Is it cheap to have a garden concreted over?

I need to pave my garden as the dogs have ruined the grass and most of the mud has found its way into the kitchen.


I got a couple of quotes to pave, one was £2,000 way above my price limit and the other was for £700 from someone who looked as though he just came off an episode of Crimewatch!


Would cementing be any cheaper, or maybe tarmac?

Is it cheap to have a garden concreted over?
Tarmac may be a cheaper option. If you have a word with the local Tarmac company they often need to dump excess, we did this at one point and managed to completely tarmac the drive by this method for a very cheap outlay.
Reply:ask shortpeg2001


shes just had it done
Reply:theres nothing ugly about well placed concrete that has been finished correctly. here you will pay about 7 or 8 dollars a sq. ft.
Reply:Please reconsider putting a fully hard surface down. It's a contributing factor to floods and many garden designers are becoming more aware that flat areas really need to allow water to seep into/through them rather than have to run off them. As a country the UK is losing far too many garden areas already. Designers are now being careful to try to include water-seeping surfaces where they turn front gardens into carparks.





Can you consider putting a mixture of paving and gravel perhaps? Or paving where you leave spaces in between where you can plant things like nice smelling thyme and other herbs?





Could you make the borders larger, and make them raised, using e.g. railway sleepers? Then you'd have a nice place to plant sit on the edge, and nice plants. Then you could use those patterned slabs with designs in them for the paved area, with gravel in them. It should be quite easy to train the dogs not to climb on the raised beds and you'd still have a nice place to enjoy eating out.
Reply:I had my relatively small back garden paved over. I had a conservatory fitted to the back of the house and the remaining garden was too small to be practical. The area paved was approximately 14ft,x18ft.. with a small entrance area by the back gate of about 5ft.x3ft. The whole lot cost me £650. This included removing quite a bit of rubbish,an old greenhouse and levelling. I was given a choice as to the type and colour of slabs to be used.At the end of the day I was quite pleased with the end result.
Reply:concrete is quite ugly,how about bark chips from the garden centre ?