Filling

We've started filling the baskets - looking good so far but it looks like we'll need more materials.

Baskets

In addition to levelling the garden, as much as possible, the contractor will also be digging out a car parking space alongside our garage. As with the courtyard, this area adjoins the garden which is at a level 2m higher, so a retaining structure needs to be built.

At the start of the project our architect and structural engineer assumed we would be extending the concrete retaining wall to do this, but cost and our desire to avoid using too much new concrete and steel meant we haven't. Instead we'll be using baskets.

Not just any old baskets - but gabions, more usually seen retaining slopes alongside motorway cuttings, although they have sneaked into contemporary RHS Chelsea designs in the last few years. As we need 16 of them, each holding around 1 cubic meter of material, we'll need plenty of fill. We've already amassed a collection of stone, old bricks and pebbles but this won't get us very far so we need more material to act as the structural bulk and to face the front of the baskets.

Pinching an idea from Chelsea (which is suitably apt as we keep finding bottles in the garden that were buried by previous residents of Hillside before refuse collections existed) we'll be using a combination of beer and wine bottles to face some of the gabions. Thankfully we know somebody who owns a pub so won't have to empty all the bottles ourselves! As for the bulk fill, we'll be using old concrete from demolished buildings, the perfect use for recycled aggregate where it won't be seen.

Clover

Well the quotes are in, and we've decided to go with the cheapest and not to proceed with the contractor who was advocating the extensive use of roundup. Numerous 'net searches have given us reasons to doubt the 'safe' claims made to us. The downside is that we'll have plenty of weeding to do.

The contractor is booked in to come and level the garden in just over a week so we're now investigating where to buy grass seed, and what type we should buy. We don't want a bowling green so are more than happy to go for an economy 'lawn' - after all we just want a green flat area! It turns out that the most environmentally friendly option, due to inherent drought resistance and nitrogen fixing properties, is to go for a clover lawn. Not just clover, but ryegrass with clover mixed in. As the current Hillside has several large patches of clover that are lush and green whilst the grass is looking disticntly brown, we can vouch for this being true.

So, just the small matter of calculating how many kg of seed we need before we get it ordered.