Post Your Garden!

[sovietspybob]

Planted an oak tree yesterday, be interested to see how big it'll get in my time at this house.

Also really pleased with how the lawn is getting on thanks to my robot mower, that's easily the best bit of tech i've bought in recent memory.

 

[Participant]

Planted an oak tree yesterday, be interested to see how big it'll get in my time at this house.

Also really pleased with how the lawn is getting on thanks to my robot mower, that's easily the best bit of tech i've bought in recent memory.

I've been looking at these. Which one have you got and what are the downsides? Does it stop automatically and go back to base when it starts raining?

Lawn and house both look nice btw.

 

[sovietspybob]

I've been looking at these. Which one have you got and what are the downsides? Does it stop automatically and go back to base when it starts raining?

Lawn and house both look nice btw.

Thanks! I've got a husqvarna Automower 420, i did a thread about it here https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...obot-lawnmower-review.18824920/#post-31946654

I've had it about a year now and it's brilliant, any specific questions feel free to ask but on the whole i can't speak highly enough of it, i can't believe so many people still have old fashioned mowers for reasonable sized gardens now these things exist.

Only downsides are the cost of purchase i guess but even then compared to a ride on mower they're very good value and the ongoing costs make them very cheap to run. I change the blades on mine every 6 weeks ish and that costs about £1 and then it's just what electric it uses which for us is free as we have solar panels. Also it can get stuck on certain objects so you have to be mindful of where you want it to cut and may have to change some things, i've got a couple of raised drain covers and it would get stuck on them, so i had to fill around them with earth and it's been fine ever since. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBJnWkWUPA&feature=youtu.be) it also struggles on really steep slopes but it really depends on your garden layout. And the amount of people that stop and want to have a chat about it, everyone is fascinated by it so depends if that'd bother you or if your garden is in view of anyone to notice.

It doesn't park in the rain it just cracks on and keeps going, the cut isn't affected at all by the rain so you can just leave it be. The only times i have stopped it are during really long periods of heavy rain, say for 4 or 5 days in case puddles form as i don't want it to drown itself.

The quality of the lawn is really fantastic, everyone who comes round comments on how good it looks and the fact that it always looks perfect it's a huge plus and the hours i save over the year to spend on other things is well worth it to me.

I chose Huswvarna as of last year at least they seemed to be well ahead of all the others, plus they've been doing it for longer.

If you are interested in getting one they have some really good videos on their youtube channel which are quite technical about the installation, they're long at 30+ minutes but well worth a watch as it really makes you understand how they work.

 

[roadie]

Planted an oak tree yesterday, be interested to see how big it'll get in my time at this house.

Thank you for planting a nice tree!

 

[alexakasloth]

What started as mainly dead grass with heavy clay soil has turned up nicely now after enough rotovating, removing large stones/rubbish and adding compost.
Veggies are doing well too!
Bonus cat.

 

[Ezah]

Here is our garden. We moved into a new build around 18 months ago, the lawn was laid before we went in, but we had to address the tiny patio issue! First try I didnt really go far enough, so this year we expanded and now have enough entertaining space and the raised beds to give some interest around the seating areas.
Next job is to create beds around the edge of the garden with more tropical planting, including a bamboo screen along the one side we are overlooked from and another good sized palm.

 

[Participant]

Here is our garden. We moved into a new build around 18 months ago, the lawn was laid before we went in, but we had to address the tiny patio issue! First try I didnt really go far enough, so this year we expanded and now have enough entertaining space and the raised beds to give some interest around the seating areas.
Next job is to create beds around the edge of the garden with more tropical planting, including a bamboo screen along the one side we are overlooked from and another good sized palm.

New builds: when your boundary is partly defined by your neighbours' garages .

Great job on that garden anyway, that patio looks excellent. May I ask what stones / 'tiles'? you've used?

 

[Ezah]

New builds: when your boundary is partly defined by your neighbours' garages .

Great job on that garden anyway, that patio looks excellent. May I ask what stones / 'tiles'? you've used?

Yes, plenty of brick there, but a) it does a good job of screening neighbours out, and b) less fence to paint! The design overall is a bit chaotic, but we get 3 parking spaces off road with the garages setback like this.

