Full rear garden rebuild in Glasgow

This garden had not worked for a long time. The boundaries were failing on more than one side, the ground held water through the winter, and what was left of the lawn had given up under it. Old concrete and buried rubble came out of the ground during the strip-out, which is a common find in Glasgow gardens where a previous surface has simply been broken up and left in place rather than removed.

The photographs from the clearance stage show the garden at its lowest point: bare soil from fence to fence, the mature cherry standing on its own, and spoil heaped along one side. That stage looks alarming to a homeowner and it is the right place to be. Nothing worth building sits on top of a failed lawn and buried hardcore.

The fencing went in before anything else, and that order matters. A boundary cannot be rebuilt without machinery and materials crossing the garden, so doing it after a patio is laid means either damaging new work or working around it badly.

New posts and rails went up on all sides, including the run along the hedge line, with close-board cladding and gravel boards along the base. Boarding to the ground with a gravel board rather than hanging panels means the fence follows the fall of the ground and keeps the cladding clear of wet soil, which is the whole argument for building a fence this way in the west of Scotland.

With the boundaries closed the garden had a defined shape for the first time, and the levels could be set against something fixed.

The patio is riven Indian sandstone in mixed sizes, laid in a random bond so no joint runs all the way across, and edged with a charcoal block course that separates it cleanly from the gravel beyond. The multi-tone sandstone was chosen over a single colour because it sits more comfortably against a red-brick and render Glasgow back elevation than a uniform grey would.

Falls were set to take water away from the house and off the paving rather than letting it stand, which was the original problem in this garden and is the recurring one across the west of Scotland generally. Sub-base and bedding were built up properly under the paved area rather than laid onto the existing ground.

Beyond the patio the ground is self-binding gold gravel, which gives a usable, free-draining surface over the part of the garden that had been the worst of the waterlogging. Gravel was the honest answer here: another lawn on that ground would have gone the same way as the first one.

Where the garden changes level, sandstone steps were built and finished with a glass balustrade, which keeps the sightline down the garden open rather than boxing the upper level in behind a solid rail.

Two raised planting beds were built into the gravel in charcoal block to match the patio edging, giving proper depth of soil for planting in a garden where the natural ground had been the problem. Raised beds solve drainage for the plants and give the flat gravel area some height and structure at the same time.

The mature cherry was retained throughout and now sits in a planted strip along the boundary rather than in the middle of a failing lawn. The shed was kept and repainted, which is almost always better value than replacing a sound shed.

The result is a garden that drains, that can be walked on in February, and that needs a fraction of the upkeep the lawn did. The patio takes the furniture, the gravel takes the traffic, and the planting is contained in beds rather than spread through borders that need edging twice a season.