We all love being in the great outdoors but, let's be honest,
most of us don't have a back garden that looks anything like this.
We all have some idea what our homes should look like,
but when it comes to our gardens, we are clueless.
Well, all that is about to change.
Oh!
In this series, we help homeowners transform their outside spaces.
Our secret garden is where the magic happens.
Home to a team of extraordinary designers...
Let's take a look.
..able to turn unused plots into pockets of paradise...
Oh, wow!
..or life-changing wonderlands...
Oh, my God!
..whatever the size or budget...
..using the latest technologies to showcase
radically different solutions...
That's beautiful. It's lovely at night.
..before the winning design is enjoyed in real life.
It's a dream come true. Absolutely stunning.
Tonight... We don't want to do it half-hearted. We want to go for it.
We're going for it? OK.
..Tracey and Jake have got £30,000 to transform
their unimaginative plot...
This is my garden - two metres by two metres.
..into a destination for everyone to enjoy.
Wow. Oh, my goodness! It doesn't look like our garden any more.
While Beth and Joe in Liverpool...
At the moment, it's just, arguably, a very cold hallway.
..have saved up £2,000.
I'm going to try my best.
..to reimagine their tiny but precious backyard.
Oh! Wow!
That's incredible.
This is Your Garden Made Perfect.
First to arrive at our Garden HQ are stay-at-home mum Tracey
and account manager Jake, from Littlehampton in West Sussex.
Hello.
Utterly uninspired by their outside space, they've come seeking tips,
tricks and a dash of horticultural magic.
I like the spot you've chosen by our water globe.
It's really nice, isn't it? Job done. We can go home early.
Are you ready? I think so. Definitely. OK, let's go.
Just down the road from the port of Littlehampton,
Tracey and Jake live with their 11-year-old daughter Poppy.
The family moved into their bungalow three years ago.
No!
Tracey has multiple sclerosis, so as a full-time wheelchair user,
the space was ideal.
And they've spent the last two years transforming it
into their perfect home.
We've knocked rooms together and made everything
much more spacious inside.
I don't think you can recognise any of it now.
While it works for the family as a whole, in the open-plan space,
there's nowhere to escape to.
Poppy, she's like, you know, she's starting secondary school this year.
There's nowhere for Poppy to go and be.
You know, a little area where she can sit or swing
or, you know, or something like that.
With a good-sized plot and pretty standard layout,
the family should be using the garden so much more.
It doesn't work for us. No. Because I've stopped driving myself,
it would be nice if there was somewhere to just escape to,
just leave the confines of the house.
Yeah.
An outside space could be the answer but, in its current state,
the garden's layout is uninspiring, awkward to maintain
and actually dangerous for Tracey to spend time in alone.
This is my garden - two metres by two metres.
And all of that space is totally unused.
I enjoy being in the garden, I just enjoy sitting in the sun.
The garden's constant level changes make much of the space
unusable for Tracey.
Big steps down or a little step down
and a staggered ramp, so you don't go up it smoothly,
it's a bit of a jolt, you know.
The garden is just not very accessible.
But this garden is not just a nightmare for Tracey.
Jake hates gardening.
This garden makes me feel angry. HE LAUGHS
Every time I come out here, it just annoys me
that, A, I don't have the urge to do it and, B, I don't have the time.
I work from home. We converted the garage, like, not that long ago,
and every day I come out in the morning
and I come back in in the evening, and I'm walking through the garden,
and it's not a nice commute.
HE LAUGHS
Get your ball.
With Tracey's condition having deteriorated over the last year,
a usable garden has become more important now than ever.
With MS, erm, so, she was diagnosed just before our wedding.
It's just got steadily worse and worse.
A year ago, I could stand up and move about,
but I can't do that now.
And it's been pretty hard just coping, you know, not just her,
but the whole family coping with it as well.
I know it's been really hard for Jake.
He works so hard.
He does that to, like, keep everything ticking along,
because I can't do that any more.
Sorry.
While she would love to garden and maintain and mow the lawn,
she physically can't, and it frustrates her, I guess.
Although not able to look after the garden,
Tracey IS determined to have a space that the whole family can use.
And she's been inspired by memories from when she was a kid.
My grandparents had the most amazing garden
with loads of nooks and crannies, I suppose,
where you think, "Ooh, where does that lead to?"
sort of, that was their garden.
Loved that garden.
So why can't they create something just as special
in THEIR back garden? A space that's accessible and inspiring,
which offers something for the whole family?
The garden is just...
..is the final bit of the puzzle, really.
Tracey and Jake are hoping the design team at Garden HQ
have got the answer.
Jake, you hate gardening.
HE LAUGHS
It's reassuring, to say the least.
Yeah, anything that is kind of low-maintenance.
So we need a weed-free garden? That would be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah.
You've got a lot of pride in your house but the garden just feels
like it doesn't really represent you at all. No, it doesn't.
We've wanted everything to look like...
..not "accessible",
like, you know, "a disabled person lives here",
so you don't want to go into the garden
and be reminded of it all the time. It doesn't define you.
No, definitely not. Let's talk about the budget.
How much have we got? We've got £30,000.
OK. So that's a nice sum of money. Mm. Yeah.
Yeah, it's everything we could get together, so...
