Garden makeover from a novice gardener!!

[tahir_phoenix]

Salaams - this is a gallery of my garden at my previous house (2004-2005). Bear in mind I never had green fingers or done any landscaping / building of any kind prior to this! Added to this the garden had a really steep gradient and was literally a jungle from the bottom right to the top!! I made plenty of mistakes but the important thing was to learn and improve!

This gallery goes to show that ANYONE (even me) can turn a heap of soil and overgrown space into something a bit more interesting - if anybody needs any help or advice on landscaping please let me know - also any comments on this gallery are welcome! :)

List of pics

1. This was the first pic I took on moving in day from the bedroom window - my own jungle just a doorstep away - nice!!

2. Another view from downstairs - I couldn't wait to get out there - not!

3. This was a view of the top of the garden, I got stung by a million midges on the way up there! :eek:

4. The clearing up begins from the bottom upwards, just to do the bottom & middle sections took me two weeks (2-3 hours every evening) and filled 45 large sacks!

5. The plant in the back is a heavily overgrown climatus, probably not been trimmed for near 10yrs according to the neighbours - the blur in the middle is the neighbours very fast cat!

[tahir_phoenix]

6. Clearing the middle section revealed a nice surprise, a large pond which i was told held lots of Koi carp by the first owner of the property.

7. The view from the patio doors, pretty hideous but the doors will show a different view later on :)

8. My chainsaw was needed to bring this down which I thought was a tree, but the knowledgeable gardener / neighbour told me it was a buddlea, again never trimmed for around 10 yrs by the previous owner!

9. The top of the garden, all rubbish cleared and the idea here is to create a sitting area and build a wall around the outside to hide all the soil at the back and sides.

10. The wall finished and a stone circle + slabs help to create a nice relaxing area, which I needed after carrying all those materials up 3 flights of steps!!

[tahir_phoenix]

11. The view from the top - gives an idea of the steepness of the garden!

12. The old narrow and downright dangerous steps at the top all taken out.

13. To be replaced by new wider and safer steps matching the stone at the top!

14. The view from the top step giving an even better idea of the steepness!

15. From the bedroom window - pond all filled in with soil and bricks / rubble etc but still plenty to do!

[tahir_phoenix]

16. Climatus all ripped out and new fence posts going in - this was the hardest job, each post weighed 80kg - even with two of us it was a tough job!! :(

17. New fence panels in place - all handmade from scratch becoz of the uneven gradient.

18. New steps replace the old ones at the bottom and supporting wall built to form part of another sitting area!

19. Wooden boards cover the breeze block wall and base frame / corner posts for decking area in place :)

20. The unslightly concrete bench / chair about to get a new wooden skin :)

[tahir_phoenix]

21. Another view from the top with the middle section where the pond was all finished - apart from the bench!

22. Decking all finished with handrails in place - still plenty of tidying to do.

23. This part of the garden got the most sun in the evening so it was the perfect sitting area!

24. One of the few trees I decided to keep, mainly becoz it was a chestnut tree and helped provide nuts for the squirrels!

25. The finishing touches, a nice phoenix date palm, very low maintenance!

[tahir_phoenix]

26. One of my favourites the Cordyline Redstar, beautiful red foilage!

27. Continuning with the low maintenance tropical look, a striped yucca sits in the opposite corner to the palm.

28. More plants in the background but not being green fingered I didn't put too many in!

29. An arty shot of the bird table :)

30. Still very steep but at least its more inviting ! :boots:

[tahir_phoenix]

31. The very bottom of the garden remained the same, just dropped bark around the chestnut tree and a few large rocks found at the top - recycling is fun!

32. The same view from the patio doors as earlier, not so hideous now :)

33. One of 2 slow growing conifers with a castor oil plant next to it.

34. The other slope holds a new zealand flax and a fan palm plus a few smaller plants.


Hope u enjoyed the gallery and no mistake - this was very hard work and took over a year to complete (thanks in part to the monsoon summers we have had last few years!) but I learnt a lot and now do landscaping on a part time basis. My new house has a garden 4 times this size but thankfully its mostly on level ground :)

Once again any help, info or advice anyone needs on planning, designing and landscaping a garden area please let me know! :D

[~Obsidian~]

Tahir...

