Last year we finally decided it was the year to do up the garden. When we moved into this house what was supposed to be a beautiful patio and painted fence was an over grown jungle with paint peeling off.

The solar lights didn't work, the wind chime just kept us up at night and when the dog went out for the first time, we lost him!

The first thing we needed to do when looking at garden maintenance this year was to get rid of all the overgrown grass, weeds and whatever else there was out there. (Even an old dressing table). This job was actually the biggest too and honestly was so much work that I wish we had hired a gardener.

Once we had cleared all this mess, we had to decide what we wanted to do. Sadly neither myself or my husband had a green thumb. Me and the girls have been trying to grow tomatoes for 4 years with no luck, so we needed low maintenance.

We decided to go for fake grass, a shade sail, some patio furniture and a play house for the kids.

We shopped around and found some great deals online. The great thing about having the patio stones was that we could just lay the grass on top of it without any issue and use something heavy in the corners to anchor it down.

We loved his but as you can see it's very plain, we still need to add the 'homely' touches, so after a long think, we decided what we really needed was flowers in the beds around the edge os the grass.

When we put the grass down, we also put down a layer of black fabric to stop the weeds coming through, however as they still found their way through we decided the best option would be to put down stones and flowers and get ourselves some help in the form of a regular gardener.

This way someone could come in and keep the flowerbeds looking pretty as well as dealing with any weeds in between the patio tiles and the tree at the back which seams to grow so fast.

What do you think? Have we done well so far? Do you have any suggestions for our gardens future? Interested in home improvement? Why not check out our autumn living room boost?

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