Mark McNee

Tag: Paving

  • Choosing paving materials for your garden

    With the vast range of possible paving materials, it can feel a bit daunting when you first start looking at paving materials. To try to reduce the selection down to a more manageable size, it is well to consider the practicalities imposed on you by what you are planning to use the paving for. You…

  • Taking over an established garden

    Taking over an established garden

    Most people when they buy a new house find they are taking over an existing garden and this will present certain challenges; you have, after all, bought their house not their tastes. It is therefore inevitable not everything in the garden you are going to like and/or want. It is reasonable to assume on first…

  • How to clean mortar stains off paving

    This involves using a concentrated acid from a builder’s merchant and so all the manufacture’s safety advice must be carefully followed. Equipment: Brick acid Hose pipe Cheap plastic watering can with a rose Stiff broom Wellington boots Safety equipment (read and follow the safety recommendations that come with the brick acid). Summary:   Check the…

  • How to lay crazy paving

    How to lay crazy paving

    Crazy paving has fallen right out of fashion; killed first by release of the modern mottle coloured concrete riven flags by Bradstone in the early 1980’s followed by the cheap imported stone flags from the Far East more recently. That said it still has its uses, particularly where an informal path is needed or a…

  • Creating a low maintenance garden

    Over many years of designing and creating gardens the most frequent request I have received is for a “low maintenance” garden. I have never been asked for a high maintenance one! This is usually followed something along the lines of “so we want most of it just lawn”. The real problem is that people muddle…

  • How to design a drive

    How to design a drive

    With drives, probably more than any other thing in gardens, the most important thing is it actually functions as it is intended. No matter how nice it may look, if it does work as a drive it is a waste of money. As ever there has to be some compromises, for example: you may what…

  • Utility areas

    Utility areas

    Most gardens end up with an area for the bits you would rather not show off; where pots, wheel barrows and the like need to be stored. These areas need to be kept clean and tidy, so the paving needs to be smooth and easy to clean. As this is the working part of the…

  • Drive design

    With drives, probably more than any other thing in gardens, the most important thing is it actually functions as the drive. No mater how nice it may look if it does work as a drive it is a waste of money. As ever there has to be some compromises, you may what a turning circle…

  • Paving materials

      The trick when designing your patio is to make it blend into the surrounds while adding to them. To do this you are free to use every trick in the book. You can use materials which contrast with their surrounding or complement them but care should be taken when trying to match materials as…

  • A patio to eat out on

    As foreign travel has increased, so has our appreciation of the continental lifestyle; and with it the idea that the garden can be an extension of the home. This has lead to an increase in the appeal of eating out on a garden patio. In itself the idea of eating a meal out in the…