What? Front garden / Drive way into grassy garden
Where? Family home (1880s’s 4 bed semi-detached house), Halifax.
When? Spring 2018
Design:We had too much concrete and hard standing with enough parking for 3 cars in our garden. The area is an ‘L’ shape so we pulled up the flag stones and decorative red and grey bricks and replaced with grass / grass seed. The two areas were levelled out, top soil was added and then grass seed was added on one of the areas and turf added on the other. These areas were then duly watered daily for at least a month. This was in the middle of a dry spell, and the grass has now grown over the 2 areas. They are both around 10 x 20 foot in area.
Benefits/constraints: The grass is certainly far more attractive and conducive with the local rural area, rather than the grey drab concrete previously. Although it has reduced the parking capacity, the house still has 3 parking spaces available; 1 on the drive next to the new grass and 2 on the road outside the house so this has not reduced the value of the house at all. In fact it is likely to have enhanced the value due to the improved aesthetics of the grass.
How does it work? Rain water now soaks into the grass instead of running off the concrete into the drains and onward to the rivers.
Further Opportunities:It is possible to install more grass on the remaining drive leaving bricked tyre tracks on the drive for cars to use when parked. This would result in around 80 % of the total area grassed instead of concreted.
Who? Total work time for one person was probably 3 days in total.
Funding: Around £100 in total.
Building / Implementation:Very straight forward. Concrete / decorative bricks were lifted, resold, or reused. 6 inches of soil and grass seed / turf applied.
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