Whether you are preparing your house for sale, or simply want to make some improvements on a budget, your garden is a great place to start.
Outside space should be relaxing and tranquil, and there are a number of cheap ways to make a garden look nicer.
All it takes is a little bit of hard work and imagination, and you can have a garden that works for you and your family.
Improve The Lawn
Approx Cost: £0-£50
If you have a lawn, make sure you run a lawnmower over it on a regular basis. That will help to keep the grass looking neat and tidy.
If your lawn is looking a bit tired, consider reseeding it or adding fertiliser to give it a new lease of life. Once you get your lawn looking green and healthy, it will transform your garden.
If you want to take it a step further, consider changing the shape of your lawn. Turning square edges into round, curved, or wavey edges can turn a standard garden into a funky, modern space.
We know how big a difference a green and healthy-looking lawn can make to our garden. That’s why we have hired a gardener who specialises in lawns to aerate and fertilise our grass.
This will get rid of moss and weeds and keeps the grass looking good all year round. All we had to do was to make sure we kept mowing the lawn on a regular basis.
While this is a more expensive option, it will make a huge difference. For us, it was money well spent.
Keep On Top Of Weeding
Approx Cost: £0-£10
One sure way of spoiling the look of your garden is to let it become an overgrown mess. Few people like weeding, but it’s an essential part of garden maintenance.
If you can commit to doing little but often, it will be easier to keep on top of, and it will feel much less like a chore than if you leave it to build up then try and tackle it in one go.
We have to weed quite a bit in our garden, because we have raised vegetable beds as well as flower beds for the bees and other pollinators.
The flower beds are the worst, because grass grows up between the plants we have planted. This is very difficult to get rid of because you can’t reach it properly.
While it’s quite a lot of work, it’s totally worth it. Once we are finished, the beds look amazing and so colourful. It does mean that we have to weed them several times during spring and summer, and we do a final one in autumn.
If you won’t be growing any flowers or vegetables where the weeds are, you can buy a weed killer spray to speed up the process.
We use weed killer spray for the patio area, paths and driveway. It makes our life so much easier, and keeps these areas free from weeds and looking good.
Add Stones To Borders
Approx Cost: £20-£60+
One great way to both make your garden look nicer, and reduce the amount of maintenance work you need to do, is to add decorative stones to your borders.
This works well if you do not regularly dig up the borders to plant new things. Start by clearing the borders of any weeds or debris and carefully dig up any plants you want to keep and set them aside.
Then, cover the area with a weed control membrane (available from all good garden centres). You can cut holes to place any plants you kept aside back into the ground. Once your plants are back in, cover with a few centimetres of the decorative stone of your choice and enjoy!
Attract More Wildlife
Approx Cost: £10-£50
If you can attract more wildlife such as butterflies, birds, and even bees, you can create a place that’s perfect to relax in on a summer’s day.
Best of all, the things you do to attract wildlife often look great as well, so it’s a win-win.
Ideas could include creating a wildlife pond or dedicating an area for growing wildflowers.
We have both a wildlife pond and a wildflower meadow in our garden, and it looks fabulous. The pond attracts so many different species. We have had birds drinking from it as well as having a bath in it.
You can even have a spot of colour if you plant flowering pond plants, such as irises. Not only will this attract insects, bees and butterflies, but will also look beautiful.
Our wildflower meadow adds so much colour to our garden in spring and summer. And it brings the garden to life with the buzz of all the wildlife it attracts.
Add A Rockery
Approx Cost: £0-£30
A rock garden, or rockery, is a great way to add a feature to a garden at a very low cost.
You can pick up a selection of rocks from your local garden centre, or visit a nearby beach and see what’s lying around.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can just pile up the rocks anywhere though; there is a specific way to go about building a rockery to ensure it will stand the test of time.
Plant New Flowers
Approx Cost: £0-£30
Planting new flowers is a great way to add a splash of colour to your garden and make it look great with the minimum amount of effort.
Just make sure to pick plants that flower at different times of the year and mix them in your borders to ensure year-round colour.
Also, before you put them in the ground, pay close attention to the kind of soil, and exposure to sunlight each plant likes to get the most out of them.
We opted for native British flowers, because these will also attract bees and other pollinators. It’s such a delight to sit in our garden in summer, enjoying the beautiful flowers and watching the bees flying from one to the other.
It makes our garden such a peaceful and relaxing place, just what you want after a busy day at work.
Re-Use Old Step Ladders
Approx Cost: £0
Do you have an old pair of wooden step ladders lying around? These can make a great decorative stand for potted plants on your patio (or even in your conservatory).
If the steps are looking a bit tired, you can always paint them. Just make sure to put them in a sheltered area to avoid them being blown over.
If you don’t have any old step ladders you can use, keep an eye on sites like Freecycle for people giving ones away for free.
Create A Raised Bed
Approx Cost: £30-£80
Raised beds are commonly used by gardeners growing fruit and veg. That’s because the nature of raised beds means they warm up more quickly, creating better growing conditions for plants.
However, when done correctly, they can look great in any garden. Railway sleepers make a for a bold, decorative raised bed and can even be painted with the colour you want.
That’s what we have done. We got them cheap from Facebook, which is a great place to look for things like that. We decided against painting them, because we love the rustic look they bring to our garden.
We use our raised bed for our veggies, and they work great, they work equally well for flower. Just be sure to fill the bed full of plants that flower all year round for the best effect.
As you can see, there are numerous cheap ways to make a garden look nicer, and this is by no means an exhaustive list! Just let your imagination run wild, and you’ll be coming up with your own ideas in no time at all.
Your garden is one of the things that affect the value of your house so, if you’re looking to sell your property, make sure you spend the time making your garden look good before you contact an estate agent.
