Cheapest option to sort out garden

bananaaaaa

As a beginner 2 years gardening experience and had grass like this that we renewed in July (!!!!) which apparently is not the best time but we got good results! I can tell you what we did. Pound land lawn seed for shaded or whatever, general purpose or 1 for shaded, 1 general, mix them why not? Pierce the lawn all over with a garden fork, bigger is quicker but anything that would pierce will take longer but help.  Sprinkle seed all over. Water every evening for 28 days; hose, watering can with rose, whatever. If it rains take the day off. When grass grows mow every 1 to 2 weeks on longest setting if poss, if not whatever the mower does. Water during dry spells.
Paint the fence: Ronseal of on offer at toolstation :-)
Do a plant bed, cut c shapes of mud on one of garden with hoe or bread knife, dig compost in (from Aldi or Lidl). Plant shade lovers eg an acer (was loads at aldi last week), hostas (they disappear over winter but come back, love shade and water), salvias like sunny areas, ferns love shade, Japanese anenome beautiful in autumn love shade. Cosmos, love sun and easy to grow, they die in autumn but can plant seeds from pods in spring. Whatever you plant try to water every day for 28 days to bed in.
Homebase have clearance plants often, and bulbs. Wilkinsons have cheap bulbs. Pondland have all sorts. I just plant them and see what happens tbh but generally 'hardy' and 'perennial' is good for year on year plants and colour. 

laurencesmith21

sand_hun said:

Agree with @[Deleted User] - I'd do away with the grass and replace with gravel (put a weed suppressant membrane underneath). Then you can simply plant amongst the gravel to soften the look and have a few containers here or there. You also need to add a little height - get some trellis for the fence and grow climbing plants - it will then start to look like a garden. 

We are surrounded by huge, protected oak and pine trees.  They are a nightmare.  We covered a large part of the garden in large, very expensive decorative pebbles which soon filled up with needles and tree debris.  We then took up all the pebbles, which we now have to pay to take to the tip, and had most of the garden covered in printed concrete (at a cost of £13,000!)  This now has to be swept and hosed at least twice a day as the pigeons are dropping rubbish and shxxxing all over it.  A neighbour did not take my advice on landscaping his large garden and also settled for pebbles.  He is now out in there every day with the garden vac which goes on for hours on end.
I wish I knew the answer to the problem.  If you come up with a good solution, please let me know.

Merryn

Do you really want grass or just green `lawn'? There are alternatives to grass that don't need mowing and are much better for the environment than pebbles, gravel, concrete. Some alternatives are...creeping thyme, chamomile, mind-your-own-business/baby's tears. Google lawn alternatives, some can be mixed giving delicious scents as walked on. Please do think about your actions on nature too, large areas of UK have little space for natural drainage of rain water due to artificial landscaping and animals, essential pollinating insects are suffering. It's possible to satisfy humans and nature with compromise ... slabs set into lawn/green alternative for example

Davesnave

tgroom57 said:

Overhanging trees are good - you can hang bird feeders from them.

Not if they shade a lawn, though you can always pick out the cannabis seedlings from the dropped bird seed easily and have the other kind of grass.....