I used 80x80 Porcelain (Regal Ash Matt), from Topps. Laid on slurry over a concrete pad.

Thanks for your comments

 

[shadow_boxer]

Some excellent gardens and projects. Trying to get on top my lawn. Sadly it was a neglected last autumn and this spring so missed a good scarify and feed.

 

[Fireskull]

Some of my garden project this year, started in April I think, and the last pics are from this weekend.

The original section of garden was even more overgrown and dingy than in the pics, I had already started to clear it a bit before taking some photos.



Burnt a lot....


Area cleared of everything we don't want, and new fencing put up to keep the dogs in.


Next up, decking, a co-worker was having an extension so needed to take down a load of decking, some bits were only a few years old some older but we got so much it was pretty easy to chuck away any bad pieces, and even now the decking is all done I still have loads leftover so I am going to make some bin stores with it.






The deck was already stained so this was as good as it cleaned up with a pressure washer, we planned to re-stain it anyway as we were given all of this by its previous owner, so far it has only cost me bucket loads of screws and bolt.


And this weekends work:



















Really happy with it now, so nice having an area you can relax or eat outside! Just off to Wickes now to get another bag of bark to finish off the top corner.

 

[Ezah]

Thats quite the transformation, nice job ^^

 

[JAMAL]

Looks good, what did you use on the decking?

 

[roccles]

Looks great and I am glad you kept the trees, so many people are so quick just to chop them down.

 

[Fireskull]

Looks good, what did you use on the decking?

Thanks! I 'think' its 'Ronseal Ultimate Protection Decking Stain Charcoal' but I can check for sure after work.

Looks great and I am glad you kept the trees, so many people are so quick just to chop them down.

Thanks! Yeah definitely wanted to keep the trees, and they looked so much better once opened out, the olive tree especially has grown a lot.
The only other problem is I have now created a step up for the dogs to get better access to the pear tree

 

[Cookeh]

Nowhere near as nice as Fireskulls efforts, but here is the result of my own mini-project over the past few months (busy boy and limited funds!). I've also been rather slow in taking some pics of the finished product haha. Hated the before, patio was barely useable, looked hideous and the grass was destroyed from where previous slabs and sheds were. Even where it was just normal grass it was very bumpy with peaks and troughs all over the place. Pics of the before and during are in the spoilers.

Befores:

Spoiler

Patio before (french doors area)
Patio before (side path area)
Patio before (ex-shed area)

During & process

Spoiler

Dug out and squared the patio area, extending it another 2m. Used the concrete slabs pictured and found from excavating as hardcore beneath the deck. Built a planter to hide the wheelbarrow/shed slightly using the previous sleepers - the ones that could be rescued anyway), then dug up all the grass, levelled it and turfed it. Not perfectly flat and still a few patches left - we turfed in Nov in the rain so took a long time to take, and of course stupid me wasn't using a scaffolding board to spread my weight during turfing. Digging through 2ft of solid clay (pictured) was an absolute nightmare and I bent two spades and one fork - supposedly Spear and Jackson's 'unbendable' ones. Paha.

Patio during excavations
Grass and planter during

Afters:

Still some work to do - namely recoating the deck, possibly with something a bit brighter to match the fence panel. Also need to paint the planter by the shed and tidy up the area by the side path - some of the bricks there are in desperate need of repointing. Pretty happy with my first attempt at landscaping/turfing/decking - though definitely have some areas I can improve in the future.

Deck after (french door after)
Deck after (side path area)
Deck after (general)

 

[Fireskull]

Looks great, love the sleeper retaining wall!

 

[shadow_boxer]

Very nice. Well done.

 

[Nathan]

From

To

And finally

 

[SuperOwl86]

Post Your Garden!



Current state of play.

Had one tree cut down as it was a weed and the rest pruned since they were interfering with the neighbours. Still need to get rid of the rubbish and redcude the overgrowth around the shed. Starting to think now how could potentially landscape it all but not much is coming to my head at the moment.

 

[Steedie]

Finally sorted our garden out after 3 years. Typical new build garden, small and no character.

Decided to make the best of the space for us to be able to use it



Now looks like




Happy with it now. Still pretty plain and simple but it’s functional now which was the aim