Our once wild front garden has now had it’s much needed makeover, and whilst we spent about a year tackling the weeds before we could eventually get to to work on it, we’ve been able to transform it on a budget, totalling just £142.50, and we’re so pleased with the result!
I must admit that gardening is not my forte and I was slightly stumped by the space from the outset, but a little planning and vision and I knew just how we could make this space add serious kerb appeal, whilst reusing a lot of what we had.
Having previously tackled our small terrace garden, it’s proof that small spaces can be just as beautiful, and not cost the earth. Here is everything we did, and what the front garden looks like now.
The Front Garden Before The Makeover
When we moved into this property, the house had been vacant for a year but the gardens not touched for much closer to five years. It was wild.
For a long time we actually couldn’t see that there were slabs underneath as the trees, weeds and everything else had pretty much grown across the entire front garden.
It was difficult knowing what to do here for a while as we prioritised getting the inside finished, you can only imagine what the inside looked like…
Despite all of this, we pruned and weeded away regularly to keep it stripped back and there are some really beautiful parts to this garden which make it seasonally interesting all year round. We have hydrangeas, a large camellia tree and a red robin, whilst they also provide some privacy from the neighbouring houses.
Planning The Makeover
This is how it started to look after we properly stripped back the garden, took the porch down and removed another small tree in the centre of the garden.
We love the border of trees and hedging which brings colour and privacy, so it was just the slabbed area that we had to plan what we wanted to do with it.
We did consider turf or in fact just leaving it, but we wanted to add some kerb appeal and have something a little bit nicer to look at when we leave the front door.
I stumbled across this inspiration on Pinterest where slabs are used in a diamond formation and then filled with gravel. I knew this was exactly what I wanted to use for inspiration, and it meant that we could reuse the slabs that we already had, and the rest of the costs would be minimal in comparison to something such as adding turf or re-tiling the entire space. I was excited!
The Makeover Process
The first step was taking up all of the existing slabs, and this is definitely not a job I would have been able to manage on my own as the tiles weighed between 50-60kg!
My husband used a small crowbar to get leverage and lift the tiles and then used a hammer and bolster to loosen some of the cemented joints if required.
We then moved them all to the side once done and cleaned them up, ready to go back down later on in the makeover.
It then started to look like this. We then raked through the entire area getting up as much of the weeds and exposed roots as possible.
Once this was done we flattened the area with a rake and then finished going over it by using a piece of wood (4 x 2).
With the area ready to go for the exciting part, we added weed membrane to the front garden, cutting it down to size where needed. We hope that with this and the weight of the slabs and gravel that most new weeds won’t get through, but as we also have weed membrane in our back garden, they do seem to always find a way! But they’re much easier to pluck out and maintain at this stage.
Due to size of the slabs (80cm x 80cm) we had to play around with the diamond pattern as we didn’t want to have to cut any down to size, and we wanted to keep them complete. So, whilst it isn’t the perfect diamond pattern like the inspiration on Pinterest, we made it work with the size of our front garden.
The last touches were the gravel to bring the vision to life, and to introduce some colourful potted plants into the equation to complete the rest of the greenery.
We had some leftover slabs which we have been able to utilise in our back garden so there was no waste at all!
Front Garden Makeover Reveal
I’m so pleased with the outcome and that my vision came to life, and whilst there was a lot of hard graft to get it to where it is now, it did only end up costing us £142.50!
We used one full ton bag of 20mm gravel here which the guys at Wickes were able to crane right over the top of the front garden, then using a spade and a broom to brush it into place loosely.
The gravel doesn’t move, but if you use smaller pieces of gravel or it’s an area that’s heavily used by kids and animals, you can explore getting a resin binder glue which helps to hold gravel in place, although it’s not something I have personally used, and it can be quite expensive.
We finished the space by adding some new plants in existing pots that we had. We’ve added a Callistemon (red bottlebrush), foxglove Dalmatian and some bedding plants for summer colour and interest.
Whilst the camellia only blooms for a short period in the spring, the front hydrangea will begin to bloom in the summer and that will bring some other seasonal colour to our front garden.
The full breakdown of costs and everything we used for this makeover can be found below.
Final Budget Breakdown
I was really happy that we were able to utilise a lot of what we already had here, mainly the slabs as I know how expensive they can be.
Although, if it’s something you’re looking at doing and you don’t have a very large space, I would recommend taking a look at Facebook Marketplace as many people get rid of leftovers from patios/driveway’s for a low cost, or even free!
Here’s everything we used and a cost breakdown:
- Our existing slabs – £0.00
- 20mm gravel jumbo bag from Wickes – £85.00 inc delivery (we ordered two ton bags at the same time as we used one in our back garden too)
- One roll of weed membrane – £7.50
- Plants – £50.00
- Pots – £0.00 (we had the existing pots)
- Tools used were all our own (small crowbar, hammer, bolster, rake, broom)
Total costs: £142.50
If you want to see the whole process in action, I’ve got a full youtube video on it below! Let me know what you think in the comments below of our transformation and if you have any questions.
