How to transform a small back yard?

[Bonnie]

Hi everyone. This is my first time posting here.

We own a small 1901 Victorian terrace house and we're trying to decide what to do with the back yard. It's fairly small but we'd like to make the most of it. Ideally we want it to be low-maintenance, toddler-friendly (for small bikes, scooters, etc.) and safe - at the same time as being in keeping with the era in which it was built.

At the moment it consists of a shed and a sectioned off area of soil, in which some plants are trying to grow. Since the photo below was taken we have sorted out the planting area and added some large earthenware pots, but the thing that bothers me most is the "floor" of the yard. It's boring grey concrete, probably what was originally there (so authentic at least) but it's covered in large cracks and some areas have been replaced with lighter-coloured concrete, so it's very patchy and not at all attractive. :x It's also VERY uneven in places!

Does anyone have any suggestions for transforming our little back yard into something nice? What would you suggest for the "flooring"? This photo will show you how it looks now...

 

[arl]

We have a similar patch of land outisde our terrace. When we moved in it consisted of various patches of concrete and broken slabs. We have since got rid of all this and are intending to put down some good reproduction yorkstone flags, and some raised beds. Working in such a confined space has been difficult, and the very limited access via a long narrow passage to the rear of the property means all building materials have to be carried in by hand (which is why we didnt choose real yorkshire flags as we thought they would be too heavy to manage), and all the rubble and old concrete had to be carried out.
the soil and waste water pipes were only a few inches below the surface and have limited the design. the soil below the concrete was terrible, just compacted victorian building rubble which whilst interesting is not be suitable for growing plants (hence the raised beds as we couldnt face removing the soil and replacing it)
apart from the access other things to consider include light and water. terraced gardens are often overlooked and may get very little light. conversely if they do recieve direct sunlight they can become ovens. your planting will need to consider this.

there are a number of garden design books for small gardens, although most presume a small garden is considerably larger than a victorian yard, they might provide some inspiration. my favorite is great little gardens by Anthony Noel. it has some modern designs but also some more traditionally inspired gardens.

hope this helps

 

[Nemesis]

It does look and sound as though you have most of it sorted, the shed looks attractively painted and some climbers should help (honeysuckle is one suggestion..., runner beans another as a short term measure... Painted Lady has interesting flowers... sweet peas... )

I agree though the concrete isn't nice, but what to do with it is indeed a difficult one. However, it's maybe going to be easier to leave it and put something on top rather than dig it up possibly?

It could, as arl has suggested, be used as a base for some flagstones. Think also about tiles. Paviours may be a little thick, but it's a thought, if you can raise the rope edging.

A simple solution would be gravel or even bark, but with bikes, scooters etc that's a non-starter.

Even, dare I suggest, decking, which is cheap, cheerful and very practical.

 

[Moo]

I second that.

The first step has to be removal of the concrete. A sledgehammer and crowbar should do the trick, but bear in mind that, as Arl discovered, there may be ancient and therefore fragile pipes just below the surface; so don't be too enthusiastic with the sledgehammer.

You may well have a lovely surprise and find all (or some of) the original paving under the concrete. If it's not all there you could probably find something to match in a reclamation yard.

 

[Nemesis]

I suspect that concrete is the original surface.

 

[Juju]

I know concrete is ugly but funnily enough I've grown used to mine outside the kitchen window. Once you put lots of pots on it, your eye is drawn to the flowers instead - especially tall flowers. Obviously climbers are limited in pots but we've got quite a rampant honeysuckle in a big pot. Mind you, our concrete is functional and more of a path leading down to the end of the garden. Luckily the previous owner put some flagstones down for the patio. In an ideal world where money and time were no object, we'd dig it up and lay a Cotswold stone path but hey ho, very unlikely to ever get done!

 

[Moo]

There was ancient-looking concrete in the backyard of a humble terraced cottage in a very basic area. We got rid of it, with the intention of putting down gravel as a cheap-and-cheerful quick fix, and found quite a lot of those textured blue paving bricks that you find in old stables. The next-door cottage (un-concreted) was almost completely covered in them.

