to do with this. I'm planning to put up an outhouse at the very end but open to suggestions of anything additional/better.

Thank you.

Following as have similar garden (but SW).

It is a lot of work- highly recommend getting a petrol mower!

Have you got children, and if so how old?
Pets?
Do you like gardening? Flowers?Veggies?
Do you want to use it for socialising - large seating areas, BBQ area, pizza oven etc?

As Seeline said, a lot will depend on your personal situation and also likes/dislikes. (also, I had to convert that into metres to get an idea 140ft is 42m)

Another important question is how wide is the garden? Is it quite narrow, eg maybe only 30ft (9m) wide, so that you have a long thin strip?

Or is it wider, say something like 50ft (15m), so that it is something a bit nearer to a rectangle?

These things will also play into how you can use the garden.

I know a number of people with long, south facing, gardens who have effectively divided it into two by planting screening plants and/or trees across the garden at about the half way point.

Beyond that point they have a second (or "secret" if you like) garden containing the outbuilding, vegetable plots, fruit trees etc. hidden from the house.

On the side nearest to the house they have it set up as an ornamental garden. How they use that space varies; as Seeline mentioned above it varies depending on their preferences.

@Seeline thank you for your response.
I have a 1.5yr old son; enough space for a nice outdoor play area wit sand pit, swing etc .... No pets presently. Yes, I would like a vegetable garden; I have tomatoes and peppers on my window seal now as I am currently in a flat. Always thought perhaps with a garden someday I might have a small greenhouse. Socialising, yes definitely. The outdoor seating area sounds like a nice idea especially for the summer months.

@Another2Cats thank you for your response.
Width is about 10m so yes it is quite long but not too bad. Oooo I like the idea of a secret garden with the outhouse. Sounds like i might need a landscaper.
Initially I thought a 140ft garden was absolutely fantastic but now I'm thinking gosh what am I even going to do with it !?
So I'm thinking outdoor seating area nearest to the house, play area in the middle for my son and then secret garden with out house to the rear ..how does that sound ...@Flubadubba what's your garden looking like presently ?

How much do you want to spend on it? Landscaping is a lot more expensive than indoor work.

@MJDecember24 yes I hear it's quite expensive so it'll to wait till we have the inside done first. There's quite a bit to of updating to do. The house is in a fairly good condition yet still it's dated so we'll have to work on that first and then see what we have left over ...we have not specifically budgeted for outside yet.

My friend has a similar garden and she's divided it up. So patio, planted hedges that divide different areas. If you did that you could install a gate so that children stayed nearer the house while they are little. Veg, shed etc near the bottom but consider water and power etc.

Ours is a similar length but about 18m across. Mostly lawn atm, but patio by the house (with a fishpond), a swing for DD(5) in the middle and outhouse at the back.

We've spent the last year bringing it back to life as it was unkempt and needed a lot of work.

We're doing some building work in Spring, though, so guess it might need to wait a bit.

I suggest just living with it if you can for at least a year. This is so you see what plants you have already in there, where the sun is at various times of the day etc and from that I would plan where I would put things. You might decide that it has too much sun all day and you need a pergola somewhere for a bit of shade for example.
Have a look at same facing gardens online and see what you like, and then see how you can put that in.
Do you want to get into gardening ie composting? If so, then make sure you factor in an area for the compost bins so they aren't near where you sit during the day.
I love having an area that I can sit and enjoy those last days on sunshine, or a morning cup of tea as the sun warms things up.
How exciting though, planning such a long garden. Try and enjoy it 😊

Watch a bit of Love Your Garden for inspo. I'd go with a winding path leading to a few "spots" - swing seat, play area, veggie patch, bbq spot - with plants varying heights around so it feels like you discover each area. If that makes sense...

@Flubadubba ours is all lawn ...maybe a meter of patio if i recall correctly from the viewing ...the garden has a fish pond too but I was thinking of converting it into a sand pit for DS to play ...we'll see. We'll be working on the inside mostly the first year so will have some time to work out something nice

I would buy the best green house you can afford. Add heating and you not only extend your growing season but also the variety of food you can grow. It will also give you and your son something to do in the winter.

i suggest buying big easy to handle seed like nasturtium and calendulas for him to have his own garden. Also winter bulbs that he can then bring inside.

For design ideas look on Pinterest under landscape gardens. If you pin the gardens you like you will see a trend that you can use.

I would also look at Piet Oudolf gardens. Grasses are a really cheap way to fill a large garden. Easy to maintain and great for wildlife. Lastly an insect house. It does not have to be fancy. Just old wood, stones and the like. My children had a bug collector kit with a magnifying glass and it kept them occupied for hours.

If you. Are going to add lighting choose carefully. In my experience outdoor lighting is notoriously fickle

"...I like the idea of a secret garden with the outhouse. Sounds like i might need a landscaper."

You won't need a landscaper at all for that part. Basic outbuildings are sold by the likes of B&Q and Wickes and other companies. Unless you're getting water and electricity installed, or getting a very fancy one, then these can be put up yourself.

With the idea of creating a secret garden in such a narrow garden (compared to its length) this is very straightforward to do.

