Garden landscaping ideas: Getting your garden ready for spring

It’s that time of year once again where our gardens are all becoming to look a little neglected, with the cold, wet winter making the colour brown most prominent across our British landscape. Whether you have a small patio area with potted plants or have a larger area of land which needs taming, gardening can be a tiresome task. It’s no surprise that for those larger garden landscaping tasks, we will often choose to hire a local landscape gardener to ensure things are done to a high standard.

With Spring now just a few short months away, it’s time to begin planning what we’re going to do with our gardens. What condition is your garden currently in? How much work needs to be done? Whether you need a general tidy up or are looking to redesign your garden entirely, we have put together a guide on how to tackle the tasks and ensure your garden is in top form in time for those all-important summer BBQs.

Understand your garden landscaping aims and goals

Before you can take on any project, you must fully understand it. What is it you are looking to achieve from your garden this year? Are you looking to make it more aesthetically appealing by adding in new flower beds, ponds or shrubs? Maybe you’re hoping to make it more practical, by installing new decking or patio areas and trading in your muddy lawn for increasingly popular artificial grass. Whatever your plans are, having an end goal in sight is vital to help you manage the project.

Establish your garden landscaping budget

The work you can achieve is often very dependent on the budget you have available to you. Knowing how much money you have available to spend on revamping your garden is important, to avoid situations where you overspend or can’t complete a project due to a lack of funds. No matter how much cash you have available, there are sure to be ways that you can improve the appearance of the outdoor space you have available.

Create a visual guide of garden landscaping ideas

It can be difficult to envision your ideas with words alone, so why not put together a mood board to help you on the way to bringing your garden landscaping ideas to life. Finding example images can really help you to come up with further ideas and to find new ways of doing things which may well fit more comfortably into your budget, but that you wouldn’t have thought of before.

We have put together a useful guide to determine the extent of the garden landscaping ideas that you can carry out, based on your budget, below:

No money to spend on garden landscaping?

If you don’t have any money to spend on employing a landscape gardener, that doesn’t mean you can’t get your garden looking great. There are plenty of small garden landscaping ideas which you can do, which won’t cost a penny in cash, just some of your time and energy. Why not have an excellent general tidy up to get things looking a little tamer. Prune any overgrown shrubs and bushes, pull up any unsightly intrusive weeds from your paths and flower beds and give any of your patio or decking areas a hose and brush down to remove any dirt and algae which has built up over the winter months. These things will all improve the overall appearance of your garden, without emptying your wallet.

Are you looking to add something new to your garden? Why not speak to your friends and family to see whether you can swap plants with them. It may be they can take offcuts which you can grow in your flower beds and maybe something is growing in your garden that they’d love to have themselves.

A budget of up to £100

As well as all of the above points, with a budget of up to £100, you could look to spruce up your new garden with some new plants and accessories from your local garden centre. There are many things you can purchase at an affordable rate, from young shrubs and seasonal flowers through to decorative ornaments, hanging baskets and much more. All of these things can really give that more homely, personal touch to your garden.

On this budget, you could also look to re-gravel your garden paths or mulch any planting beds with bark to help to suppress any weeds from growing and retain the soil moisture. Why not look to invest in some attractive containers or visit a salvage yard to build a raised bed with any reclaimed timber you can get your hands on. Beautiful gardens don’t have to cost the earth, and there is plenty you can do on a limited budget.

A budget of up to £500

If you have a budget of up to five hundred pounds, you are in a position to begin considering the use of building materials, as well as plants. Whether you are looking to install some concrete slabs to create a tidy path across the garden or are looking to install a new freshly painted fence around the perimeter to replace any of your older rotting panels. Is your lawn looking patchy? Why not spend the money on re-turfing your garden to give your patchy lawn a makeover or invest in some new garden furniture to lounge on in the summer months? These additions, combined with all of those available in the above budget brackets, are sure to give your garden a new lease of life.

A budget of up to £1,000.

With a budget of up to a thousand pounds, you could perhaps consider bringing in outside help to enable you to complete any of those larger jobs that need doing in your garden. This budget would cover a couple of days work for a skilled tradesperson, allowing you to have a new patio installed or maybe another job that needs doing.

Wanting to spend the money on more DIY tasks? You could instead invest in more materials such as higher quality slabbing and paving. There are plenty of tasks which will be possible on this budget.

A budget of up to £5,000 – £10,000.

This is a very healthy budget and will enable you to make plenty of notable changes to your garden. Providing you with at least a weeks work from a skilled tradesperson, you will be able to invest in getting those larger projects completed. At the higher end of this budget? Take a look at getting a professional designer to help you by discussing your needs with them and allowing them to come up with a plan to help your money stretch further.

Hiring a garden landscaper.

Looking to hire in a professional to help with any of your garden landscaping tasks? Whatever your requirements are, make sure to find a reputable local tradesperson using Checkatrade. Take a look here to find recommended tradespeople in your area.