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The Build ASK THE EXPERTS
SALLY TAGG
Sally is a planning consultant
and director of Foxley
Tagg Planning Ltd (www.
foxleytaggplanning.co.uk)ROB DWIAR
Rob Dwiar is a landscape
designer and writer, RHS gold
medal winner and 2016 RHS
Young Designer finalist. On
Twitter: @RobDwiarDAVID O’MARA
David O’Mara is marketing
manager at Hörmann UK
(www.hormann.co.uk)OLIVER BARSOUM
Oliver is an architect and
director at Syte Architects
(www.sytearchitects.com).
He has been an architect
for 25 years.WANT ADVICE ON YOUR PROJECT?
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extending your home or tackling a DIY task, if you have a query
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dedicated Ask the Experts stand.Q
Our extension project at the back of the
house gets underway in a few weeks
and the builders will be using some of
the garden to store their materials. How can we
protect our lawn from getting damaged?
ALEX JEFFREYSROB DWIAR SAYS:
It pains me to be the bearer of bad
news, but this is mainly a damage
limitation job from the start: lawns
just don’t do well from being covered
or compressed for long periods. They
will inevitably be useful spaces to
store materials however, given they
offer a flat surface. Scaffolding boards
or pallets to put materials on or for
protecting against heavy footfall will
help you stave off damage in the short
run, and also prevent areas from
being carved or chopped up, but there
are no real hard and fast measures
to completely protect a lawn in such
conditions I’m afraid.
If you’re attached to your lawn
and want to spend a bit of money
protecting it, you can get interlocking
tile systems or even employ stripping
services that will peel off layers of
your lawn and roll it up for you to
store until after the work is finished.
Either way it would be another cost
and not a total fix: the rolls won’t
last forever and the lawn will still be
patchy after the interlocking tiles
are removed. However, this can all
be tempered by the fact that at least
it’s ‘just’ the lawn. Turf does a pretty
decent job of trying to come back
after trauma or drought, and it won’t
be too expensive or labour intensive to
either resuscitate it, or even re-lay it
with new turf if it gets totally ruined.
Whatever you do, hope for the best
but definitely prepare for the worst.HOW CAN I PROTECT MY LAWN
THROUGHOUT BUILDING WORK?