Paths, paving and the garden put back

Four months of deliveries, scaffold feet, a mixer and a skip will do more damage to a garden than a bad winter. On most jobs that damage becomes the homeowner's problem the day the builders leave, and the landscaper who eventually quotes for it has to price re-establishing access all over again.

Doing it as part of the same job is simply cheaper and faster. Levels around a new extension get worked out once. Surface water is dealt with while there is still a machine on site. The paving goes down after the scaffold comes off and before the new turf.

Falls, bases and edge restraint are the whole game in hard landscaping. Paving that has been laid on a proper base to a proper fall stays flat; paving that hasn't starts rocking in its second winter.