 

[plumbers mate]

This is not a back yard, it is a walled patio garden - come on, keep up with the trendy stuff!

My yard is similar to the one in the picture but it had no soil area at all at first.
Using bricks from the toilet and coal house which was demolished, we built a raised bed in their place and a raised strip down the side. All filled with soil/potting compost and home made compost (the old dustbin is sort-of OK for that and all green kitchen waste and prunings go in there).
I grow a rhubarb plant in the corner in an 18ins deep bit and have so far this year got 6lbs of rhubarb. The raised beds have bits of 1½ins pipe at the bottm to stop water logging.
The little walls are also the right height to sit on in the sun. My son found them ideal for running cars along. My rope edge tiles (from the front garden) have been used to spilt the main raised bed into squares so that it's easier to arrange the summer's bedding plants. The main "bed" - 2.5ms x 2.5 ms and 18ins high - also has runner beans up sticks against the wall, there is a honeysuckle and quite a few other plants - lavendar, rosemary, sage grow well as it gets stonkingly hot sometimes. Because it is enclosed, the walls should be painted lighter and you'll find a lot of plants will be twice their official height as they stretch to the sky.

We tried to remove the concrete - THIS IS NOT EASY!!!! After an hour with a hefty cold chisel and heavy hammer we had a shallow indentation and acheing arms. Going for drainage holes instead of removal we gave up after 3 holes. The concrete was 6ins thick and on top of goodness knows how much hardcore. (brick coloured so who knows what was demolished in Newcastle in the 1890's to provide that - this was a green field site back then.)

Remember kids soon grow up, so have an eye to teenage and adult use as well.

 

[arl]

It certainly wasnt easy, and I probably wouldnt have bothered if it had been a singe level surface. Some of the concrete was only a couple of inches thick and that came up in satisyingly large lumps with with a hammer and some undermining of the soil along the broken edge. We hired a breaker for the thicker areas but it was still hardwork

 

[Nemesis]

Certainly the back yards of my childhood were concrete, I wonder if the red brick hardcore was waste from brickworks?

I think hire of a breaker is a must, if it's not able to have things laid on top, or is too rough and cracked to leave, but even then I agree - very hard work!

 

[Flyfisher]

Breaking the first hole in concrete is the most difficult part but once you have an edge to attack it gets a lot easier. Try using a pickaxe - not to attack the concrete with but to lever it upwards causing it to break apart more easily (unless it's really thick stuff). Remember concrete is strong in compression but not in tension, so just bashing away with a big hammer is hard work whereas prising it apart can be surprisingly easy.

 

[Nemesis]

Think carefully - does it need to go, or is there another solution?

 

[Bonnie]

Wow, thanks for all the replies... didn't expect so many!

It's certainly an interesting debate - to remove the concrete or not to remove it! There are certain things we would like to keep, such as the rope edging (which unfortunately is quite low and is concreted in place) and the shed, the shape of the soil area, etc. but we really are completely undecided about the concrete.

It wouldn't honestly bother me if it were flat, smooth and not patchy, but in some places it's in very poor condition and has been filled in with what looks like beach pebbles mixed with white plaster. Not good...

The idea of removing the concrete kind of appeals to me, for some odd reason (and we're no strangers to arduous work - we're the kind of crazies who strip/sand floorboards/doors/furniture with small hand tools rather than large hire tools.

I wouldn't know what to do once the concrete's up, though. I like the idea of paving - I really like this idea, actually. What would be the most sympathetic type of paving? Someone mentioned original/repro Yorkstone pavers - square/rectangular/in a pattern? Not sure what is "of the era" or even if pavers were the in thing back then. I have seen original photographs of the area and it's mainly concrete. These houses weren't posh!

There are issues with putting paving up to external house walls as well, aren't there? Damp issues? Arg, no idea... so much to think about.

Thank you everyone for your valuable insight. This forum is excellent.

