As a professional landscaping team, we often speak with homeowners who want to augment their outdoor space, refresh areas that feel tired, unloved, and unusable, and ultimately make better use of their gardens, side returns, and frontages, but with a limited budget.
For many, the best starting point is to think about the aspects of your garden, drive, or front yard that you most dislike and that would benefit from a simple facelift, upgrade, or replacement—which can often be transformative!
In today’s guide, we’re looking at garden renovation ideas that can make a huge difference to the appeal and feel of your home. We hope these pointers help you envisage how you can tackle the issues within your garden and bring everything together while being manageable on a budget of any size.
Managing Waterlogged, Patchy or Tired Lawns
Our first area to look at is lawns because poorly selected grass seed, old turf that has become clogged with weeds, or lawns that don’t have the right drainage and become flooded—muddy messes at the first sign of rain are incredibly common—and one of the most frequent garden design problems we’re asked to correct.
While there are plenty of ways to bring a dead, patchy lawn back to life, we recommend speaking to a skilled gardening and landscaping team since replacing turf with an unsuitable substrate or membrane underneath or trying to ‘fill’ patches with fresh seed may be a wasted expense.
Depending on the soil type in your area and the problems with your grass, we might suggest a low-maintenance astroturf as a place for kids or pets to play without fears of damaging the lawn, high-quality turf and soil prep to completely replace an old lawn, or de-weeding, scarifying, and re-planting grass seed to create a thick, green, luscious new lawn you will want to walk on.
Improving Privacy and Replacing Damaged Fencing
The next fairly small and low-cost project relates to fencing, hedges, or borders—another familiar problem we see, where flimsy fence panels start to degrade over time or become damaged by wind and rain.
Erecting a new fence or building a wall is certainly one way forward, but you can also look at other garden design options if you want to minimise the cost of your garden makeover by:
- Fixing existing fence panelling or adding new posts to create better stability by anchoring the fence panels and stopping boards from falling or becoming misplaced.
- Replacing only specific panels or parts of the wall or fence that have been damaged or creating smaller enclosed fenced spaces—typically as a way to ensure pets cannot escape without having to fence the entire perimeter.
- Adding climbers, tall plants, shrubs, and trellises, which can act as a privacy screen and shield to separate your garden from the street or neighbouring homes while also adding scent, colour, texture, and beauty to your garden.
Established, mature plants can be planted straight away to disguise an older wall or fence until you have the time to replace it—if necessary. Alternatively, you can opt to plant younger climbers and pretty trellises for them to grow against rather than erecting a new fence.
Restoring Cracked Paths, Driveways and Patios
Damaged flagstones, cracks in concrete drives, lifting tiles, and areas where stepping stones have lost all the grout between them and have become wobbly, uneven, and unattractive can present an eyesore—and fortunately, one that often doesn’t mean you need to budget for a whole new patio or path.
Our local landscaping teams can reapply high-quality, waterproof grouting, re-lay stones or pavers that have lifted away from the ground, replace specific tiles or flagstones that have been chipped or damaged, or recommend gravels or other materials to fill empty gaps and create an even, uniform look.
You can also add modern, sleek block paving to update older paths, bring fresh life to a driveway, or ensure an unused yard for storage, bikes, or bins is functional and clean while also adding to your home’s curb appeal.
Reinvigorating Overgrown Plant Pots and Flower Beds
There are limitless ways to create planting schemes, and one of the usual problems, especially if you have little time or interest in gardening, is where shrubs, flowers, and small trees have been uncared for, which almost always means you have an unsightly mixture of brambles, thick weeds, dying plants, or unruly shrubs that seem too big a job to take on.
Hiring a skilled landscaping team means we can remove all dead planting, weeds, and overgrown shrubs and branches in surprisingly little time and check how the soil and roots underneath are faring.
By digging out, cutting back, and trimming, we can restore access to planters, pots, and flowerbeds, and start over with a low-maintenance selection of plants and hardy perennials that look beautiful, add gentle scents to your garden, and benefit the ecosystem without the potential to become out of control.
We can also suggest plants, shrubs, herbs, and climbers that add a pop of bright colour year-round or those that will thrive in any conditions and won’t need to be repotted or tucked away in a greenhouse during the winter, leaving you more time to enjoy your garden.
Quick Garden Renovation Fixes to Inject Beauty and Joy Into a Bland Garden
Finally, many clients say that, while they want to remain on budget and aren’t particularly displeased with their garden, it doesn’t have the wow factor or make them feel excited to relax outdoors or host guests on the patio.
Adding a focal point can make all the difference, whether adding gentle lighting to fence panels, installing a quietly rippling water feature in the centre of a lawn, planting ornamental grasses, or constructing a graceful pagoda that ensures you can spend as much time as you like outdoors, without the risk of getting wet.
Well-designed seating, covered dining spaces, fire pits, and garden decking can all be ways to add something special to your outdoor space.
For more ideas, inspiration, or recommendations about the best options for your garden renovation project, you are welcome to contact our friendly landscaping team and garden designers at any time, or can view past projects and landscaping work via our website.