You're investing in what is your surroundings basically, isn't it?
So, yeah, we want to make sure, when we do it, we do it properly.
Yeah. We don't want to do it half-hearted.
We want to go for it. We're going for it.
Full-on. I can't wait to see this one, guys.
Enjoy it. I can't wait either. Thank you.
With 30 grand on the line, it's clear Tracey and Jake
are determined to throw everything into getting this space right.
And the two designers battling it out
with their virtual solutions are...
..Chelsea Flower Show medal-winner Tom Massey,
who has a reputation for the radical...
I really enjoy challenging people to be a bit more creative,
to give them something that they might not have thought about before.
..versus former fashion designer Manoj Malde,
whose colourful creations have caused quite a stir.
I've always been passionate about gardens,
but as I'm designing, it's colour that that pulls me in.
Manoj and Tom have come to Littlehampton
hunting for horticultural clues to unleash this garden's potential.
And the garden kind of reveals itself
almost immediately, actually, as you come in.
Without any definite design plan,
this garden has been left uninspired and without character.
There's nothing to draw you through it, nothing really to kind of
take your eye or capture your imagination.
For Manoj, it's a struggle to find anything in this garden
that excites him.
The garden's actually dull in terms of colour at the moment.
Having a fence that is not actually dressed
is a wasted opportunity, you know, because all you're doing
is you're creating a timber wall, and that's boring.
Who wants to look at a panel of timbers?
For most of us, a lawn in the middle and borders down the side
is our go-to garden,
but Tom's determined to get rid of this classic convention.
You see in these kind of small gardens,
all the planting is around the edge and there's nothing in the middle,
and that creates what's called a void space
so bringing the planting away from the boundaries
and into the middle of the spaces
can really give it a certain mass and kind of character.
And the disjointed layout has led to another classic design error.
This poorly positioned pergola is sucking all the light
from inside the family's living room.
I'm just thinking whether this is actually practical
and in the right place.
And also, the amount of shade that that's going to create
in the house.
And it turns out light and shade are going to be super-important
in this garden.
So, a really quick and easy way to tell the aspect of your garden
is just to get your phone out and get the compass app out.
So this is north. This is south.
So the property is facing north, but it means this whole border here
is south-facing, which means it's going to get really good sun.
The downside of a south-facing garden, particularly for Jake,
is that without the right plants, it takes a lot of looking after.
It's going to need a lot of watering
and a lot of care and attention, really,
unless you plant really drought-tolerant species.
But there's no escaping the garden's most obvious issue.
The level changes are disturbing here.
This bit here is at a different level to the patio.
You know, walking up that not in a wheelchair is quite steep.
It feels not particularly safe, to be honest.
Manoj and Tom have clearly got their work cut out here.
But first, they need to find out exactly what Tracey and Jake
want this space to become.
What is your absolute heart's desire?
My grandparents' garden was what I like now.
Meanderings paths. Their garden was just like that.
We've focused our energy and our time in making
inside of the house how we want it,
but I'm not proud of the garden.
A couple of years ago, I did a photography course
and the idea was that I was going to come home
and take photos of bee bombs and flowers and stuff,
which I've always wanted to do.
It sounds like you both have your own stresses
and needs for escape. Yeah, definitely. 100%.
They want that garden to give them a sense of freedom,
a sense of joy and a complete chill-out zone.
The challenge is giving them that sense of pride and ownership,
because I think they need that kind of encouragement
to get them out into the space.
Back at Garden HQ, our designers are searching for solutions
to this tricky space.
But before they go head-to-head with their virtual proposals,
I want to get the lowdown on their designs.
How tough was this one? It was a hard one. Yeah?
Such a nice family that you really want to do
the absolute best and deliver, you know?
30K is a lot of money,
but you've both kind of, you know, alluded to the fact
that that's quite challenging.
Anything bespoke is going to cost more money,
and often you need to have bespoke features within the garden.
Are we feeling confident?
I'm feeling confident, but there's a lot to answer with this one. Mm.
Manoj is first up, and Tracey and Jake are primed and ready
to see these two daringly different designs
before choosing one to become a reality.
This is going to be mad.
While Manoj pitches,
Tom watches on with me.
I wonder if Manoj is nervous. He looks a little twitchy.
Oh, wow. Oh, wow!
Is it our garden? It looks very neat. Goodness!
Yeah, it's definitely ours.
MANOJ: Everything kind of felt as if it wasn't working
for you as a family.
Awful ramp. The drop. Yeah.
So, do you want to have a look at what I've created?
Yeah, go for it. Definitely. Let's go for it.
Wow! Oh, my goodness!
Oh, my God. Where's it gone?
LAUGHTER
What?! Look how huge it looks!
Oh, my God! What?! This is not our garden, is it?
Oh, wow.
She loves it. Look at that smile.
Oh, my goodness. That is mental.
It looks bigger. It looks so much bigger.
Manoj has levelled out the entire garden
and created clearly defined zones,
drawing inspiration from the couple's home.
So what I've done is I've taken your colour scheme
that you've used inside, with the yellows and the greys,
and I've brought it out into this space,
creating that indoor-outdoor connection.
I love the mustard. Erm, yellow?! Yeah. OK, yellow.
The other thing that I've chosen is the yellow cane bamboo.