The simplest and cheapest way of achieving this is to plant a hedge across the garden splitting it into two. Hedging plants are cheap to buy and grow quickly. To plant a 10m hedge will likely cost you £70-£100 (more if you buy older, larger, plants though).

You can also plant a small tree as part of the hedge as well.

You then need to leave a space for the entrance into the other garden. You can either have this in the centre or off to one side.

You could put in an actual gate, so that when the hedge has grown, the other part of the garden is totally sealed off. Or you could put in an arch so that you just walk through it and cover the arch with something like rambling roses or other climbing plants.

@longtompot thank you for your response.
That's a good idea and in fact it is likely to naturally work out that way that we'll probably leave it as is for a year as we'll be focusing on the inside of the house as it does require quite a bit of updating.... a pergola sounds fantastic, will a lot to the optics too. As regards gardening I'm probably going to ger a green house so I can have my plants all years round ...yes definitely exciting ! Can't wait to collect keys and get started.

Definitely don't rush to do anything in the garden. We have recently renovated the inside of our house and it's a lot to manage on top of work and kids so we just paid a landscaper to do basic flattening of the garden lawn and re-turfed it to make it usable for our children, but otherwise it's a long term project that we will enjoy building over the years.

Landscaping is expensive, quotes we had just to lay a new medium sized patio and replace a small strip of fencing were upwards of £5k, a decent long lasting climbing frame/swings and sand pit can easily be £1k, and the sky is the limit with plant costs!

So unless you have a big budget I would spend the first year dreaming then focus on one or two areas of the garden per year once you have recovered from internal renovations and are more likely to have the energy to get stuck in and do some of it yourself.

I've just had a quote for landscaping a much smaller plot (10m x 7m), decking and a retaining wall of sleepers and some raised beds plus a new gate and path down the side return came to just shy of £20k.

@IAmMyBelovedsAndMBeloveIsMine With a toddler I would fill the pond in immediately. Or fence it. You will be on edge if you don’t.

What sort of outhouse? Do you mean a summerhouse? Or shed? I would not necessarily want a garden so far from the house. Awkward for taking drinks to and from the house etc. I would have the veg garden at the end or some fruit trees. Or just trees in grass! I’m a huge fan of silver birch. Don’t make it too difficult to maintain.

However definitely have a seating and play area near the house and plenty of grass to run around on with a ball!

With a toddler I would fill the pond in immediately.

This x100.

You mentioned decking. Please have a read of this very recent thread where many people expressed regret after having decking installed:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/5228807-what-property-features-would-you-never-have-again

"...a retaining wall of sleepers and some raised beds"

This is really quite a simple job to do yourself. If you and/or your DH/DP can put together an Ikea wardrobe then you can certainly do raised beds as well.

There are plenty of videos on youtube explaining how to do it. Here is one from a channel that I'm subscribed to and that I found very helpful myself (there are plenty of other alternative videos to watch):

He also did a retaining wall of sleepers in an earlier video:

Another channel I follow shows in this video a woman laying a new path and a stone patio with sleepers as edging. All done herself with no help:

I don't think there is an option apart from decking, my little boy is a fulltime wheelchair user, when out of his chair and on the floor he gets around by rolling, decking will give him a longer period where he can use the garden, rolling around on damp grass isn't going to be good for him. He has an unsafe swallow but has, in the past, got grass in his mouth which can cause no end of problems, not least aspiration which can lead to pneumonia. His head control is poor when he's on the floor and I figured it is better to smack your head on decking rather than patio slabs. The garden drops away by over a metre, I don't have the skills to build Lego much less a retaining wall and sadly I was widowed almost 3 years ago, added in to that little one needs eyes on him pretty much 24 hours a day due to complex epilepsy.

Our old house had a garden more than twice that in length and it allowed us to do everything we wanted.
Extensive patio area behind the house, then lots of shrubs which provided a definite barrier, then lawn, further down was an orchard and at the far end we had our "wood" with lots of mature trees and beyond that was open farmland.
Sounds a lot to fit into 300ft but it actually wasn't as grand as it sounds however it gave lots of versatility.
You could socialise on the patio, lay on the lawn or enjoy the shade of the trees.
We had outbuildings near the bottom but due to the distance, never got around to having power put in.
A good lawnmower was a must, if we were still there a ride-on would be a necessity but my OH made do with a huge self propelled model and gave himself a few hours to do it in.

It really depends what your tastes are OP. Our neighbours have concreted and Astro turfed the shit out of their south facing garden, and of course it gets too hot in the summer, while we have some nice shade in our north facing one. If you don’t like actually gardening then go for low maintenance shrubs and maybe some small trees as these provide some shade and will cool the garden. Don’t put any permanent structures in until you’ve lived through one summer and you decide where you’d like to perch a table and chairs. Think about getting a pergola for some shade.

Put the outhouse/shed/summerhouse part way down and divide the garden into outdoor rooms. You'll need easy access to it anyway, for bikes, garden tools and the like, and a solid path which would be a lot more expensive if it runs all the way down to the bottom. A path from end to end will just make the garden look long and thin anyway. Break it up a bit. Serpentines or a series of interlocking circles can work well in a long garden.

Think about a seating area, one for dc to play, one for a barbecue set-up, veg garden, somewhere to grow flowers, depending on how much sun you need for each activity at different times of the year.