As the summer nears, it’s important to take the right steps to prepare your garden for the warmer, brighter days of the year.
In this guide, we’ll discuss what you can do to prepare your garden for the summertime and the estimated costs where applicable.
Lawn Work
To start with, you’ll of course want to neatly mow your lawn before the summer arrives. This way you can ensure your garden has a fresh, vibrant aesthetic ahead of better weather arriving.
Along with mowing your lawn before the summer arrives, you’ll also want to spend time removing weeds from your garden. Of course, this work can be free if done DIY. However, to hire a gardener costs around £20 to £60 per hour.
Cleaning and Maintenance
Aside from general lawn work, it’s important to clean and maintain your garden throughout the year, including in the lead up to the summer.
This may include the following:
- Repainting and treating your fences
- Repainting and treating your garden shed
- Cleaning and decluttering the inside of your garden shed
- Removing garden debris (e.g. dead plants)
- Prune trees or shrubs that have overgrown
If hiring a professional, these jobs will cost around £20 to £60 an hour in labour costs plus the price of materials. This comes to around £100 to £300 to have your fencing repainted and treated,
Clean Or/And Replace Furniture
Next, you’ll either want to clean existing garden furniture or replace it with new options entirely.
To purchase new garden furniture, the following average prices will generally apply:
- Garden cushion – £15 to £70
- Garden table – £20 to £450
- Rattan furniture – £15 to £1,000
- Garden bench – £100 to £350
- Gazebo – £100 to £8,000
While, in many cases it will be perfectly fine to install garden furniture DIY, sometimes a professional will be needed. Moreover, gazebo installations are generally more likely to require the work of a professional given the scale and complexity of the instalment work involved. If in doubt, always hire a professional to err on the side of caution.
Add an Outdoor Tap
Having an outdoor tap added to your back garden can bring a range of benefits including making it easier to clean down installations in your garden such as your garden walls by connecting the tap to a garden hose. If thinking of washing down your fences, be sure to proceed with caution by ensuring the water pressure is not too strong as too damage your garden fencing.
Other key advantages of an outdoor tap is that you can easily use a garden hose to water flowers. You may also want to use a garden hose to fill out an inflatable swimming pool if you have kids. Installing an outdoor tap is likely to cost about £80 to £200 in total, with this price estimate including the cost of labour for a professional tap installation.
New Plants
Lastly, you should not overlook the idea of adding new plants to your garden. In doing so, you can give your garden a fresh and more vibrant look and feel ahead of the summertime.
Some popular ideas include Lavender, Helenium, Penstemon, Hardy geranium and Gaura. Just be sure that any plants you add are not poisonous to pets (whether you have any or if your neighbours pets may pop into the garden some nights). Beyond that, it’s important to consider not only what plants will bloom in the summer but how soon before the summer you’d want to plant them. That’s not to mention considering what plants appeal to you from an aesthetic perspective.
Other Ideas
Along with the ideas raised so far, here are some other ideas to prepare your garden for the summer months ahead:
- Have a new patio installed (or clean and maintain it if you already have on)
- Get a new decking installed (or, again, clean and maintain an existing one)
- Have water features added to your garden to improve its overall look and feel
- Don’t be afraid to throw out furniture or other items you no longer need
- Look into adding a raised garden bed
Whatever approach you choose to take, be sure to consider what additions/alterations make the most sense based on your budget, preferences, and how all these changes (along with unchanged elements of your garden) will look once you’ve finished preparing your garden for the summer.
By making the changes you desire, you can give your back garden a total new lease of life ahead of the summer. And subsequently you and friends or/and family can enjoy your garden space even more on beautiful summer afternoons. Just don’t forget to wear sunscreen!