As that really reaches maximum height,
that's going to cover that ugly roofline.
You've got the rug, you've got the yellow cushions on the sofa.
It matches the interior of the house.
It matches! It matches!
The existing pergola made their living room
feel incredibly dark and gloomy.
Manoj has relocated it to the other side of the garden,
filling their bungalow with light
while creating an entirely new seating area.
It just makes the garden feel so much better.
Manoj has even dedicated an area to Tracey's passion for photography,
filling his signature yellow raised containers with planting
to entice wildlife.
Love the fact that the lavenders... I love lavender.
Lovely place to sit. You'll get butterflies and bees coming there
and you want to do some photography, so that will help. Definitely.
Manoj has broken up the zones with decked walkways
and controversially gotten rid of the lawn.
He's solved any access issues by dropping beautiful sandstone planks
into the gravel and softened it with ornamental planting.
The complete opposite to the plastic ramps from before.
I can get around the whole garden with no thinking.
I can access everything.
So she can glide around.
The ramps were, like, ugly, yeah, but also just...
They looked slippy... Random, yeah. ..and uneven.
We've got a few more tricks up our sleeves.
They're fabulous sleeves, to be fair.
Bearing in mind Jake's plea for a low-maintenance garden,
Manoj has considered how to create interest in the space
using other techniques.
His slick, minimal water trough includes a unique touch.
Black pond dye.
So when you look at that water feature,
you'll actually see the clouds reflecting in the pool of water.
It's a nice technique, to dye water black.
So it looks like a black mirror. Exactly.
Also, it stops algae growing, you know,
because the algae need light to photosynthesise.
But it doesn't end there. Manoj has one final flourish to reveal.
Have a look at those.
The bold row of arches lines the pathway and has been deliberately
placed to be viewed from their living room window.
Oh, wow. Wow.
Instead of planting climbers up it,
he has thrown in a dash of Manoj sparkle
with fairy lights for those winter nights.
Love them. It's just like in my grandma and grandad's garden,
they had arches that you could go through. Love that.
The arches lead to a new swing seat,
perfect for their daughter, Poppy, to escape to with her mates.
It's great. I wanted that little area to be special for her.
A double seater, because I wanted her to be able
to share that space with you guys,
but also so that she can have friends round
and they can sit on that swing together.
She can make it her own.
Manoj, that is so cute!
So, shall we have a look at the garden from the other side?
Right, wow. Wow.
LAUGHTER
It's so nice, looking through the archways.
One of the things that really hit me when I was talking to you
was that you really did want something that was easy to maintain
and hence the reason why I've used a lot of evergreen plants here.
Yeah, there still seems to be, like, quite a lot of plants,
but, you know, I can tell that it's going to be low-maintenance.
Jake, the garden hater.
SHE CHUCKLES
I think although Jake isn't a gardener,
I think he will get into it. Do you reckon? I think he will, yeah.
MANOJ: I'm hoping that I've actually now brought your pride
that you have inside out into the garden.
You're now going to have your parties,
you're going to invite your friends along
and really, really enjoy the space.
Wow. Yeah, it's lovely.
It's so nice to be able to get all the way around my garden.
Somewhere where we would spend a lot of time now.
Wow. Yeah, I want to go back there!
Manoj has certainly hit the spot with his colourful design
for Tracey and Jake,
and bold use of colour is central to his philosophy... Wow.
..so he's taken me to a private garden in Leigh-on-Sea
designed by Katrina Kieffer-Wells to explain why colour
was so integral to his design for Tracey and Jake.
So how do you add block colour to a garden
without it becoming overwhelming?
Well, this space has ditched natural wooden fences
for a much braver backdrop.
In the design that I did for Tracey and Jake,
we had black fences, and look at how the greenery
really stands out against it. It pops, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
Tracey and Jake wanted exactly that.
They wanted this lovely, lush holiday-spa feel.
Because I would have thought, actually, that a black fence
would feel really heavy.
But it doesn't. It has completely the opposite effect.
If anything, the fences go outwards
and make the garden feel bigger.
So what's the trick when adding more colour
to avoid creating a bit of a mess?
Generally, people are scared of colour.
They're happy to look at colour inside their house,
they'll choose colours for the walls, the wallpapers
or soft furnishings, but when it comes to the outdoors,
suddenly, it's like, oh, my God, it's a different world.
Men and women also see colour quite differently.
Oh, he's off. So what colour are your trousers to you?
To me, a golden yellow.
OK, they're neon to me!
LAUGHTER
It's certainly clear colour comes down to personal taste.
And this garden's matched its interior design
with its outdoor furniture and planting.
So, what they've done really cleverly here in the garden studio,
which has got the pink in it,
which then comes out into this space here
with the chairs here, into this lovely cordyline
with the pink stripes there.
There are pink flowers within the planting scheme...
And even the banana leaf print is echoed in...
Ties up with the banana. Yeah. Perfect!
In Tracey and Jake's living room, they've used yellow and grey,
so Manoj has integrated those colours into his garden design.
They loved what they had done in their lounge area,
and that is the inspiration that I took
and I've brought those colours out into their garden.
Adding a splash of colour doesn't have to be complicated.
You can take inspiration from pretty much anything
to make an area more inviting.
Colour is about seduction. Ooh, go on!