 

[hobbaabboh]

Hi,
I too have a small yard as part of my rear garden to my 1897 victorian end of terrace and after evently lifting up concrete, slabs and broken brick revealed parts of the original flooring and i suspect what may have been original to your property [or very similar] - Staffordshire Blue Brindle Pavers. I decided to restore the original path using reclaim and to the original bond pattern. I would highly recommend using a Blue Brindle Paver as a finish, as the colour complements the colour of the slate roof and copings to my adjoining brick wall [very similar to your pics] and works well against the red brick and matches the rope edging you already have -the concrete can usually be removed from these with a very carefully placed strike of the chisel, as the conrete usually comes off in lumps..and the colour of these pavers looks great in the rain as well - i would choose a plain finish as opposed to a pattern finish and use a running bond pattern to lay the pavers, rather than a herringbone pattern for instance. Use a tight joint between the pavers 2-3mm rather than the typical 10mm joints used today, for a more authentic Victorian finish.
You could try the reclaim route, but expect to pay between 80p - £2 per paver, which may become expensive if you are covering a large area or alternatively you could try ebay - always a few on here, alternatively try;
http://www.ketley-brick.co.uk/bluepaveroverview.htm
It took me a while to evently aquire the quantity i needed from a reclaimers, however an alternative could be a solid, blue engineering grade brick in imperial size - which could be ordered from a builders merchants/ or local brick works, and lay them flat in a running bond pattern.
Another alternative could be a 6" square terracotta tile, which could also be laid in a chequerboard effect using contrasting colours in a terracotta and black colour.
I would remove the concrete, reuse the rope edging, level the ground, ensuring the new paving does not breech the dpc level of your house and put a fall on the level of the paving away from the house to ensure water runs away from the property, usually Victorian houses had a slate damp proof course so try to locate this or a couple of brick courses below the interior floor levels. I have the pavers butted upto the house, as they would have been originally and have never had any problems with damp etc.
A use for the concrete? you could use as a hardcore sub base to your new flooring, underneath the ballast to provide a solid garden path or altenatively use as gabions http://www.weld-mesh.com/gabions.htm to create new planting levels within your garden.

 

[Nemesis]

I agree they do look super - but the removal of the concrete from the rope edging may cause some damage, which will have to be factored in.

There are other manufacturers, worth shopping around possibly, for best prices, and if you want a more non-slip surface, there are those embossed with a diamond or square pattern for stableyards. Might look a little busy though in a small space. I totally agree about keeping it simple.

http://www.hgmatthews.com/brickmaking/pavers/default.html

http://www.blockleys.com/bl_paviors.html

http://www.salvo.co.uk/hertfordshire/flagstones-floortiles/stable-paviours-x36922x1.html

http://www.mascosalvage.com/Landscape_Building_Materials/Paviours_Edging-31.items

I'm not recommending reclaim over new - just these are examples.

If you want something really fancy: :lol:

http://www.paviors.org.uk/awards/paviorsAward/2002.aspx


However, my sis in law used to have a path made from old bottles, upended and with the bottoms used as the path surface! No it was there when she arrived, but it's a thought! It looked er - interesting.

 

[arl]

These three companys all do reasonable reproduction flags. the first is my favorite although the website is hopeless, but i think look more realistic than the others. the third has the best website and should give you an idea of how they can laid. They all come in lots of different sizes and the idea is they are laid to look random rather than in a pattern. None of them look as good as the real thing though.

http:www.westminsterstone.com/reclaimed_flags.php
http://www.bradstone.com/garden/products/reconstructed_paving/old_town.aspx
http://www.stonemarket.co.uk/millstone

I agree the blue stable paviours would be more authentic, but I decided that they would be too industrial looking. Whilst the victorians might have used the yard as a purely practical area for laundry and coal deliveries, I wanted my yard to be more aesthetically pleasing. Our street still has about half the original stone flags and the alley behind the house is flagged and probably hasn't changed since it was laid in 1889, so I think flags will look okay even if they might be a bit grand for the back yard of a simple victorian terrace