Your Garden Made Perfect

[covetingthepreciousthings]

Anyone watch this tonight?

Just catching up now, it's the same show as "Your Home Made Perfect" but you guessed it.. a garden makeover this time!

It will be on iplayer to catch up on!

They said that it would cost the entire £20k budget to fill it in - and I think I'd have taken that option. The choice between a cell painted mediterranean colours and a gorilla enclosure (genius) is not one I'd be happy with.

i thought the little garden would be even hotter now it's enclosed on 2 sides and even with a bit of planting and reed shading, it's still going to be roasting in summer.

They wanted space for dining - but only had a tiny little 2-person balcony table?

I was a bit baffled by their forever home comment. They won't be getting down into the "pool" when their balance and knees go. You need flat access when you're proper old.

DH said he’d cover it with decking and turn it in to an underground cinema and bar which i though was an amazing idea. Then they could have planted round the edge and had a big seating area up top and a usable space below.

Personally I’d never have bought the house in the first place, what a nightmare!

This series is so entertaining, for all the wrong reasons.

Underground cinema and bar sounds like an absolutely amazing idea. I did wonder why they couldn't just put a roof on it rather than filling it in. It really needed a structural engineer on the project as well as or even instead of a landscape designer.

They said that it would cost the entire £20k budget to fill it in - and I think I'd have taken that option

Wonder what just filling in the deepest part and then having a smaller sunken garden would have cost? Nightmare problem though but nice couple - I felt for them.

I think the budget was £30k? So it's a lot to spend on filling a crater and then not have any spare cash to do anything with the concrete land you'd be left with.

Yes the budget was £30k and they "only" spent £24-25k I believe so I don't know why they didn't spend the remainder on the surround or on putting cladding on the walls - although I got the impression that they were really stretching themselves by spending that amount and they did a lot of the work themselves so maybe they really wanted to hold some money back.

I think this week was much better than last week though. Last week the designer took a large budget and created a garden that made most people go - huh? and scratch their heads. This week's end result wasn't great but they had a really difficult plot to deal with so without being able to fill in the pool I think they did the best they could.

The issue with just covering it would be making it weather proof. It had no plug hole so just coving the deep part would mean it would be constantly in the dark and wet.

Cinema room sounds amazing though!

Wouldn't want to climb in and out of a pool but happy with lethal looking steps

I'm not sure there would be a problem making it weather proof. For example they could have put some sort of modular structure down there like a really large shed for the bar and cinema, drilled the drainage through part of the floor that wasn't under the shed, and put a waterproof cover over most of the top. But like I said, they needed an engineer to figure this stuff out, see if it was practicable and scope out the cost. A landscape designer wasn't qualified to do this project properly.
There are actually companies out there that put covers on disused pools - not in the UK but in America and Australia. They could have consulted with these companies to get some advice on what was possible. But instead this lovely couple ended up with a gorilla enclosure. The second nice couple in a row to get screwed over by this programme and this designer in my view.

To pp commenting on their cost reductions, the couple did say the budget was as much as they could afford, stating later that it was their life savings.

I don’t blame them for reassessing the design, seeing where they could reduce the spend, keep some money in the bank.

I suspect to finish the garden as per design would have been closer to £40k.

The person who said they actually needed a structural engineer was absolutely right. Do we think they liked the end result? Because they did seem quite happy with it. Which is I suppose the main thing. I would have thought that drilling drainage holes in the pool and putting a structure over it such as decking would have been better and a lot cheaper. Or even just using the budget to fill the whole and have a nice big lawn.

Agree they seemed so lovely.

Did the 66k last week just get spent on lots of expensive plants?
The guy who does the budget gardens seems to produce much better results for a very small amount of money. Not as entertaining though !

Caught up last night. I think pool couple made the right choice but ended up with something resembling a centre parcs pool complex with the crazy paving, palms and remaining blue paint, I'd be waiting for the wave machine to start. I know they said it's their forever home but someone will have to sell it one day and that's going to be hard. I liked the idea of the raised up steps to make the most of the view but not the way it was done, steps up to a verandah with seating area would have been better.

I loved the small one this week but still
think it will be very hot in the height of summer. A huge improvement though.

An underground cinema would have been amazing!

I always enjoy the small gardens, I think that guy does some really clever things with the space.

Checking in ahead of tonight's show..

I'm
Ready

£30k again.

Where is this? I missed the start.

Littlehampton

Thanks!

I wonder if they're going to tear out all the existing mature plants and introduce a bunch of high maintenance plants for people who don't want high maintenance!

It doesn't look huge to introduce many winding paths but hopefully they can fit some raised beds in for easy access.

The grandparents' garden looked like it was HUGE!

I'm rubbish at garden design but I wonder if it would be good to pave the whole lot (one smooth level) and have chair-height sleeper raised beds in the centre to move between. With some pergola-ish height at the centre.