In 2014 we carried out a major extension project on our house.  The builders moved in for four months.  Over this time, scaffolding was erected all around the house, truckloads of building material were delivered and skips full of rubble were removed.  A new two story extension and loft conversion was completed and then the scaffolding was dismantled and all the main work was finished.  The project went very well and we then spent the next year doing the decorating etc.

One slight problem during this time, was that a fair bit of our garden was completely trashed.  I would have expected my wife to be slightly disgruntled about this but in fact she was very pleased.  She had been saying for a few years that she would like to redesign the garden and as things had turned out a redesign was now very appropriate.

Watch our video to get an overview on how one home owner redesigned his garden on a small budget.

Her thoughts were for a completely new design and as such she did not want to keep anything from the original garden.  It all had to go, including the fishpond.  I was pretty unhappy about the fishpond going, as it was its own little ecosystem, very overgrown with weeds and it contained lots of natural animal life.

My wife had lots of discussions with her various friends and then called in a garden designer to provide expert help.  The garden has always been her domain, so I kept a low profile. 

Our house is a modern house, so the garden is very small, consisting of a tiny strip of lawn at the front of the house and a patio and small lawn at the back.  The new design was quite good and certainly looked appealing when the plans were drawn up.  The front garden would be kept similar to what it had been previously with a little patch of lawn and a few shrubs.  The main reason for keeping it this way, is so that it would continue to fit in with the neighbours.  We live in a small close and all the houses and front gardens are of a similar style and they blend well together. 

The back garden would be divided into three sections.  The middle section would retain the main part of the existing patio, however a few slabs would be lifted and some low level box hedging would be planted.  The small section to the north would have major changes.  The fish pond would be removed and a circular cobbled area would be created.  Looking over this would be a small arbour with a covered seating area.  In addition some steps would be built coming down from the double doors on the new extension.

On the Southern part of the garden a new fish pond would be created in one corner and a raised bed full of plants in another corner.  I had built a new garden shed in the south-east corner using material left over from the completion of the house extension.  Our new heat pump had been erected in this part of the garden and so it was important to keep a reasonable flow of air in this area.  The small grass lawn was to be completely removed and replaced by loose gravel.

Having the plan now generally agreed, the next step was to get it built.  This is where we had a slight difficulty as my wife did not have full confidence in my ability to get it all done.  Before I knew it, she was arranging for garden contractors to visit and provide quotations.  I always prefer to do things myself, if I can.  This usually saves money and at the same time I get a good level of satisfaction.  I thought the best way to handle this delicate situation was to just smile and get on with the job.

I got our original builders back in and they made some steps for the new patio doors.  We topped these with some of the slabs that we lifted from the patio and this ended up with an excellent result as they blended in with the surrounding.

The next step was to empty the pond at the north end of the garden and put the wildlife into our neighbour’s pond for safe keeping.  I then levelled the area and hired a flattening machine to make sure the earth was compressed down.  Over this I put a dry mix of concrete and ballast and then I set in all the 10cm square cobles one by one.  This was a very long job.  The cobbles needed to be laid out to make up nice concentric circles and the whole area needed to end up with a slight slope for rain water run off.

By now I had filled up quite a few large bags with all the soil that I had dug out.  Over time I sifted all the stones out of the soil so I ended up with one bag of stones and about 5 bags of relatively good soil.  Later on I was able to use the soil to fill in the raised bed and I used the stones as gravel to walk on.  I always like to recycle when I can.

For the arbour I could have bought a kit but instead I built it myself buying in the necessary wood and a few roof tiles.  This way I was able to make it the exact size that I wanted and I was able to build it to be very solid.  Hopefully it will last a long time.

The middle section of the garden was fairly straight forward as most of it consisted of the existing patio area.  We had a misshapen tree/shrub which my wife was keen to get rid of but I thought it would be sad to remove a tree that had been growing for 25 years.  Instead I cut it back to correct the shape and as it turned out this was quite successful.

In the plan provision was made for a small water feature and my wife went out and bought this from a garden centre.  It consisted of a lion head blowing water out into a small trough.  Made out of some sort of concrete material that looks like stone.  I assembled this on the exact spot that my wife told me to.  In fact it looks quite good and the birds certainly like it when they are feeling a bit thirsty.

Making a new pond at the south end of the garden was straight forward.  I dug a big hole, put a black polythene liner into it and then set some tiles and stones around the edge to hold it in place.  I then filled it with water and planted some weeds, gave it a year and then introduced some animal life.  It is interesting to see how the plant life slowly changes over time.  It has periods where it all goes green as it fills with algae.  Then after a few weeks it all goes clear presumably as the insects eat all the algae.  Then after a few months the whole cycle repeats itself.  We also have some newts which seem to be multiplying at quite a fast rate.

I bought in 12 large wooden railway sleepers and used these to build a raised bed, approx 45cm in height.  This was achieved by having 3 levels of sleepers, all one on top of each other.  Before filling the space (with my special hand sifted soil!) I hammered in some large iron staples on each of the corners to hold it all together.  I assumed the soil would sink over time and so I made sure that I over filled it as much as possible.  Sure enough, the soil level did progressively drop over the next 6 months and ended up settling at about the right level.

In the southern area of the garden, we now had the shed, the fishpond, the raised bed and the heat pump.  In between I laid down weed control fabric and covered it with stones to make a good walking area.  The stones that I had separated (recycled) from my soil earlier in the project worked out to be just what I needed but I did have to buy in a few more sacks of stones before I had enough to cover the whole area.

As I mentioned earlier, our garden is very small and more of a courtyard rather than a garden.  The plants have now all grown up to make a lush green area and the use of the space has turned out to be very practical.  It is a lovely area to sit in when the sun is shining.  The birds also seem to like it and this year we have had three pairs of birds making nests, laying eggs and raising their chicks.  My wife is very happy.

Article written by JJ Heath-Caldwell