Landscaping in Ball Hill

Ball Hill is roughly 1.1 miles east of Coventry city centre. That is close enough that a survey can normally be arranged within a few days, and close enough that coming back afterwards is never a problem.

Ball Hill sits next to Lower Stoke (about 0.7 miles away), Stoke Heath (about 0.7 miles away), Hillfields (about 0.7 miles away) and Stoke Aldermoor (about 1 mile away). We work across the whole of that cluster, which is part of why we can usually get to a survey quickly — we are often already nearby.

It depends on the garden and who uses it. It works well in small, shaded or heavily used gardens where real grass will not establish, and for anyone who wants a usable surface year-round with no mowing. The honest drawbacks: it gets hot in direct summer sun, it needs a proper permeable base and weed membrane or it will sink and sprout at the edges, it still needs brushing and the occasional rinse, and it supports no wildlife. It is a surface, not a lawn.

The base. A patio is only as good as what is under it: excavation to a sensible depth, a compacted sub-base of the right material and thickness, and a full mortar bed rather than five dabs under each slab. Patios sink because the sub-base was too thin or not compacted, or because slabs were spot-bedded, leaving voids that fill with water and fail in frost. None of that is visible once the slabs are down, which is exactly why it gets skimped.

In England you need permission to lay more than five square metres of hard surfacing between the front of the house and a highway, unless the surface is porous or the water is directed to a permeable area within the property. Permeable block paving, resin-bound and gravel all satisfy this; impermeable concrete or tarmac draining straight to the road does not. It is a rule about where the water goes rather than about the material itself.

If it is present, that changes things. It is not something to dig out or put in a skip — it spreads from tiny fragments and is classed as controlled waste, so cutting or moving it incorrectly makes the problem larger and can create a legal liability. It needs identifying properly and a specialist treatment or removal plan. We will tell you if we think we are looking at it rather than clearing around it.

Concrete posts with gravel boards last far longer, because the part that rots on a timber fence is always the post at ground level where it meets wet soil. Panels can then be swapped without digging anything out. Timber posts look better, particularly with close-board fencing, and are the right choice where appearance matters — but expect to deal with the posts eventually, even pressure-treated ones.