I have seen a wonderful garden where dwarf bamboos have been used for path edging. If you like modern lines then you could consider formal straight lines coming off the house. What is below the decking? Bamboos can look stunning, but make sure they are clump forming types and not spreaders, otherwise you will spend most of your time removing suckers. Depending on budget you can then either sow shade-tolerant seed (depending on the time of year) or lay turf, but if grass and regular mowing is too much to think about then you could either have a gravel garden with borders - gravel is relatively cheap, looks good and will last a long time (but make sure that sufficient weed membrane is put down before the gravel), or add to the paving, broken up by borders and/or features, or lay good artificial turf. If the grass is mainly moss then I'm guessing that the rest of the garden gets little sunlight so I would lift it. Firstly, where in the UK are you, what type of soil do you have (I know you're thinking of raised beds, but these can be costly), what do you want to use the garden for, you mention Tropical plants but do you have any other styles in mind. This is a great space and there are many considerations. Whilst not my favourite plant due to mess it makes, i The plant growing across the back of the house is a Wisteria. Personally I like the more hardy tropical plants like bamboo, palm etc. In the winter, the sun moves more along the left side of the garden In the summer, the sun moves left to right across the read of the garden, setting somewhere behind the bushes behind the garage. These photos were taken at 10am in April. The bit behind the outside room is roughly 3.5m wide by 2m deep. The garden itself is almost a square, it comes in a 9m wide by 8.9 deep. I do quite like water features too that are incorporated into the landscape. Has anyone got any suggestions are to layout, design elements etc. In addition, I think replacing the fencing is out of the question as it is too costly - I'm tempted to put trellis in front of it, along with bamboo and uplighters, but I'm afraid that the fence will ruin the appearance of it. We have an outdoor plug and there is already a switch in the kitchen to power outdoor lighting. Unfortunately, we're limited by budget, but this is only for materials as the labour will be done ourselves. We both quite like modern gardens, and we're not really gardeners so hardly plants with raised flower beds etc are on our minds. The Silver Birches and Beech need to go and the decking needs replacing as it is rotten (looking for smooth decking). I'm usually fairly good with designing layouts and coming up with ideas, however I am somewhat stumped what to do with our garden.Īs is stands, the grass is mostly moss and needs returfing.

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