:eek: That is flippin amazing!!! Your garden looks AWESOME and the built from scratch parts are a shining example of your workmanship! Did it take long? And was it expensive? Also, where did you get your ideas from, the idea for two sitting areas and all of that! Must have increased the value of your house quite a bit!

My garden is an uninspired concrete slab atm, if I have any questions regarding a makeover I know where to direct them :D

JazakhAllah for the opportunity to see your amazing work:sunny:

[tahir_phoenix]

Salaam brother - many thanks for your good comments.

The house was bought as a plan to move up the property ladder and the overgrown garden put lots of people off - apart from me !

The clearing up / cutting everything down took 4 weeks (evenings & weekends!) filling over 70 bags of waste.

The landscaping then took just over 1 and a half years due to me deciding to rent the house and only doing the garden on the weekends (very understanding tenants :) As for the value of the house it did help to sell it but prices were increasing at the time anyway. Costs - not cheap (around £2000) if I'd used more stone the costs would have been higher! This is before I discovered Ebay - which is a great source for building materials - but u will need access to a van and enjoy driving many, many miles :boots:

The best way to do plans is to look at other peoples creations and use that as inspiration - oh and do lots of sketches before u start! :)

[~Obsidian~]

Salaam brother - many thanks for your good comments.

The best way to do plans is to look at other peoples creations and use that as inspiration - oh and do lots of sketches before u start! :)

Wa Alaykum Salaam
Sounds good, must have had an immense feeling of satisfaction afterward! Boy do I know about that last part (I am a design student:D) I was wondering where you got your inspiration :D

Btw, I am a sister:butterfly-049:

[tahir_phoenix]

Many apologies Sister :eek:

My inspiration came from many weeks of researching other people's gardens, through books / magazines, gardening websites, tv programmes like Ground Force and visiting dozens of garden centres.

I work as a graphic designer which kinda helped when it came to the sketching and planning out stages and yes ur right the end result is worth all the hard work and effort, now I have to do it all over again at the new place!

U said ur a design student - which field of design are u studying?

[Riz]

sallam Tahir..

Brother thank you, you just made my day i have done something similiar myself in my garden when i first started working on it, i had to hire two small skips and they were both filled to the brim, you should have seen some of the things i found buried under the garden, a full length carpet, spark plugs, car headlights, car radiator and lots and lots of wine bottles just thrown in the bushes at the back, good job on the fences aswell i used the wooden ballasts instead of the concrete ones. You did a wonderful job and the transformation of the garden is a reflection of your hardwork. wonderful job on the decking aswell looks neat and proffesional.

[~Obsidian~]

Many apologies Sister

My inspiration came from many weeks of researching other people's gardens, through books / magazines, gardening websites, tv programmes like Ground Force and visiting dozens of garden centres.

I work as a graphic designer which kinda helped when it came to the sketching and planning out stages and yes ur right the end result is worth all the hard work and effort, now I have to do it all over again at the new place!

U said ur a design student - which field of design are u studying?

Ah there you go, that explains a bit :D No need for apology, tis an easy mistake to make! I'm doing a degree in Industrial Design and technology...gardening is like a test of my skills as well as an advanced form of procrastination!
sallam Tahir..

Brother thank you, you just made my day i have done something similiar myself in my garden when i first started working on it, i had to hire two small skips and they were both filled to the brim, you should have seen some of the things i found buried under the garden, a full length carpet, spark plugs, car headlights, car radiator and lots and lots of wine bottles just thrown in the bushes at the back, good job on the fences aswell i used the wooden ballasts instead of the concrete ones. You did a wonderful job and the transformation of the garden is a reflection of your hardwork. wonderful job on the decking aswell looks neat and proffesional.

:eek: bric-a-brac garden!

[tahir_phoenix]

w'laykum salam riz...

I didn't find as much rubbish in my garden apart from the usual bricks and stones but i did find a VERY useful swiss army knife which I still use today in the garden!

