Are there any Grants available for gardens?

nemmernossage

Hi. If this thread is in the wrong place please move it!

BF and I live in a rented 1st floor flat with a 8m by 10m garden out the front. Since we got the lease, the garden has been a complete mess. Our Housing Association sent out some people to "clean it up" and they just mowed it over and that was it. We have tried to get rid of most of the weeds but the %!%!%!% dock leaves won't die :mad: We've now covered most of it with a massive piece of blue plastic sheeting and are hoping to make it look nice sometime soon. The only problem is we have NO money at all that we can spare to do it up. We have priced up some gravel and paving stones and the total came to £800. We really don't want to grass it over as we don't have room to keep a lawnmower and the weeds would just take over again.

Does anyone have any advice?

Or 80 metres squared of gravel hanging around?

Are there any grants available for this situation? Or do we just have to have a manky garden. :wall:

viktory

Is it a communal garden? Just wondering because if it is, you might ask the other renters/owners to chip in for the cost of the garden. Also, do you have/need permission to pave it? The HA you rent from might not be happy.

izzwizz_2

Some ideas for free gardening stuff:
1) Send off for all the free seeds you can (keep an eye on MSE's freebies section; we have had free plants, seeds, dibbers, plant pots, gardening catalogues, vouchers for free compost & miracle gro, etc. so far this year)
2) If you don't know anything about gardening, join your local library (free) and borrow some books.
3) Join your local freecycle group and ask for donations of paving slabs, etc.
4) If there are any council-planted areas near you (like verges & roundabouts planted up with flowers), then keep an eye out for when they are doing the changeovers - you can pick up tonnes of bedding plants for free and many will have lots of life left in them.
5) Build a compost heap in one corner from a couple of old pallets and tip in annual weeds, vegetable waste from the kitchen, etc. This will save a lot of cash in the long run.
6) Check out your local allotments / horticultural societies. Gardeners are a friendly lot and often happy to help others out.

Garden makeover programmes have a lot to answer for. You don't need money to have a nice garden, but you do need to put in time and effort. It's a lovely hobby and when your child gets a bit older, you could always give them their own patch to do (who know, you might have a budding Bob Flowerdew...)

izzwizz_2

P.S. Anything green is better than tonnes of gravel! How about just clearing a small area at a time and planting whatever you can find. You'll probably discover bits of stones when you start digging that you can use towards a path.

singlehouseholder

I got bags of bark chipping of FREECYCLE, just had to collect it, they're always advertising paving slabs- have a look,its well worth joining up. I know my mams neighbour had been threatened with eviction because her garden was a mess- she did have mental health issues so that was a bit harsh of the council, but it resembled a jungle all year round...

Prudent

I agree that green is better than gravel. Most councils have places where they compost and shred old shrubs/ wood for bark shavings. You can usually pick up these for free. Put a request for seeds/gravel/tools on freecycle. Try potting out fresh herbs after they have been used for cooking.

Fran

nemmernossage wrote:

Our Housing Association sent out some people to "clean it up" and they just mowed it over and that was it. We have tried to get rid of most of the weeds but the %!%!%!% dock leaves won't die :mad: We've now covered most of it with a massive piece of blue plastic sheeting and are hoping to make it look nice sometime soon....

It sounds like the Housing Association's responsibility if it is in a communal area. What does it say in your tenancy agreement about the garden area?

From your neighbours' point of view, having blue sheeting outside could be as offensive to them as the dock leaves are to you, I think you should find firstly whose responsibility it is before you start to do anything and get back onto the HA if it is theirs, tell them why the work done was unacceptable (they might not be aware) an ask if they can send someone to do it properly.

bergy2

Might be worth having a chat to local Shelter advice agency - often they do drop ins - take the Tenancy along

If it is communal there is usually a communal service charge to pay for gardening included in the rent - if there isn't you could ask Shelter if they can advocate for one to be included - particularly useful as it is covered by Housing Benefits - anyway Shelter can give you far more accurate information and whether it is too late for that

If a personal garden you could talk to Housing Association and say you are dissatisfied and are poor and slap on any other issues that contribute to the idea that you are socially excluded and talk about going to the Housing Corporation - that does wonders as the HC are usually the regulator of most HAs - check that out 1st. If no joy write a letter to the H Corp and you may well see a great change as they really do have teeth with HAs

Have fun

lil_me

You're lucky the HA actually did that, we moved into a jungle when we took this house and were told the council would do nothing about it so if we didn't want the house because of it someone else would

Astaroth

The one non-private rented accomodation I was in for a short time was a nightmare as there were 2 flats in the property and the tennancy agreement said that one flat was responsible for one garden and the other for the other but it didnt specify which was responsible for which.

We werent able to get any assistance and ended up having to look after both - too house proud to leave the front in the state it was and liked using the back in the summer. The chap upstairs was plenty happy to use the back garden (esp when he saw we were out there with alcohol) but only once actually helped (plenty of offers that never materialised) and he broke the mower.

You need to check your tennancy agreement to confirm whos responsibility it is to maintain them and secondly what alterations you can make without consent from the freeholders.