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Whether it's a patio or a pathway, there comes a moment in every garden where paving needs replacing. There's one area in our garden that badly needs an upgrade and I have a plan to transform it. So here it is, the pond. The ducks love it but it's a bit tired and a bit tumble down and could be so much nicer a feature in the garden, so much more effective than it is. So if you think your paving needs replacing, these are the kinds of things you should be looking for. Check how stable it is. I mean these paving slabs here, I'll end up in the water if I stand on the edge of that one and I may well hit a duck. Not very nice is it? And there's one thing I absolutely loathe about garden ponds and that's when you can see the edge of the liner. The paving needs to overlap it so that the water appears to disappear underneath it. It can still be stable but then you don't see that nasty bit of plastic. The other thing about these small squares of paving here is that they really don't suit a cottage garden. They don't tie in with everything else. So I have an idea that will. I've chosen a stone which will be safe, it'll be picturesque, it'll set off the rest of the garden and it'll fit in beautifully. So what I've settled on is this, sandstone paving. It comes in various sizes, it's got a great surface on it which not only matches the existing terrace behind the cottage but also it's pretty non-slip. It'll need pressure washing every now and again to get rid of green algae particularly in winter. But this is a lovely even and yet safe surface so that's one strong point. The other is the kind of uniformity it gives to a cottage garden which doesn't always have to look higgledy-piggledy and this way and that. This will give it a kind of classy cottage garden feel. So that's what we've gone for. We now need to lay it properly and if you're never quite sure of how to lay paving, do what I'm going to do, get a man in. Taking on the job of transforming the pond paving are garden designer and landscaper Matt and landscaper Harry and their first challenge is to figure out the best way to fit the new larger pavers. So one of the issues with this pond and the paving that goes around it is that it curves and it's quite a tight curve as well so we're very restricted on what paving that we can actually use. So it looks like we're going to have to use one size to get us around the curve and that's the biggest paving that they do which is 900 by 600 and then we're probably going to have to double cut every single one of them so that it goes around the corner and then cut the sides in to create the curve. So what we've done is we've laid them over the top of each other because we want an even amount of paving to cut so every paving will be cut twice and they'll be the same size to get us around the corner. Once each pave is measured and marked up it can be cut. We've marked up the first cut so we need to put that cut in first and then afterwards we'll mark the second cut and then we'll do that cut. Right so on to the next stage, out with the old. As you can see the existing paving is very small and they've used these little cuts to get around the corners which doesn't look particularly good so the larger format paving that Alan's chosen is going to be a lot less busy and more in keeping I think. So what we're going to do is remove all the existing, we're going to dig down and put some proper membrane and hard core in and that will give a good old solid surface for the paving to be laid on. Bigger pavers mean wider groundworks are needed so Matt marks out the new perimeter and the base for the new paving can be dug out. Right so what Alan's decided is that we have paving through here and then we'll have a lovely little gravel section through here, a little bit more natural and then back on to another section of paving. Just breaks the idea up and there'll be a nice little walk through with a bit of gravel here, it'll feel quite nice. The next stage is to add the layer of membrane. So we apply this membrane under the MOT or sub base and the reason we do this if we don't use this then the soil can actually mix with the sub base and it makes a real soft less compact layer to lay your paving on. Now this is normally used for weed suppressants but in this case it's used for a completely different reason. Next a thick layer of aggregates added and then compacted down ready for the mortar. Right okay so all of this has been compacted down now, four inches compacted and now we have laid our mortar base. We've had to raise this liner up a little bit here as you can see. We put some mortar underneath because it's actually leaking just in the centre here because it wasn't level through. So that's all fixed so it's now time to lay some paving. So Harry's now slurrying the backs of the pavings. This is basically a cement based slurry that creates adhesion so we always make sure that they're slurried before we lay. All right first one down. So far so good. Every paver is slotting in perfectly but it's not all been plain sailing. The paving down in this section. So we've had to take into account that this pond has been leaking out into the lawn area so we've had to actually raise the liner up to suit. The knock-on effect of that is that we've now got a lawn that's lower so we're going to have to blind that all in with soil and then we'll either turf it or we'll seed it off. So it's been a little bit tricky but we're getting there now. We've had to double cut every slab to make it come around the corner. Now you can see all these jagged edges around the outside so we now need to curve these edges in and cut them in really nicely. These last cuts will give our new paving a crisp seamless edge and the boy's work is nearly done. And after that final thing is jointing and then we're going to put the gravel down in between the two paving areas and hopefully by that point it should be looking really good. So there we have it. The guys have done a fab job. They've taken that wonderful sandstone paving in rectangles, sawn it to fit a job within itself, having got the slabs in, mortared and set, they then rolled back the turf, built up the level so they could then bring the turf back to fit flush with the paving rather than making a step which would have looked ugly and been difficult to maintain. It's now all of a piece. I think it's absolutely superb and the ducks one day will use the little slope that we've made them. At the moment they're steadfastly refusing to go down that ramp and instead of just hopping straight in and out of the water and as if on cue, there's a ramp here for you to walk down. Wildlife, so ungrateful. Before, if you remember, it was a collection of higgledy-piggledy paving slabs. They didn't look good and they were positively dangerous. Look at it now. Sleek, beautiful, safe and setting off the rest of the garden. Around the corner here we've gone for washed pea shingle. You can use too many surfaces in a garden if you're not careful but sometimes it's nice to have variety and this is very much an informal planting here so the gravel flows underneath the plants and then we hit another section of paving when we get up to the formal steps. Both these materials, it seems to me, are really in keeping with a garden. A cottage garden doesn't have to mean that it's scrappy and not very good and very piecemeal. No, you can still have good looking materials for paving in a cottage garden but make them sympathetic to the plants around them. The next pasta project is to tackle that area there above the pool and see if we can make something of that which keeps its degree of intrinsic charm but just makes it that much more attractive and sorted. There's nothing I love more than sharing my passion for gardening with you so why not subscribe? I'm posting new videos every week.