‘Our garden is our holiday space’ – how this area was turned into a tropical paradise on a budget

Garden transformations can be seen as something which are only possible given a large budget, but with a bit of creativity this doesn't have to be the case.

These homeowners renovated their outdoor area, bringing their tropical garden ideas to life, by using DIY and taking their time.

Back in 2020 Vicky Collis, aka @our_little_doer_upper began her house renovation, but she was also keen to hit the ground running to bring her creativity to her garden. Speaking with Gardeners Dream, Vicky explained how she turned her unloved space into a tropical paradise.

The inspiration

'Me and my husband both spent a lot of time in Australia and New Zealand and loved the tropical vibes, so we wanted to create a tropical paradise in our own garden,' said Vicki.

'As well as this, we also love watching home and garden TV programmes, reading magazines, and looking at home and interior social media accounts for inspiration, so we coupled this with our own creative flair to create a space we love.'

The plan

After mapping out exactly what they wanted to achieve with their space, Vicki and her husband then started to turn their ideas into a reality.

Before

Before they got started, the garden was comprised of concrete slabs and paths, patchyb lawn, wooden fencing and a wooden shed.

After

After they were done it was nearly unrecognisable, but it took some time to get there.

'Starting our garden project in lockdown 2020, we first decided to tidy up our garden shed and change it into a bar so we had ‘somewhere different to go’,' said Vicki.

'This then escalated to building a decking area to make the most of the sunshine, adding in seating areas and a dining table.'

'We then didn’t touch the rest of the garden for a good year so we could see where the sunny areas were during all seasons so we could take this into consideration within our plans.'

The entertaining area

'In 2021 we then built a second decking area at the bottom of the garden,' said Vicki.

Before

'This was where our hot tub originally sat on a patio, but we wanted to make this into more of a feature so we designed a sunken hot tub area, outdoor dining and cinema area with a tropical border.'

After

'We allocated most of our budget to our hot tub area, as we had done a few larger projects in the house by this time and our holiday was cancelled due to Covid so we put the spending towards this instead!'

Keeping costs down

Being such a large process, it was always going to be tricky to keep things within budget, but Vicki made sure to research prices, work out what they could do themselves.

'During the planning process, there was a lot of negotiation involved during lockdown, but budget was always our focus as we wanted luxury on a budget,' she explains. 'When building the tropical border, using offcuts of wood helped keep the cost down as buying wooden borders can be very costly. We also sourced our decking from a local company and shopped around to get the best deals.'

'We also did all of the work ourselves, which saved us a fortune in labour costs, researching the best ways to do things on YouTube and other social media apps to guide us through the whole process.'

Another thing we did was, when we were doing up our shed, we used frenchic paint as it’s durable and hard-wearing. It’s been on now for four years and we haven’t had to repaint yet, so it definitely worked out in the long run.'

Making compromises

In every project, there are some compromises to be made, so it's a real skill to work out exactly what you can live without and what you simply don't want to give up.

'One of the challenges we faced was getting everything we exactly wanted,' Vicki admits. 'We really wanted more Musas and palms plants for our tropical border but we had to compromise with more ferns as they work better in shady areas.'

'Because we have undergone this huge project, we don’t have the budget for a holiday, so our garden is our holiday space! With all our projects we love seeing our designs come to life and knowing we created it is what makes it really special.'

Vicki's advice

Now that their garden is complete, Vicki is keen to share what she's learned along the way with others looking to reasnform their outdoor spaces.

'Spend some time in your garden first, at least a year,' she says. 'See where the sun hits at different times of the year and build your garden around this. Renovating your garden can be costly, especially nowadays with prices continuing to increase, but my advice would be to shop around and save more than you preempt to cover yourself if any additional costs arise.'

Get the look