help regarding backyard (also help frm dragon mart experts!)

Hi Greenish Would you mind sharing where you sourced the blue metal from? I'm not having much success finding it! Also, what sort of paving did you use? I'm not hugely keen on interlock and its quite expensive anyway. Have seen some nice rough paving tiles at Dragonmart but I guess we'd need to have a poured concrete base to fix these on to? Your garden sounds lovely! many thanks :-)

Sorry to hijack but we need a garden overhaul as well and I came across this thread. Green-ish does the blue metal look like the gravel in the photo from the link you have posted? That might just work for us too - where did you source it from if you don't mind me asking? We would like to leave our backyard with grass as we have spent a fortune planting it all and maintaining it all these years, but the sides of the garden just do not stay green (it is where the dogs go pee and so we were thinking of taking out the irrigation lines there and putting down gravel and some desert plants. In another strip our 'landscaper' planted a row of damas at the fence and laid down grass in front of it. I had no clue at the time that damas sucks out all the moisture in the area and so nothing really grows under it :\: so again a waste of irrigation lines and precious water!

Where is the villa Scarlett? Have you asked any neighbours with gardens (or on the main board) what the DEWA bills are like? Interlock paving may cost a lot to put down, but from some of the scary threads I've read recently, that 4K could be your first DEWA bill if you install a large garden. Grass is the biggest water waster! It looks lovely, but it's a very, very expensive option in the long term. Due to high water needs in a desert, it's also an environmentally irresponsible option in my opinion. :) Fake grass is great...but you need a good quality one to last in the extreme climate. It may cost as much as the interlock to put down depending on the size of your garden. Fake grass also collects all of the sand that blows around and after one January downpour, you *can* end up with a muddy mess. At our DSO villa, we sourced some cheap as chips 'blue metal' which is the gravel that is usually mixed in with concrete. We covered the whole, small front garden with the gravel, threw in a few huge, decorative rocks that my husband found on rubbish piles at building sites, and inter-planted with large succulents that DM happened to be ripping out and dumping. In the 12 months we lived there, I watered the garden maybe five times to help the plants establish, then never again. When we left, we sold it all to a local landscaper to move it on to someone else's villa. It's a shame I never took any photos of that garden...for very near to a freebie, it looked awesome. Our back sandpit was massive! We paved one large area for an outdoor table and chairs, built a pergola over that from wood found on building site rubbish piles (with appropriate permission sought ;) ), paved a few paths and built some garden beds with the same gravel and water wise plantings as we used out the front. The rest we left as sandpit under the kids trampoline and cubby house. I only watered my herb and veggie gardens (small) and few trees in pots. Our super budget, gravel garden looked a little like this but with big, architectural, spiky succulents... http://www.gardeninginfozone.com/creating-a-scree-garden-rocks-stone-and-gravel-in-the-garden <em>edited by Green-ish on 11/09/2011</em>

We just brought alot of stuff up there for our previous house .....we then used a gardener that was doing a garden down my street .....is there anyone doing there garden nr u ? U can purchase the stuff and get them to plant it all etc or just ask up at the souk.

Think before you plant trees and real grass. These take up a lot of watering. We had fake grass in our old villa, nobody could tell lol. The plant souk sounds good, might have to go there. Good luck and happy gardening.

The plant souk is the place to go... It's nr dragon mart there's better directions on here if u do a search .,. It's a big area that sells plants stones trees grass interlocking etc and u can haggle .... You could buy all the stuff get them to deliver and pick up a couple of gardeners to do it all for u.... Cheapest option would be trees pants stones and abit of grass...any paving etc will be more so we just done stepping stones etc.... Good luck