caliwag

From a self build perspective the garden comes right at the end of the project at a time when most people are broke, broken, knackered and totally over building work in general. Personally I think it’s better to take a pause before tackling the garden in order to renew enthusiasm, replenish the bank account etc. Plenty of time therefore to work on a design you may want later on, but tackle it at a point where you are excited about doing it, not when it feels like a chore you still have to do to complete the build so will compromise on most things just to get it done. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by newhome

As a counterpoint some of it can be included in the VAT reclaim if included as part of the scheme for Planning Permission.

 

And there may be advantages to planning where eg a hill and raised seating area going, which can be built out of rubble and driveway gravel.

 

I have taken a slightly diffrent approach as I knew all my building work and retrofitting would take upto 8 years (in year 5 now) so started planting trees from the get go. I also use the weekends as my personal time and I am at my happiest in the garden so the garden seems to progress at about the same rate as my building work. My aim is for the two to come together at the finish line and transition to garden maintenance and “fun” building projects from that point on..... we will see.  

Yes that’s a good point @Ferdinand. I had nothing in the PP that related to the garden so it wasn’t something I considered. 

 

There would have been no point in me trying to tackle any of the garden before the build was complete really as there were people stomping all over the site, machines in and out, building materials dumped in it etc. 

We had to supply a hard landscaping and planting plan as part of our planning application. When the weather has been pleasant and we've been fed up working indoors we've worked on the garden.

We weren't asked for a landscaping plan, but as a part of trying to get some of the previous objectors in the village on side I offered to plant two cherry trees (long story, but 50 cherry trees were planted in the village to commemorate the coronation and over half have now died, so I thought offering to have one either side of our drive entrance might help).  I then realised that if we included a landscaping plan and asked the planning officer to include it in the approval we could reclaim the VAT.  We managed to get most of the hard landscaping, like stone walls, patio, stone paths, the lawn etc, done before we put in the VAT reclaim, plus I stocked up on stuff we'd need to finish off the hard landscaping, like stone, so at least we got the VAT back on some of the more expensive stuff.   Unfortunately we ran out of money (and energy) to do more before the VAT claim, so have had to save up for the expensive mature trees I planted a few weeks ago.  We still have lots to do in the garden, but at least it looks presentable from the lane, which also keeps the rest of the village on side as we're in the Best Kept Village competition again (I think our garden rather let things down last year...).