Rough cost of landscaping garden?

MysteryMe

Either buy a house with a level of garden or do a make over what is already there.
There is nothing really wrong with what is there already, it just needs a good tidy up and freshen up.
It's over grown with boring shrubs that have gone woody and all a bit grey and concrete.
There is so much you could do to make a huge difference without spending thousands.
You can buy some really nice pots and planters on one level and some specimen plants on another level.
Go to a proper nursery where you will get  wide selection of plants and proper advice on the best for your soil and aspect of the garden
You can paint brickwork, concrete and replace the flags to make the steps more attractive
If you are really bereft of ideas you can could pay for a landscape designer to suggest a planting scheme and you do the work making it a more reasonable option
As others have touched on, if you do want to rip out what is in place, you need to be very careful with drainage. 

Unicorn_cottage

Taking the soil off-site in itself would be prohibitive. 

pleasedelete

Have next door done a bit of a land grab where the fence has a kink? 

llcooljsmith

Unicorn_cottage said:

Taking the soil off-site in itself would be prohibitive. 

I'm currently redoing my back garden, nothing as dramatic as that but replacing a flat grassed area with stones / decking. I'm having to get rid of a few skiploads of soil and I have five people all fighting over who will take my soil off me, it's slow progress but I can't bag it up quick enough to keep up with demand. 

There's always someone else wanting to do the opposite of you and you can save a lot of money tapping in to money saving mates who will be happy to take the raw materials off your hands.

MoneySeeker1

Another vote for "tens of thousands of £s" to do what you want. That's from me knowing my own garden needs "sorting" and I've made the decision to do so in principle - but getting that amount of money for it in practice is a worrying thought as to literally whether I'll ever be able to do it.

In my own case - I've gone in the direction of "hide it/hide it/hide it" as far as possible re all the "boring elderly person - and done on the cheap" type garden that came with the house. So it's gradually becoming plants/plants everywhere trailing around and being "useful" (eg edible) and is going in the direction of hiding all the "boring/cheap/badly-done" concrete and tarmac as far as possible with putting containers with "my plants" in trailing trailing everywhere. But then I really like the idea of forest gardening/permaculture/etc and so semi-wild is an aesthetically appealing concept to me anyway - and a huge improvement on "cheapie/tatty/concrete and tarmac". All with the added bonus that a garden that was very Dead now has hordes of birds hopping around and singing confidently (having clearly figured out I'm no threat to them and there's a lot of my darn food they're helping themselves to.....).

Davesnave

llcooljsmith said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

Taking the soil off-site in itself would be prohibitive. 

I'm currently redoing my back garden, nothing as dramatic as that but replacing a flat grassed area with stones / decking. I'm having to get rid of a few skiploads of soil and I have five people all fighting over who will take my soil off me, it's slow progress but I can't bag it up quick enough to keep up with demand. 

There's always someone else wanting to do the opposite of you and you can save a lot of money tapping in to money saving mates who will be happy to take the raw materials off your hands.

Removing top soil and getting rid of it is much easier than persuading sane individuals to cart away sub-soil, clay and stones for you!

MoneySeeker1

I saw Dave's point re water could drain on down into your garden from the neighbours above and that's a thought to bear in mind too. Wondering how modern/attractive or totally wild/"natural swimming pool" a large pond or marsh garden or something at the top end of the garden could be?

billy2shots

I have had  some quotes carried out in this past week for similar works.

My back lawn slopes towards the house. I wanted the following

15m X 5m nearest the house leveled for a patio, retaining wall built 1m high by 15m long. area behind the wall approx 10m X 15m built up to level it out .
That area behind the wall turfed. Drainage in the wall etc.

Quotes coming back circa £25k. I was budgeting £15k so am a little out of touch with the reality of costs. 

Unicorn_cottage

llcooljsmith said:

Unicorn_cottage said:

Taking the soil off-site in itself would be prohibitive. 

I'm currently redoing my back garden, nothing as dramatic as that but replacing a flat grassed area with stones / decking. I'm having to get rid of a few skiploads of soil and I have five people all fighting over who will take my soil off me, it's slow progress but I can't bag it up quick enough to keep up with demand. 

There's always someone else wanting to do the opposite of you and you can save a lot of money tapping in to money saving mates who will be happy to take the raw materials off your hands.

@l@llcooljsmith - yes but that's because you are doing it yourself. Your average landscaper will quote you to remove and tipping costs are extortionate. We landscaped our back garden ourselves and managed to get a lot of stuff for free including about 2 tonne bags of gravel which we have to bag up ourselves and remove from someone's house but it saved up at least £200 when we were absolutely broke.