7 Easy DIY Garden Projects To Tackle This Bank Holiday

Despite hours of DIY work on my garden, it still looks a mess. Maybe it is because I’m a newbie to gardening and am finding my feet? Or maybe it is because I ignore it for weeks on end so the grass is up to my knees? Who knows – either way it soaks up lots of my precious spare time. Not any more, this August bank holiday I’m going to tackles garden projects with the following DIY quick fixes that will transform my outdoor space. 
My garden has come a long way, Going From Wild Back Yard To Gorgeous Garden only last summer. I’ve put in boarders, growing climbing plants up the walls and there are lots of large planters filled with herbs and salad leaves. It still needs a lot of garden projects that need tackling. Just look at what state it is in.
I’ve been researching on-line and I’m going to tackle the following 7 areas of my garden to spruce it up which a/ won’t cost a bomb, b/ take up all of my bank holiday and c/ I can do them myself.

1. MAKE A FEATURE BRICK WALL

To one side of my garden, I have an exposed brick wall which I want to make a back drop for my flowers. I love the rustic look of it, although it is looking rather weather worn. I’m going to spruce it up with a tub of Brick Face Repair. I can use this product to fill in any missing brick face in my wall leaving it looking as good as new – while helping to protect the wall from further damage. Time? Couple of hours, tops.

2. Tackle Your Boarders

For ages, I had no boarders in my garden at all which looked really odd. Over the past year, I’ve made the flower boards wider and wider so I can plant more blooms. What I struggle with is keeping my grass from spreading into my freshly dug up flower beds. This bank holiday on my gardening project list is to install plastic edging to keep my boarders neat. I need to dig into the ground to stop my lawn from taking over. My Top Tip: Mark out the shape of your boarders using your garden hose to get lovely swooping curve to your beds. Leave an sunny afternoon to do this.

3. Deal With Uneven Patios

A wobbly, uneven patio can really let your garden down – and even worse be unsafe and a trip hazard. I have a loosing paving stone out the front of my house which I am always stepping over. It’s a right pain. I’m going to tackle this myself using Paving Slab Fixing Mortar to fix loose slabs in place. I might need to dig out loose mortar between the slabs in places to get a neater finish. No more accidents waiting to happen. I think this will take the best part of a day.

4. Put Up Outdoor Shelves

I replaced all my old, rotten fencing with these beautiful hazel hurdle fence panels from Primrose. They are the first thing that people comment on in my garden because they are so unusual. At the moment, as I’m waiting for my climbers to grow up them, they look a bit bare. To bring a bit of colour to my fence, I hung up wooden creates to them and popped in colourful potted plants (I even have a ceramic Budha in one). I plan to put up a few more ‘shelves’ this weekend to bring a bit more personality to my garden while I wait for it to slowly mature. Each one takes less than half an hour to hang, if you tie them up with garden twine like me.

5. Spruce Up Decking

In my old flat, I had a 10 metre decked long terrace. It was the easiest way to modernise my outdoor space. But over the winter, the wet weather left a growth of algae and mould making the surface slippery (pretty dangerous) and, I was told would eventually cause the wooden decking to gradually rot away. This is why I think it the August bank holiday is the perfect time to prep-your-deck for winter with a slip-resistant decking sealer. The label on the product says it uses ‘micro-traction technology’ to provide a waterproof but transparent seal – making the surface safe underfoot while preserving it. This way, your decking will be in mint condition ready for Spring.

6. Paint Your Shed

Even in a garden as small as mine, a shed is a handy thing to have to tuck away tools and other garden bumf. I even have another shed just for my recycling. I don’t know about you but I think that plain sheds look really dull and unfinished. A tin of paint can transform them into a beach hut, a chic-shed or you can do what I did here and paint it in rainbow colours – you can see the full makeover here.  I hung plants off mine….you know, just because.

7. Prevent Evil Weeds Taking Root

I hate weeds. Hate them! It is one garden projects I dread. I’m constantly pulling them out my garden path, I turn my back for a second and – Boom!! – they’re back again. It’s hard work keeping my pathway looking neat but when there are dandelions popping up everywhere – what chance do I stand? There are a couple of products out there that stop weeds coming back like the Weed Free Block Paving Sand which you sweep into newly paved patios to suppress weed growth. I’ve discovered that weeds love to grow in the large gaps between paving slabs. This is where a product like Wide Joint Patio Grout steps in, neatly filling joints with a hard-setting and mess-free material, making it difficult for weeds and moss to break-through. It also makes the area water-resistant, preventing future damage from rain which can cause the slabs to lift and become wobbly (see tip 3!). Win! Win!
All these DIY gardening projects are going to take up about half my bank holiday BUT they should save me hours in the long run as they will keep my garden looking good in the future. All the products I mentioned are from U-Can – their website has info and ideas on other DIY gardening jobs you can tackle in your home.
I can’t wait to take my garden to the next level so that I can have a proper garden party out there.  Do you have any easy gardening tips to share below? I’d love to hear them. Have a great bank holiday everyone.
 
** Disclaimer: This post was in collaboration with U-Can. As always – thoughts, photos and opinions are all mine.