Because, if you think about it,
when you look at a bowl of strawberries...
Oh, yeah. ..and it makes your mouth water, right, or...
I mean, what makes my mouth water is
a bowl of saffron mangoes, quite honestly.
Isn't that seduction? You want to go there.
Back at our design hub,
Manoj will be hoping he's done enough
to seduce Tracey and Jake with his design.
Tracey and Jake really saw the potential with my garden,
so, fingers crossed.
But the competition's not over yet.
It's Tom's turn to present his vision.
Let's go.
Yeah, here we are, back again.
It's awful. Yeah.
Before we see the final design, I'd like to show you a version
that you thought you might like.
Tom's keen to show garden novice Jake
what he THOUGHT he wanted -
a level garden with some fake grass.
Oh, my God, that looks so boring.
It's just got no life, it's got no character. No.
It's got no soul, really.
If I hadn't met Tracey, and I was single, I think my garden
would probably look like this, to be fairly honest with you.
So, the bar has been raised.
Previously - fine by Jake. Yeah.
Now - oh, no. Yeah!
Are you guys ready to see what I've done? Yeah.
Ooh, here we go.
Wow. Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness, oh!
Holy moley!
Wow. It's amazing, it's beautiful.
That's so different. Yeah, mental.
Tom's garden is the complete opposite to Manoj's.
Instead of getting rid of the levels,
his design makes the most of them.
By sinking the lawn and raising the height of the terrace,
he's given them two separate areas, making it feel instantly bigger.
So, I think creating some sense of enclosure,
some sense of excitement,
and some sense of different areas within the garden
is something that I thought was really important.
There's definitely a lot of plants!
Oh-ho! Jake is like, "Ugh, there's a lot of plants here!"
Well, I suppose it is a garden, you know, gardens are full of plants!
He gets really scared by plants, doesn't he?
Is he allergic to green?
To Jake, the garden might look like a maintenance minefield,
but Tom's included a few tricks to bring him around.
So, I know, Jake, you were quite keen not to do too much weeding
and not to do too much maintenance.
What I've actually done with the soil,
I've used concrete and crushed waste materials.
Stuff that we're taking out of the garden has been crushed up,
and then that's going to be used as a really tough growing medium.
Very good! I like that.
That's good, isn't it? It is.
I've really filled it with loads of
different tough Mediterranean plants.
All those kind of things really love hot, dry conditions
because that's where they're from.
Mediterranean plants, which is what Tom is using here,
need impoverished soil. It's clever.
The clever tricks don't end there.
Tom's added a gentle mesh ramp linking the upper and lower terrace.
Growing up through this galvanised mesh
are things like thyme and catmint.
So, as you roll over them, you know,
they're going to release a smell and a scent into the air.
So, the wheels go over, you walk over...
You crush it a little bit, and... Nice!
I love that!
So, let's go and have a look further into the garden.
On the lower terrace, Tom has used self-binding gravel,
creating a smooth, manoeuvrable surface,
while containers for planting -
made from reused concrete pipes and steel drums -
sit at perfect height for Tracey.
There's so much going on, so much detail.
What I've used is industrial construction materials
which reference the wider Littlehampton dockside area.
Most of the time, you would look at these materials and just think,
"Oh, construction, buildings," all of that. Foundations. Yeah. Hidden.
You don't think of them in a garden space. No.
I love the re-use of materials, the way that,
the kind of industrial design as well.
Tom's also included a concrete pipe pond for Tracey.
So, full of plants, really good for wildlife,
dragonflies, damselflies,
all sorts of things will come and visit the garden.
I love the pond. So nice.
You like it? Yeah, I REALLY like it.
We've got a fire pit area, maybe roast some marshmallows with Poppy,
an area you could enjoy as a family.
Nice touch.
As a final twist, Tom's cleverly upended a concrete pipe
to create a neat spot for Poppy's swing,
giving her a place she can call her own.
And then, behind it, if you have a look,
it's got this little hatch that opens out.
And, in there, she could either kind of hide away
or crawl into the hatch. You know, it gives her a sense of ownership
on the garden.
Never in my wildest imagination would I think about this.
I feel like it almost couldn't be more different from yours.
Yeah, exactly.
I really hope that you can see that I've tried to listen to
both of your wants and needs,
and Poppy's as well, and give you a garden
that is something that you just would never have thought
of doing yourselves.
I kind of feel Jake's frightened by it. He is, yeah.
I think he's thinking about...the work. The workload.
Not something I was imagining at all,
to be fairly honest with you.
I'm going to go and see if I can squeeze a few words out of Jake.
Cool.
That was a bit... That was a bit of a... Yeah.
..what?! Wasn't expecting anything like that.
It's so much different to the other design.
Yes. So different.
Tom's designed the low-maintenance garden Tracey and Jake wanted
by using some rather unconventional methods.
To show me how it's done,
he's brought me to John Little Garden in Essex.
So, what's this, then? It's sand, excavated from the road
just down there.
This garden employs some of the very same low-maintenance
techniques Tom's design displayed,
including losing the compost
and rolling in the rubble.
Fennel, Santolina, thyme, oregano,
they're Mediterranean plants, from that kind of hotter,
drier climate. OK. Things that can survive in crushed-up ceramics.
