Garden makeover - Chelsea ambitions, Lambeth budget

Laurent Perrier Garden, Chelsea 2010

As the weather slowly starts to turn more spring-like, thoughts start to turn to that additional, outside room that sits forgotten for 6 months of the year. In our case the garden has been the last "big job" on our list and having had a couple of glorious, sunny spring evenings recently, we finally bit the bullet and kicked off the process of turning our former builders' yard, full of old building debris and weeds into a space we might actually feel safe padding about in without shoes on, and be happy to entertain friends in.

My dream garden would look something like the above picture of a Chelsea medal winning garden,
but unfortunately my budget, space and horticultural skills will mean lowering my ambitions for our garden quite a bit. In fact, knowing nothing about garden design or plants at all, and having received astonishing quotes from landscaping companies for even our very basic wish-list, I've been focusing on following elements - patio style and materials, garden furniture, fencing style and colour, lighting and a couple of basic plants - and here is the moodboard:

The first major landscaping decisions have been made and the work is underway, due to be finished within the next week and I'll be sharing the finished result and the next garden related dilemmas on the blog. But for now, here are a couple of "before" pictures of the back garden:

And a sneak peak at the cobbles going down for the patio (spot our nosy cat inspecting the work):

Hopefully this time next week the hard landscaping will all be done and I'll be able to share the garden furniture we've decided on - just keep your fingers crossed that by getting our garden summer-ready, we haven't just jinxed London to a miserable, rainy summer now..!