Front lawn conversions in Connah's Quay
A front lawn is usually the most awkward one to mow and the one nobody ever sits on. A strip of grass that exists to be looked at, and that has to be cut every fortnight to be worth looking at.
Best timeAll year
I take the turf off, dig out enough depth for what is going back down, and level and firm it the same way I would before laying a lawn. Then a membrane, gravel or bark over the top, and pockets cut through it for whatever is going in. The edges are what make it look deliberate rather than abandoned, so they get squared off against the path and the boundary.
Gravel and planting rather than concrete, for two reasons. It still reads as a garden from the pavement, and it is the right side of the rules: laying a hard surface that rain cannot get through, over more than five square metres between your house and the road, needs planning permission unless the water is sent to a border or a soakaway. Gravel drains through, so it does not.
It does not have to be all or nothing either. Plenty of front gardens end up half planted and half gravel, with a path through to the door, which gives you something to look at without anything to mow.
Thank you so much for doing this for us, we are made up, so happy with the service.
Questions people ask
- Do I need planning permission?
- Not for gravel. Permission comes into it when a hard surface that rain cannot get through covers more than five square metres between the house and the road, and only then if the water has nowhere permeable to go. Gravel drains through it, so it falls outside that.
- Will weeds come through the gravel?
- Not from below, if the membrane is laid properly. What does happen is that leaves and grit settle into the gravel over a few years and things seed into that instead. Pulling them out as they appear keeps on top of it.
- Can I still have plants?
- That is usually the point of it. Pockets get cut through the membrane and planted, so you keep something growing out the front without anything that has to be cut. Autumn is the best time for the planting part.
- What happens to the old lawn?
- It comes up in strips, along with the topsoil underneath if the level needs dropping. That is the bulk of what leaves the job, and it is worth asking me about before the day rather than after.