So, toilets, basins. And, sorry, the actual plants are growing
in a crushed toilet? The plants are growing in that, yeah.
In no soil. Literally. Wow.
It's amazing, isn't it? Go on, the plants!
THEY LAUGH
So, by sticking to hardy Mediterranean planting,
this garden barely needs watering.
And if you still need your loo, you can always try waste concrete
or old tiles instead.
And it's not the garden's only clever trick Tom plans to use.
Tracey says she doesn't like gravel because she can't manoeuvre on it.
Yeah, it's her nemesis, I think she says. It's her nemesis.
Yeah, but this is a compacted gravel.
This is wheelchair-accessible. Solid, yeah.
Solid base, super-cheap.
Compacted gravel's not only wheelchair-friendly,
it also gives a super-slick look when creating pathways
through the garden.
Decking is, you know, up to £300 a metre square. Yeah.
Crushed concrete and gravel, £50 a metre square or less.
But it's not all about hard landscaping.
Oh, THIS is cute.
Little bug hotel.
This garden's hardy planting is also a haven for wildlife,
which is perfect for Tracey.
What is it?
So, this is a bee post.
If you look closely, you see all these holes drilled into it? Hmm.
These are little habitats for solitary bees.
OK. So, bees will crawl in, lay an egg.
There's a bee in it - look, look, look.
Wow. Do you want to have a go making one? Oh, I would love to.
Never thought I'd be building a little house for a bee.
Place the drill a few centimetres in.
This is quite satisfying.
It is. Like proper philanthropy here.
Philanthro-BEE!
HE CHUCKLES
Drawing inspiration from your surroundings is a neat solution
for designing a perfect garden.
But while Manoj and Tom's visions are on a grand scale,
sometimes it's the smallest spaces that require the most thought.
I'm paying a visit to Joel Bird,
small space specialist and master of deviously clever, low-cost design.
Part of my job is to try and find
a way to make something practical and functional
but make it beautiful at the same time.
And that's the challenge.
Joel will be conjuring up bespoke design solutions
using a unique form of gadgetry to unlock all our outdoor dreams.
OK, so we're back to your hometown today.
Liverpool. Liverpool.
If you hadn't guessed by the accent.
This is a good one, though, isn't it?
I mean, and you talk about liking small spaces - just as well.
It's possibly the smallest space I've ever designed, to be honest.
It's tight. It's that small.
Shockingly small.
You like a challenge.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's what it's all about.
Living a stone's throw from the River Mersey
on the south side of Liverpool are Beth, Joe,
and their rescue dog, Brenda.
While their home's a haven, their two-by-six metre
concrete courtyard's crying out for a miniature makeover.
So, this is our space.
Very small, as you can see.
This is a tiny garden, but for
first-time buyers Beth and Joe,
it's their first garden and the only outdoor space they have.
With a limited budget, they need to get it right.
Out here, I kind of feel a bit like it's a prison cell.
Quite boxed in. It's quite tall, and it's very close.
Lots of sort of grey, concrete-feel walls, and not much greenery at all.
We don't really use it for much,
apart from just walking through to the bin alley.
It's not the only place that's full of trash.
The L-shaped yard's also a dumping ground for unwanted junk.
There's an old flamingo.
SHE LAUGHS
A spade.
And a paddling pool, and an old foam bed.
This cluttered plot may be small, but size isn't everything.
They still want it to be something special.
We really like Mexico as an inspirational theme,
I just like the big, block, pastel colours.
Although the space isn't massive, we'd just like to brighten it up
and make it a bit more warm, friendly, inviting.
At the moment, it's just arguably a very cold hallway.
Beth and Joe are hoping to find out how Joel plans
to transform their uninspired yard.
So, it's your first garden?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, "garden" is a little stretch at the moment.
Yeah, I don't think we can call it a garden at all.
We call it a yard. Yeah, a yard.
A yard. Somewhere in between.
Let's take a look.
First up, Joe wants to shine a light on the problems
with the dull courtyard.
I would say these make it look positively roomy.
Yeah. But when you step out of this door, you're straight in front...
You're on plants, yeah.
So, it's very tight.
We do have a table and chair out there at the moment,
and we have to move it around constantly
if we're taking the washing out or taking the bins out.
There's no light in this garden.
No. And all of this is in shade.
Not only does Joel have to make this claustrophobic courtyard
feel bigger, he needs to give it some character as well.
So, Mexico? Mm-hm.
You obviously have a fondness for the place.
I just like the big, block, pastel colours.
Yeah, we've got an agave plant in the house as well,
and some little sort of souvenirs
that we've collected from Mexico as well.
Is it realistic that we would get a bit of Mexico
in an alley in Liverpool?
I'm going to try me best.
And turning their tiny space into a hacienda will be no mean feat.
What is the budget?
Our budget is £2,000.
OK, two grand.
It is quite a small space.
Will we have to work very hard to make that work?
When you spend more money on better materials,
they're going to last longer.
We've just got to be efficient and as frugal as we can be
with the materials.
The wait is over.
It's time to see how Joel plans to use the couple's 2K budget
to transform their minuscule garden.
Let's take a look. Go on. OK.
Oh, the tension! Go on.
SHE LAUGHS
SHE GASPS
Wow! Oh, my God! That's incredible.
