Garden overhaul - starting from scratch

[Hurrikeen]

Evening all,

Newbie to the forum here, so my first post....

Moved into our house around 18 months ago but with internal work taking priority, we just haven't had the time to get started on the garden. It's now gotten to the point where I'm itching to do something about it, however in its current state...its a bit of a mess.

Rather than pay someone to basically rip it up so I have a blank canvas to start on, I am prepared to do this myself, though I appreciate it will not be an easy, nor fast, job.

Left side of garden:

To start with, the grassy area on the left hand side of the picture - from front to back, more so the back - is very damp. When the rain is heavy and persistent over a couple of days, there is quite a bit of standing water and the grass becomes extremely soft underfoot. We've even had outbreaks of frogspawn!

We then have the path which you can see running down the middle, splitting both sides of the garden:

Finally, we come to the right hand side:

The rockery/rubble you can see (along with some weeds that have grown since being dumped there) was formerly a rectangular-shaped wall, which I believe may have once been a pond. The raised beds that go around the front, right side and back of this rockery is riddled with weeds that look very similar to horsetail (and I believe they have a rather pesky & feisty reputation).....

To put it simply, all I want to do is rip up all the grass, the concrete and the raised flower beds, remove all the weeds, and basically have a blank canvas to:

1. Install some astro-turf down the left hand side - about half way down.
2. The bottom left half to the be filled with small stones / pebbles, with room for a shed in the corner.
3. Add decking from centre to right hand side up to fence, so I need to ensure the ground is strong enough to be able to construct a base before fitting the decking.

I am really hoping someone can give me some ideas, and offer some help, on the easiest way to reach "blank canvas" stage, bearing in mind how damp the left hand side of the garden is, and how much horsetail has infested the right hand side.

Thanks in advance!

[Hurrikeen]

Nobody?

[ButterflyLady29]

Is the wet area higher or lower than the rest of the area? If it's lower then it will always be wet unless you can find a way to drain it or you raise the soil level.
Are you going to remove the lower walled area? If so, the following regrading will give you an entirely new yard.
Decking shouldn't be a problem if it's set on piers. I've seen decking set up on ocean property, bogs, and lake fronts. I'm not sure how it's done but the ones I've been on were very stable despite the water underneath. Maybe you'll have to look into something like pond deck structures.

If you want to set the shed on a stone base make sure you use the proper type of stone base. Some stone/gravel bases are meant to be built on, others just won't work. Pea gravel for example will never be stable.