Garden projects. Finishing off where the builders left off

This isn’t massively common for us, but we do quite often get jobs on new houses, and a lot of the time it is apparent that the builders are on a very tight timescale, or are on peace work so the buildings can be quite rushed. This job however was very different to that, the builders had started this project on an old building, and never completed it. Also, the quality was very good, which made it a lot easier. The maths on the step nights all worked out which is a common error, so paving them was a simple task. However all of the slabs needed cutting as they were to go into a radiused set of steps. A front and back curve was to be cut and the sides needed to be mitred, so all 4 sides needed cutting on all 37 slabs, on 5 different dimensions. That’s easy enough, but time consuming, and messy. All of the lower paved area was over laid, then cut off in place, on all the radius’s. Once again, we used the Indian sandstone slabs for this patio.

Once all the paving was laid, we pointed it with a brush in pointing. This product does seem a bit expensive, as it’s about 20x the price of a mortar mix by the kg. However, the time saved is massive, what can take 3 people a day to point with mortar, can take 1 person just a couple of hours. It used to be incredibly pricey but as with everything in this trade, it became cheaper as it also became more available. Then it was time to lay the turf. We usually import decent topsoil to blind over the top to make the prep work for turfing easier, as we did with this. We then cultivated the new nutritious soil in with the existing, and trod it down over and over, raking it of level in between the process. Always try to lay and outer ring of turf, and then cut the inner rolls into it where possible. It makes it easier to turf on a curved edge, and also If you do this, and the turf shrinks slightly before it roots in, it is less apparent.

Once this was done it was time to hand the last few jobs over to the client as was the request. We instructed them to keep the turf very wet, and they finished the planting off. A relatively small job for us, but a very happy client, and a total transformation for them to enjoy.

As I always say with my post. Any questions about our past projects, or any questions about anything you are doing, please feel free to ask. I’ve been a landscape gardener in the UK for over 20 years now, have worked on multiple RHS gold medal gardens, huge 7 figure price projects, down to 1 day small projects, and have done 4 series of makeover gardens for ITV’s This Morning show. (Not that I’m bragging lol) Garden construction is my area, plants army really my thing. 👍