I’m so organised that I forgot to take a before photo, but for those that this means something to, here’s my new-look front garden:

Previously it was a bit of a mess, with gravel just dumped on top of bits of plastic sheeting and weeds coming up everywhere. We went to the garden centre and bought a few bags of slate chippings, some edging stones and some weed-suppressing membrane.

We raked all the gravel to one corner, put in the new flower bed and laid weed-supressing membrane on the exposed ground left over. Then we raked all the gravel onto the new membrane and laid membrane on the other bit of the garden. To plant the shrubs we just made cuts in the membrane and put the plants in with potting compost and slow-release fertiliser, then raked the gravel all around them.

 

Finally we scattered our few slate chippings on top of the gravel – its an instantly much nicer effect and without either paying for or carrying vast quantities of them as well! We can add a few more bags of chippings in the future, perhaps.

Thanks to mum for helping us get this sorted! All that’s left to do is to plant some bulbs and then try to keep it looking as nice as this :)