It looks massive!
Little place to sit and drink and eat.
This is music to my ears.
THEY LAUGH
For just £2,000, Joel has transformed this dull, grey
courtyard into a colourful corner of Mexico.
I love this colour.
When you've got a dull space with no light,
you have to give the colour all the help it can get.
Are you going to have to put these guys to work?
I want you to paint the place. OK.
It really cuts down on that labour.
There's no point paying someone else to do jobs that you can do.
Joel plans to recycle some of the old slate flooring,
but he's also included a new hardwood walkway.
Decking is... There's a few reasons - it creates this next zone.
It's going to make seating a comfortable experience
instead of wobbling around on an uneven surface.
This slick wood surface is also a stage for another surprise.
Is this like a little storage thing, and this comes down?
It's your pop-down table. Yes! Wow.
Joel's bespoke fold-away table is the perfect storage solution.
And it folds away. OK.
Which is everything to that garden.
And Joel hasn't neglected the hidden corner
formerly used as a dumping ground.
So, what you've got to do with those spaces, you know,
you've got to give it a purpose.
So, it's a bar. Yes!
HE LAUGHS
That's the place that you can
have some fun.
Oh, yeah? What are you going to call it, Joel?
It's got to be Brenda's Bar, hasn't it?
THEY LAUGH
Surely. And all we need is a pinata.
Yeah!
Very excited.
That was amazing. Joel ticked all the boxes for us.
Yeah. He's done a lot more with the space
than I thought could be done.
Feels a lot bigger.
It's a better use of the space.
Yeah, really excited to get started. Yep.
Over 270 miles away, back in Littlehampton,
Tracey and Jake have been deciding whose virtual design
will become a reality.
Two designers - Manoj and Tom -
both transformed their garden in utterly different ways.
Yeah, we did go round the houses quite a fair bit.
A lot of sort of going back from one side to the other.
Manoj's design brought the colours from inside out into the garden.
I think we were just bowled over by the space.
It ticked loads of boxes for me because there was...
There wasn't any grass nor any plants, either.
Tom's low-maintenance garden had places to discover and explore.
I really liked that there was a concept. Hmm.
And it was sort of, you know, built around an idea.
A lot of plants, erm, a lot of maintenance.
So, I had to kind of do a U-turn and start sort of rethinking.
With a budget of 30 grand, both plans meet the brief.
But Tracey and Jake could only choose one.
It was like chalk and cheese.
When you're being asked to pick a design,
it was almost like saying,
"Do you want this apple, or do you want this banana?"
"Do you want this type of garden or this type?"
And we're like, "Argh!"
Just decided we would go with Tom.
So excited, it's ridiculous.
It's coming together, and it's like...
I know, and I just...
Every little bit that unfolds makes me go, "Oh, my goodness!
"It's getting closer."
At some point, we were kind of thinking,
"I hope we've made the right decision,"
and now it's 100% obvious that we made the right decision.
Part of Tom's design was to sink the lower half of the garden
to create a journey within the space.
And, two weeks in, Tracey and Jake have already seen a dramatic change.
It's like a jigsaw puzzle coming together, I think,
at the moment, cos a couple of weeks have passed now
and it's like, you know, it just, it's completely different already.
So, maybe the big galv ring here. There is, there was a tree here
on the plan, wasn't there, I think?
Tom is on site today to ensure the truly unique elements
of his design are carefully brought to life.
So, these are kind of cheap, off-the-shelf
industrial construction materials.
Yes. The concrete rings, the galvanised planters.
So, you can see what they actually are now. Yes.
At just over £100,
these half-tonne concrete pipes offer a low-cost alternative
to realise Tom's vision.
This is the bones of the garden, really,
and these planters will kind of dictate the way paths move
through the space.
At the moment, it just looks obviously like a mud pit,
with loads of concrete rings, you know?
HE LAUGHS
So, I think, to do something like this,
you do need to be quite brave.
You know, you need to take a bit of a leap of faith.
When the planting comes in, and, you know,
it's all softened and greened up.
It'll be nice to see him with a pair of secateurs.
Also arriving on site is a bespoke, galvanised steel ring
designed specifically for Poppy's swing seat.
And a small change from the original plan.
The two-metre diameter concrete ring weighed three tonnes.
Bringing it through a narrow side return in quite a tight site
just wasn't really going to be feasible.
So, I wanted to do something that still was in keeping
with the kind of industrial theme.
At a cost of £700, the garden's finally getting somewhere
Poppy can call her own.
So, it's a worthwhile investment for the family.
That's amazing. Poppy is going to love that.
Never imagined anything like this.
Tracey and Jake have totally gone for it,
determined to create the garden of their dreams.
It's up to Tom and his team to ensure the final finish
lives up to their expectations.
Love it all. It's fantastic.
Meanwhile, over in Liverpool, after weeks of planning,
it's time to start the build.
I'm on my way to see Beth and Joe in Liverpool,
back in the homeland.
They've got a tiny, tiny garden.
It's one of the smallest gardens I've ever designed.
I want to get a bit of life and colour into the garden,
so I've set them the task of painting the walls
a lovely terracotta colour.
Right, then. Get started.
And, to save money, Beth and Joe have taken Joel at his word.
