Low cost design ideas

emsy.angel.22

Hi all, this is the garden, we need a path to the shed and having some slabs lain in a few weeks. 

I would love a complete garden make-over to add depth and interest, but there is no budget for that unfortunately. 

I think this is so square and boring and looking to add interest.
I am thinking of adding a path like this down the left side and maybe an arch? 

Would that work? 

I would also like a seating area where the stones currently are...but I don’t know where to start! 

jonathan.cole

Gardening on a very tight budget is possible. Some options are:

- Freecycle for a garden bench, gravel or pavers you might want

- growing from seed

- growing from cuttings from friends and neighbours

Seed and cuttings are obviously slower than pregrown plants and Freecycle means less choice.

Loxley

The path needs to lead to the shed reasonably directly, or people won't use it. Maybe a curving path would help direct people to the shed without affecting the play space too much, the area to the right could be planted as a deep perennial border, with space for lots of tall, romantic planting.

emsy.angel.22

Thanks. Love that design! 

I really wanted slatted timber fence at the back but struggling to get anyone to accept the job. 

I should have said the right-hand side is north-facing so quite shady. 

Love the curved path - currently was thinking of extending path on the left which is definitely the long way round! 

But would double up as more space on the sunny side. 

Loxley

Shady is OK, you just need to ask on here for appropriate plants - you'll get a list as long as your arm...

Re the slatted timber fence, I've done one for my mum using treated softwood roofing battens (38x19mm). I am not remotely handy, but it was actually pretty easy to do. And very cheap.

emsy.angel.22

Loxley said:

Shady is OK, you just need to ask on here for appropriate plants - you'll get a list as long as your arm...

Re the slatted timber fence, I've done one for my mum using treated softwood roofing battens (38x19mm). I am not remotely handy, but it was actually pretty easy to do. And very cheap.

Can I ask what you battened (sp) them onto? 

Thanks. We have a wall so I suppose posts would need to be screwed to that or sunk in the ground in front of it. 

Loxley

They were fixed to fence posts but you could bolt posts to that wall. It's easy once you get going, once the first horizontal is in, you can use an offcut (on it's side) to make sure the gaps are an even width. You have to fix a batten vertically to the back in between the posts to prevent the battens from skewing.