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A modern bramble/blackberry is Natures' barbed wire
and,
gives a much more useful crop. -
A rotavator and water filled roller from your local hire centre will do the job in a couple of hours. Rotavate to a fine tilth, rake and roll flat, repeating until you have a firm flat surface. Turf it over using standard turf, fine turf is more expensive than standard and is only an advantage if you want to pay bowls. Expect to pay about £5 per metre roll, I pay £3 trade. You can walk on it immediately in flat shoes, it actually helps to flatten it down. BUT, you absolutely must keep it damp for at least a month to allow it to root into the soil. If it dries out it it will shrink, curl up, go brown and be generally permanently fucked.
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I also recommend berberis, it is quite decorative, particularly in the red form. It is also an absolute cunt. Have fun pruning it!
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What's the aspect? A shrub higher than the wall will take up a lot of space and light, you could try a climbing rose:
https://www.britishroses.co.uk/acatalog/dense_thorny_rose_barriers.html
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Eventually I'd like something high and reasonably impenetrable growing along there. Any suggestions?
Why not attach anti-climb spikes on the top and garden side of the wall and grow something worthwhile and pleasing at the base. To get something spikey to grow to the top of the wall would mean a wait of years and it will grow outwards too, reducing the width of your passage, ooh matron etc.
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Any thoughts on what to do with this
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So good to see someone else replacing their astro turf, I think that stuff should be against the law. We've removed so much of nature from our world, do we really need plastic gardens?
Looks like you're borders are in good shape, I have done a similar project as you are eyeing up, its still looking pretty bleak in my pics but I am happy with it.
For the grass - I had to dig down a foot and a halfish and turn the soil over, let it breathe for a bit but not so long weeds start to grow (I think I left it 2 weeks). Then I put down about 6 bags of fresh topsoil (so much more "alive") and then some fertiliser pellet things. Raked it al out. Stamped it in. Raked it again. Stamped it in. I bought a bunch of turf from my local and from it arriving to me finishing laying it can only have been a couple of hours, it was super quick and easy. Water it everyday, job done. Haven't killed it yet. If you increase the size of your borders in certain bits you could break the garden up a bit and make it less linear, not sure about climbers but we are looking into them too, we also bought small apple tree. -
The other classic is pyracantha
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@aggi
Any thoughts on what to do with this?
It's pretty small, 4m x 4m maybe.
Would like grass (preferably real). How long do you have to stay off after laying new turf? Assume I'd have to do a fair bit of digging to break up that soil for turf.
It's an end of terrace so the brick wall faces out onto the street. Eventually I'd like something high and reasonably impenetrable growing along there. Any suggestions?
The side "corridor" is about 6' x 20'. Any ideas what to do there? (Although there is a reasonable chance that a bike shed will be going there)
Cheers