Great. So, just about to finish up.
Beth, are we done?
Nearly.
Joel's on site today to check out their handiwork
and drive the build on.
Hello?
It looks amazing. I love it!
It's made a big difference.
When the sun comes, it really reflects.
It comes into the house as well, so that's great. Great.
It's amazing just what a tin of paint can do, isn't it?
Yeah, definitely. It makes such a difference to the space.
So, today, we're going to make a little bar.
That's what we're going to use this for. Perfect.
The idea, really, is just to give it a designated use.
At just 90cm across, building a bar in such a tiny corner
is going to involve some precise planning.
To build a bar outside,
you're going to need some wood,
you're going to need a saw,
a drill...
..and you're going to need a whole lot of screws.
First step is building some uprights.
Always use appropriate safety equipment if you're trying out
tasks like this at home.
I find the best woods to use are probably oak.
Cedar's good outside as well.
If not, you can just buy treated pine.
The uprights just get screwed to the wall.
So, the bar needs to be around about a metre high,
cos it's a nice height to lean on.
The bar top itself couldn't be simpler.
It's literally three planks of wood with two pieces of wood,
screwed in adjacent, around 50cm deep.
I want to be able to put a drink down
and serve someone else a drink.
Then we're going to screw two hinges in
so that we can lift the bar top up.
With the saloon doors, which I bought online for £20 each,
screw them into the supports, jobs a good'un.
I've got an old fish kettle which I found.
We're going to fill that with ice. Keep your beers in it.
Every bar's going to need a place to store your glasses.
It's just a basic framework.
And every bar needs a name.
We're going to call it Brenda's Bar, after the dog.
A bar like this would cost you hundreds and hundreds
if you went to buy it.
But they're relatively easy to make.
And that's how you build a bar.
It may have been small, but after a heap of hard graft,
the high, dull walls, uneven slate flooring,
and awkward, unused corner of their uninspired yard
have been transformed.
And Beth and Joe are thrilled with their little pocket of Mexico.
I think it feels a little bit like we're on holiday somewhere.
I absolutely love it.
I think it came out beyond what I thought it was going to do.
And I thought Joel absolutely smashed it out of the park.
Joel is determined to prove that anyone can make the most
of an outside space, whatever the size or budget.
But it's those punchy terracotta walls
which have made the most impact.
As soon as we started putting it on, we really loved it, didn't we?
And...we just got excited from there, really.
The green really sort of pops against the terracotta.
I love it, and I had faith just to really go for it,
because once I'd seen it, that's what we wanted.
Beth and Joe invested in established plants
to create a luscious green look,
complete with a tiny zen stepping-stone path.
To be able to add some plants and some greenery,
that's really important.
And Joel has even managed to create an entertainment space,
adding two terracotta wall planters and a sleek iroko wood deck,
as well as a cheeky flip-down table.
Neatly packed away, this is the ultimate space-saving hack
for tiny gardens.
Anything that's handmade is always a little bit more expensive.
It was essentially bespoke for our space. Yeah, this area.
It may be a unique feature, but Joel's been thrifty with the budget,
picking up all the wood in the garden for £550.
With space being so limited
and having a piece like this that'll easily fold away
is arguably the strongest part of the yard.
And who can forget the final piece of the pinata?
Joel's all-singing, all-dancing tequila bar.
I think it's madness. I think it's a great addition to the yard.
I think Joel has absolutely nailed it.
I've almost gained Liverpool's smallest bar.
I absolutely love it.
Not only does this prove that you can really transform
any kind of outdoor space into a colourful paradise,
it also manages it within budget.
So, our original budget was £2,000,
and I think we probably have spent a little bit less.
We've been quite thrifty in terms of the wood that we bought.
We reused a lot of it.
We've reused some of the slates that we had down before.
So, we didn't go too wild with the budget.
It's all worked out quite well.
Do you think it's worth it?
I really love Mexico.
The inspiration, the escapism, is exactly what I was hoping for.
How do you feel about christening this bar?
Let's go for it. Yeah, let's do it.
ALL: Cheers!
With very little to work with,
transforming this tiny, dull plot seemed an impossible dream,
but Joel and the couple have pulled it off with aplomb -
or is that a margarita?
Cheers! Cheers to the new garden. Cheers!
From the banks of the Mersey to the shores of the south coast,
where work on Tracey and Jake's Littlehampton garden
is also complete.
The garden was a decent-sized plot,
but the space wasn't working for anyone in the family.
With a pretty standard conventional layout,
the garden was uninspired and characterless.
And a host of steep drops and unforgiving surfaces
made the space inaccessible for Tracey.
With Jake struggling to keep the garden in shape,
the family desperately needed a more usable space
but were at a loss on how to achieve it.
Tom's virtual vision tackled the uneven surfaces by adding a ramp
and sinking half the garden...
..and providing individual areas for each of the family.
The virtual garden was a spectacular success,
but have the team managed to recreate
such an extraordinary space?
This is not your garden!
THEY LAUGH
It's amazing. I feel like I'm on a spa weekend.
SHE WHISPERS: It's magic.
Thank you. Thank you.
Stunningly beautiful.
Stunningly beautiful. It is.
You're quite happy with it, aren't you?
