For the last few weeks, I have been looking out into my garden and making mental plans on what needs sorting out now that Winter has officially finished and Spring is finally here (well calendar wise, it doesn’t feel like spring yet temperature wise).
My eye is constantly drawn to the sorry state of my once proud patio, (I say drawn, it is more like an unconscious desire not to look at the Jurassic state of the lawn and flower beds at the moment). The slabs now have a distinctive greenish hue and look decidedly furry in bright sunlight and provided the weather holds for the weekend, I have to tackle the undergrowth (so the other half keeps telling me!).
Braving a short excursion to the shed tells me I am going to need to buy some proper stone cleaning liquids. A little bit of research later and I have found the two products that suit my purposes exactly and they are both from the same company.
Firstly, to give the flagstones a proper deep clean, I use HG Hagesan Patio Cleaner. Simple to use, wet the patio first and get rid of any puddles, dilute 1 litre of cleaner with 4 litres of water in a bucket or large bowl and get scrubbing, I like to use a proper Deck Scrubber Brush or hard wearing stiff bristled handheld scrubbing brush. Once you have done that, go and have a cup of tea, just don’t allow the liquid to dry out. When you have had your libation of choice, just rinse off with water (a garden hose will make short work of the rinsing process).
Now, to tackle the green and furry growth that has infected my nice (now clean) flagstone slabs, I use HG Hagesan Algae and Mould Remover, this is potent stuff and definitely gets the job done, dilute at about 1:20 water (500ml or half the bottle is about a decent sized bucket full) and “water” the affected area with a watering can of the mixture. You do need to give this time to work, it is going to need at least 36 hours really so best to put this down on a Friday evening and come back to it on Sunday afternoon. After this time, you can just brush or hose away the dead moss and algae and you will be left with paving or patio slabs that look like they were just laid the previous day.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture to show you how the patio turned out because I forgot to take a before photo D’oh!
At least now the patio is done and I can then turn my attention to the jungle that is the lawn, that is another weekends work.