Replacing a large lawn with patio or resin: reasonable idea and cost?

[Happydays777]

DH has decided he wants rid of the garden and replace it with patio / resin. The grass lawn is about 70 square meters in total. It's rather a large garden and DH struggles to do it as it needs cutting every 2 weeks in summer. He's never been a gardener but likes to keep the grass nice. We have seen some nice block paved drives and resin drives. We got a quote and it was 20k to do a block pave drive and put a drain and a gate in and a gravelboard wall up. I must admit the idea sounds good and so does the company. The manager was great and very friendly. We asked another contraactor but we didn't go with them as he said he won't know how much it costs and said to give him money to buy materials without a quote in writing just asked for upfront money. I said to DH we should get a few quotes as we have no clue re: prices. some like in picture. WWYD? Pay it or get some quotes? DH just wants to go for it.. Or leave grass?

£20K? For something that will require more maintenance than a lawn, knock £££ off the value of your house, and turn your garden into a barren environmental wasteland? It sounds like a ridiculous idea to me. Get a gardener or buy a robotic lawn mower.

I wish the OP would come back

I'm so glad that everyone on this thread is against the paving.

If you don't want grass, you could do what a friend of mine has done and have gravel over a permeable surface with loads of low growing plants planted in the gravel and the odd paving stone.

It is very low maintenance and drought tolerant. A bit like the below, but the plants are smaller.

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/maintain-the-garden/gravel-garden-ideas/?srsltid=AfmBOopOpmD6fHAGfpKK7YGrriyEZaYQeiz4QbvYAXi5SzlXyYK68IRP

You haven't mentioned children.

If yiu have them, it's a far nicer experience for them to play on grass than hard surface.

As well as all the environmental reasons that Every Single Other PP has mentioned.

Could you mow it yourself? It's not a Blue Job any longer.

Drainage is an issue with all paving so whoever does it needs to determine levels correctly and include drainage otherwise you will have pools of water.

Secondly paving will have to regularly cleaned. I would much prefer to cut grass than power wash. Lastly, can you do it? We have a fab rechargeable mower, very light compared to petrol, no cord to worry about. I easily do it and doesn't take long at all.

Like everyone else on this thread, I can't begin to understand why somebody wouldn't pay a handyman/gardener for a couple of hours a fortnight to keep
the garden tidy if you have 20k at your disposal to ruin it.

I also agree that it's way more time and work to keep a paved area weed free.
And all the other reasons given by all the other posters. . . . .

I think you'll lower the value of your home by paving over the grass garden (and, as others have said, it causes environmental damage, including flooding). I'd pay someone to mow the grass and get quotes for replacing it with clover or meadow grass, which never needs mowing.

Grass. And buy a robot lawnmower.

Just get a robot mower. It’d be a lot cheaper than a horrible hard surface and vastly more environmentally friendly.

Grass. Your lawn isn't huge and mowing wouldn't even take that long.

Having a paved garden would seriously devalue your house if or when it comes to selling, so the price would be much more than £20K. Unless you want to be seriously depressed by it, you will also need to spend quite a bit on plants in big pots and tubs, and they will need maintenance also. Plus, as people have pointed out, you will inevitably get a lot of weeds growing through that.

Just keep the grass, get someone in to mow it if neither of you wants to do its

This thread has really restored my faith in humans and their love of nature.

Keep the grass and get a gardener if needed! Will cost less than the patio!

Grass. How depressing it would be to have what honestly sounds like a prison yard for an outside space!

I'm not the biggest fan of completely lawned gardens, having been the one who had to mow a previous 0.3 acre lawn at our last-but-two house!

At the house we sold in 2024 we created a 0.5 acre garden from scratch planting the majority, leaving just a small grassed 'orchard' and a couple of smaller areas of lawn for our dogs to chase balls etc. But I wouldn't choose to lose the entire lawn for paving or a resin drive type 'garden'. That's not really a garden.

Unfortunately, we inherited an almost fully paved garden when we bought our current cottage 18 months ago. Virtually none of the cottages nearby have lawns - some are just paved postage stamps and there aren't any families with young children living in them.

Ours is one of the largest gardens, but it's tiny compared to our previous one and eventually we'll lose much of the cemented in paving but it's going to take a kango to remove. For now we've covered as much as we can with huge pots (some areas 1m diameter) brimming with trees, shrubs, climbers and other perennials as we couldn't bear looking out onto or spending time in a grim, plant-less space. It's bad for the soul as well as the environment, imo!

Keep the grass. Pay a gardener. I have a gardener, costs £25 per hour, he comes every week for about 6 months of the year. £20k would cover about 30 years of gardener costs.

And your house will be much harder to sell in future without a garden.

Too late to edit typo - 'Some are 1m in diameter'.

My gardener cuts the grass every 2 weeks in summer. It takes her about an hour for roughly 160 square metres, not all in a nice neat square, but quite an odd shape, with lots of borders in it. Plenty of edge strimming too. I pay her £30 an hour in SW UK. A quick back of the envelope calc shows that your £20k would buy over 600 hours at today’s rates. Grass is good for all of us, and removing it will remove habitats and food for many species of creatures. It will cause you more problems (drainage etc) than it will solve. Do have a think about buying in help, and keep the grass.

Keep the grass! Spend the money on a robot lawnmower

I would have thought getting rid of the grass and paving would make it harder to sell your house in the future, not to mention it would look as depressing as hell. In my area, all the houses with paved gardens are sat on Rightmove not moving at all.

It is very heartening to see that not one single poster thinks that paving over the back garden is a good idea.

I completely understand why the DH doesn't want to be a slave to the lawnmower (why doesn't the OP take turns to cut the grass?), but there are so many less environmentally destructive ways to deal with this.

Have we scared the OP away?

Block paving is more maintenance than grass imo. It gets weeds growing in it and looks untidy fast if you don't keep on top of it. Plus sweeping, jetwashing off the moss, resanding the joints. PP's suggestion of investing in a robot mower would be simpler and cheaper!

I want the garden. I usually mow but DH doesn't like mowing. He gets a bit stroppy so a robot mower sounds awesome. I can't do at moment due to health problem

Great idea about getting a gardner for the time being until i get sorted and can cut the lawns agains. I rather like the grass but DH doesnt like cutting it until I get back to my normal self.

Sounds to me like you have a lazy husband problem not a grass problem. How feeble is he? My 81 year old mother cuts substantially more than that including slopes, uneven bits and using a 20 year old petrol lawnmower.

Are people who mention robot lawnmowers talking from experience? Are they actually good enough and do the job (i.e. not breaking down over slight bumps / slops / random plastic toy left on the grass / rain, etc.)?

I'm very intrigued!