It's completely different. Like, when you look out the window now,
you don't go, "Mm," you go, "Oh, look, it's so pretty."
THEY LAUGH It makes you want to come out.
To unlock Tracey and Jake's garden,
Tom's created two terraces with a scented steel ramp,
industrial planters,
and a smooth stone pathway linking all areas of the garden.
One thing that I think a garden should really do is
draw you into it. Yeah.
Now, there's, you know,
you can't see what's going on behind that ramp.
You don't know what's going on down behind.
Yeah, there's a bit of discovery.
Tom's somehow given this garden the soul and intrigue
it desperately needed.
And he's packed the south-facing space
with hardy Mediterranean plants that don't need constant attention
or care.
Well, it feels so abundant with life and plants and flowers
that the idea that it would be low-maintenance,
that it's kind of hard to reconcile those two things
when you originally see it.
Weeds will struggle to take purchase
on all this concrete, gravel, aggregate.
Which is good news. Yeah.
It's the simplicity which I was after.
And that's all I could think.
I couldn't get past that sort of, like, that idea.
Once I did, then it was a game changer, really. Yeah.
Nestled within the garden, a swing seat
finally gives the couple's daughter, Poppy, a space of her own.
And has she been using this? Oh, yeah, no, absolutely.
Yeah, she's loving it.
I caught her outside just before school one day as well.
Yeah, which is unheard of.
Aw, lovely. So, yeah. Really nice, yeah.
The swing looks quite, erm,
artsy. Sculptural.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's interesting,
because when the swing's not been hanging,
people have gone, "Oh, I love the sculpture."
I'm like, "Well, it's actually a swing."
It's also unique as well.
The whole thing about this garden is unique.
Full of plants and areas to explore,
Tracey can now happily move around the whole garden independently.
Your face, you're like, "It's mine!"
Like a kid in a candy shop.
Have you spent much time in here with Poppy and Jake as yet?
The first day that we had the garden to ourselves,
no workmen here,
it was a beautiful day, the same as today,
and I spent loads of time out here.
Just lovely. Just chilling.
And it's just such an escape.
We had such good weather last Friday
that there was a bumblebee, and I could hear it,
and I was like, "Quickly, take a photo!"
I'm thinking, in spring, it's going to be amazing.
It just feels like you're not in your back garden.
It's just so nice.
Yeah, and a bit wild, which I think is good for you.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
There's a wild streak in you.
Yeah.
It's nice to see that echoed out here.
Like it, like it.
It may look like a wild garden,
but every inch of this space has been carefully considered by Tom.
If you think creatively, anything that could contain soil
or contain water can become a pond or a planter,
or become a kind of focal feature in your garden.
Yeah. And transforms it into a vessel to contain all these kind of
beautiful, textural, tactile...
I mean, look at the light coming through that.
Yeah, it's gorgeous.
I was really not sure whether Tracey and Jake were going to
go with this idea, because it was quite radical.
It's bold.
There's no lawn. Yeah.
There's no green, you know, patch.
And if you ask Tracey and Jake, I'm sure they'll say,
as soon as the plants came in, suddenly we had a garden.
The planting just softens it.
You know, you can get really close up to the planters,
you can kind of move through the space.
But this garden gives you so many reasons to explore.
With an outdoor space full to bursting with planting,
it's a far cry from Jake's original idea of some fake grass.
It used to make you angry.
THEY LAUGH
Which is quite a strong word, isn't it?
Do you feel like it's going to be different?
Oh, absolutely. It's so different.
I mean, it's not like what I'd ever imagined, you know,
right at the beginning.
And I'm already sort of like,
find myself sort of wandering around here,
down here and stuff like that,
and looking at individual sort of plants and stuff like that,
which I would never have done before. Are you going to be weeding?
Well, I don't know about that. Don't go to far.
You're already imagining spending an awful lot of time out here.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, why wouldn't you?
Now that it's had that transformation,
you know, there is a sense of, of pride, you know,
and, you know, you want to keep that up. Mm-hm.
The finished garden is stunning.
But to achieve this incredible transformation,
the family put a considerable amount of money on the line.
In total, the whole garden was 36... OK. ..in the end.
So... And the gravel surface itself was actually six of that.
So, that's what tipped... So, you would have been bang-on budget.
Yes. Well, yeah, yeah.
We would have been bang-on budget,
but it was a kind of necessity, really, to be honest with you.
A tweak to the type of gravel they used may have added extra cost
to the build, but Jake is still focused on one thing.
From someone who wasn't keen on having many plants
in the first place to then spending four grand on plants...
I knew there was a reason I hate plants!
It would be lovely just to sit out and use the garden,
as you say, as a family, and I think, overall,
I think it's money being well spent.
For Tracey and Jake,
this is the garden they've always dreamed of.
Tom's vision not only provides for their individual needs,
it's also the perfect place to come together as a family.
This space is finally a true extension to their home,
and a place for them to enjoy together for years to come.
Next time...
Who do you think thought that was a good idea?
A triangular yard is remodelled into a Mediterranean hideaway.
Oh, wow, that's so different.
And... We want privacy, we want a place to sit,
and for it all to be just totally gorgeous, really.
Let's go see what we've got.
A 20 grand private paradise...
This is my design for your garden.
Oh!
..is created.
Oh, look at this! I know.