[AlohaI]

Dear All,
New to Forums, New to Gardening. Have major summer garden project planned - weather permitting or not!!!

Some questions I'd appreciate advice on.

1) Would it be possible/practical to use old roof slates (gorgeous purple, very thin though) as a patio surface? With concrete underneath to stabilise obviously.

2) As a cheap raised bed edging would scaffolding planks be a good idea? (Won't use sleepers, too expensive, and I have extensive ground to cover).

3) As a cheaper solution still, would wire gardening mesh held in place with stakes through the ground keep a raised bed in place - ugly to begin with - but will be 'prettifying over time'.

3) Do I need to put down weedblock wherever I'm going to gravel (after I've cleared away the lawn)?

4) Is €36 a ton a reasonable price for pea gravel?

5) Should I kill off the existing lawn with organic weedkiller first before I screed it?
(My friend with the mini digger will be doing the heavy work thankfully)
My garden is huge - to my eyes. Totally swamped. No point draining as am end house on slope of houses, all others have drained and reported no improvement, so nearly everyone is slabbing over and leaving very little lawn. Also can't afford draining. Have tiny budget (about €1000.00) for everything including labour.

I want to screed the lawn to the far back walls and level the surface completely.
Then place patio extending from concrete footpath -about twice the width again of the footpath-....and gravel the rest back to the ditch.

And have raised flower/shrub beds all along the back wall .

Essentially, I want to create a clean slate so that I work on sections of it at a time.

I have photos. All guidance would be sincerely appreciated. Trying to line up all the dominoes...

Thank you

J

[kindredspirit]

1) I'd say your slates would crack even if you bed them properly. Also. they'll get slippy in the wet.

2) I've seen scaffolding planks used but I don't know how long they'd last. They're not designed to be immersed in wet ground, are they?

3) Dunno.

3A) Gravel tends to move off weed block and leave the membrane exposed. Cheaper not to use it. I've used sheets of hardboard under gravel before with great success. Shiney side down. (I got the hardboard for nothing.)

4) I buy 6 ton of pea gravel for €40 but then I know the driver.

5) Probably best to kill off the grass but not necessary if you're putting a concrete base down.

Stick up some pics. A picture speaks a thousand words.

[AlohaI]

Thanks kindredspirit for the speedy reply already - I hadn't thought about the tiles being slippery....so obvious now that it's been pointed out
Also good point about gravel coming off weedblock- that's happening already on the small beds in front of the house, but not a huge minus for me - don't mind sweeping things back into position....

As for your drumming up 6 ton of pea gravel for 60 - are you some sort of wizard?! I'm in Listowel, Co. Kerry. The lads at the last garden centre said I should go directly to quarry for a loose load of any aggregate.... wishing the garden fairies would just transmogrify the whole thing overnight ...

I have photos but need to reduce size of them - they're all over 2 mb...

I'll get back to you with them as soon as I've figured out how to resize
Thank you

[kindredspirit]

if you're buying pea gravel, don't buy it in those 1 ton bags, just get a local farmer to bring you a load in his tractor and trailer. That's what I do. €40.

[Greengage]

1. forget about the slates they will crack and disintegrate over time.
2.Why does everyone want raised beds with timber, raised beds originate from adding fym to the soil this raises the soil and adds air naturally now some bright spark decided to tidy this over by adding timber edging to to edges too keep it neat probably wrote about it in a book and it took off bit like the granny using two pots for boiling the bacon.
3. silly idea
4. not necessary add 408 to base use vibrator to compact it then add gravel to top and weed annually
5 use roundup to kill lawn or cover it with plastic for 1 year to kil off grass
sorry for being blunt but its best to call a spade a spade instead of fussing around..

[kindredspirit]

You could always use the slates for edging your raised beds. Don't know how they'd work in practice but they'd probably be OK if they were supported by your scaffolding planks. Just an idea.