Post some photos of the end result as I love looking at other people's gardens :)

[Riz]

I found a sink right at the back in the raspberry bush; I use that now to grow radish and coriander.
I have a linear garden, at first I wanted the perfect lawn, just green grass and nothing else in planted in the ground, but I soon realized the space would be better utilized in growing food.
I love the perfect lawn though. My garden is still a bit messy and far from how I want it to be, I really wanted to have the classic "British meadow" I bought the seeds two seasons ago and they are still in my seed box not really sure what direction I want my garden to go in now. last season I wanted a bamboo garden with palms and ferns, I really wish I had a bigger garden ( at least 1/2 acre would be nice)

At the moment the garden is quite untidy and the grass is over grown so its quite messy, and my neighbours wooden fence fell down 5 years ago and he still hasn’t put up a new one or mended the old one lol.. I have 3 fir trees aswell so they shed pines like crazy.
I love lighting fires and find any excuse to burn cardboard/newspapers/dry branches at the back of the garden, so inshallah when I clean it up a little ill put up some pics

[tahir_phoenix]

I have a linear garden, at first I wanted the perfect lawn, just green grass and nothing else in planted in the ground, but I soon realized the space would be better utilized in growing food.
I love the perfect lawn though. My garden is still a bit messy and far from how I want it to be, I really wanted to have the classic "British meadow" I bought the seeds two seasons ago and they are still in my seed box not really sure what direction I want my garden to go in now. last season I wanted a bamboo garden with palms and ferns, I really wish I had a bigger garden ( at least 1/2 acre would be nice)

At the moment the garden is quite untidy and the grass is over grown so its quite messy, and my neighbours wooden fence fell down 5 years ago and he still hasn’t put up a new one or mended the old one lol.. I have 3 fir trees aswell so they shed pines like crazy.
I love lighting fires and find any excuse to burn cardboard/newspapers/dry branches at the back of the garden, so inshallah when I clean it up a little ill put up some pics

My garden is pretty much as you've described in terms of your ideal garden -
I have huge amounts of lawn, 2 giant apple trees (collected 600 apples last autumn - sadly mostly cooking apples!) and conifers planted at random by the previous owner which have now grown too big and need chopping down (when I get some good weather my chainsaw will be busy). I agree this kind of garden is just a waste of space when it could be used for growing vegetables etc.
I'm hoping inshallah over the winter (when I go back to 5 working days instead of 7) I will have more time to draw up plans and ideas of what I want but it could take me 2-3 years before I can get it finished becoz of the chopping down, clearing up and preparation that needs to be done first :(

If you need any help with plans or ideas let me know, I'll be posting my ideas/drawings for advice and opinions from you guys inshallah in the next few months!
:D

[Riz]

If you need any help with plans or ideas let me know, I'll be posting my ideas/drawings for advice and opinions from you guys inshallah in the next few months!
:D

thats great Tahir.

i was hoping you were going to say that.. :)

[farah]

wow wow wow! mash'Allah what a vision! :D

[~Obsidian~]

^^ I know! Wonder where he's disappeared off to...

[Foz]

MashAllah!!! totally stunning!!

[Psypomp]

Tahir, this is like paradise! It must have taken ages to plan, let alone build. This is inspiration to all of us, I'm sure.

[tahir_phoenix]

Tahir, this is like paradise! It must have taken ages to plan, let alone build. This is inspiration to all of us, I'm sure.

Many thanks Psypomp! To be 100% honest it took very little planning, due to my lack of gardening / landscaping knowledge & experience and most of it was made up as I went along, i had a rough idea of what i wanted but no set plans - that was my cowboy way of working back then - but things have changed now I'm please do to say! :p

And yes ur right everyone should have a go at doing just a small landscaping project in the garden no matter what it is.

I'll be making some wooden containers sometime this month from bits of decking timber so I will post up instructions to help everyone!

[daisy]

tabarakAllaah an amazing masterpiece, what I wouldn't give to have a bigger garden.

[Dokymake73]

Terry you have done a brill job on your garden,,,,,,im doing the same with our garden,,,,,cleared every think out of ours, now im just finnishing the fence,,,next some decking,,,,,,was thinking about a pond aswell,,,you could give me some tips on how you done yours

anyway well done it looks brill.

[Harjun]

oh.....my....god.......
You did that ALL yourself? You must be a DIY god or something lol thats really really really beautiful mate nice.