Slowly getting there

[Terpe]

Last year we used Bermudagrass but it didn't like the shady part of the garden.
When we moved house last may there was no lawn at all so we turfed it all and this time we used a special turf variety of what is called here 'Japanese grass'. It's been perfect so far all around the house.
Our climate here is different.
Prices too by the looks of it.
Much much cheaper here.

I've taken an interest in growing a banana plant. There's a dwarf variety here I could grow in a big pot. Looks interesting.

[fred]

Lesson for today.
Never compare prices to those back home.

Had the garden landscaped as you know, but the chap I used took me to his preferred supplier of plants ( take that as he probably got a cut of the cost) and then charged me php 6000 labour to put all the plants in.
Today I pop along to a local garden centre to enquire about Bermuda grass and the nice man there says he'll follow me back to have a look. 250 sq/m of turf, old lawn removed and new grass laid which will take 2 men 6 days for a total of 22,000php.
He then said that any additional plants that I wanted, if bought from him (at a cheaper price than the original place) would be planted free of charge.
He will also maintain the garden for 500php a month as opposed to the 1500php which me original gardener was charging.
Ok, I learned my lesson but rather now than later and 1000's more.

What we do Simon is buy it as its sold (Bermuda) by the square foot..P 10.00.. We cut it into 9 pieces and plant it about 6 inches apart and watch it grow together...If your not going to be around for a while,you wont even have to sit there and watch it grow!!
I was watching them do large areas in Manila once//They rip the squares up into a bucket of water into sprigs and plant it like rice,,In 6 months it looks great..
Freds Monday money saving tip.

[SimonH]

Cheers Fred,

We're being charged 60 a sq/m which sounds reasonable to me.
Shey's father has a birthday just before we go back and I said we could hold the party here otherwise I'd follow your advise. I'll take some before and after pics and post them up later.

[SimonH]

Thanks Terpe

We should be ok I think, as the garden has the sun most of the day. But something I wouldn't have thought of if you hadn't mentioned it