The evolution of our London garden

I love looking at before and after photos, especially when perusing anti-aging and body firming treatments. But this post is about the evolution of our London garden, sorry! 

This is what the garden looked like when we first bought the house. You can see that the previous owners built a lovely seating area in the back with a fireplace in the middle (there's also a patio off the house that you can't see). I realize it looks as though we're ripping apart a perfectly good garden, but we couldn't envision using that seating area, especially as it was always in the shade.

This was the garden a few weeks ago. You can see our plan start to take shape (well, I can!). That wall of bricks marks where the new patio will end with three steps running the width leading to the grassy area.

These are two astroturf samples from Easigrass; the one on the right, called Chelsea, is our preferred choice (the one on the left is called Mayfair and is the better quality, but has a bit of a sheen to it that makes it look kind of fake in real life). This is the direction you would lay the grass with the "grain" against you.

It took two weeks to remove this much of the seating area. This is as far as the crew could go until they reached horizontal steel reinforcement beams. The rubble won't go to waste and will be used as fill to raise the height of the grassy area.

And this is the garden as of a few days ago. You can see that the perimeter plants and trees have been removed or cut back in preparation for new trees, shrubs, and grasses.The cement walls will remain as as we discovered that they're structural walls that support the old brick party walls that enclose the garden.

A couple of other notes about Easigrass:

the reason Mayfair is the higher quality astroturf is because it has a tighter weave with thicker blades of grass, plus it's lower maintenance, meaning that it doesn't need to be brushed often. Real grass, when trampled, will often flatten down, but will then pop back up to its original quasi-vertical position after a while. Fake grass, on the other hand, will flatten down in certain areas that are heavily trod upon and stay that way. Every once in a while, you need to "brush" your fake grass in the opposite direction to get it to stand up again.

In addition to a layer of sand, a recycled foam shock pad is one of the layers placed under the Easigrass turf; although the the shock pad renders the "grass" a bit softer, it will also absorb dog pee odors over time unless we regularly deodorize the areas where they go to the bathroom. The thought of a beautiful garden that smells like pee is repellent (welcome to Milan when warm weather arrives!). We were told that we could forego the shock pad for a 60cm base of sand; the foam shock pad also provides a cushioned surface for kids, especially if they fall, but the tradeoff is a stinky garden.

As I write this, it sounds like I don't give a toss about my kids' safety. Could that really be??! I'm thinking that our kids, now aged 12, 10, 10, and 8, have moved past that period of spontaneous tripping and falling- at least I haven't seen them do so lately (!)- but I'm going to look more into this issue and will report back.

By the way, women's stiletto heels will not impact your Easigrass in the sense that they won't go through the padding in which the turf is sewn. That's good news as who wants to tell their guests not to walk on the grass or that they have to wear wedges or flats to your party?! 

For more the Easigrass brochure, please click here. 

Stay tuned and please email me with any questions.