Man quoted £7,000 for garden makeover gets surprise of life from kind stranger

A garden transformation has gone viral on TikTok (stock photo) (Image: Getty)

One man got the surprise of his life after being quoted £7,000 for a new garden.

We've all got home improvement projects we'd love to get done. Whether you need a new kitchen or your bathroom could do with a refit, almost every homeowner has at least one costly DIY job they don't have the funds to cover.

For one man, his dream was to have his bland garden completely revitalised and turned into a cosy haven where he could comfortably spend the long summer nights. But when he contacted a landscaping company, he was quoted a staggering £7,000 to get the job done.

Unable to pay the huge figure, the man, named Michael, believed he would never get the garden of his dreams until a kind stranger stepped up to completely change his life.

Mark Marshall went viral after sharing a video of himself travelling 200 miles and arriving at Michael's house on TikTok to deliver some amazing news - he would be landscaping his garden for free.

Mark is a former landscaper who gave up his paid work to start a social media career in which he landscapes people's gardens for free and posts the transformations online. On this occasion, Michael was the lucky winner of the free makeover.

After greeting the excited man at his front door, Mark filmed the garden in its original state, showing a long rectangle of space that was completely empty. Half of the garden was grass, while the half closest to the house was lined with wooden decking.

Mark explained his first step would be to rip out all of the decking. He said: "I was hoping and praying to God that there was a patio beneath it."

The landscaper later shared a second video, which showed his team laying the patio, filling the two edges with an array of plants and laying strip lighting around the edge of the patio.

The decking was still in good condition after it had been pulled up, and Mark said he did try to give it away so that it could be reused, but he eventually had to take it to the tip as no one wanted it.

It was then that Mark and his team realised there was, unfortunately, no patio underneath the decking, so they had "a lot of digging to do" to put one in themselves.

Mark's original video ended before the transformation was finished, but the groundwork had been laid. Plans were to keep the grass half of the garden intact and put down a patio level that connects to the house. Two squares had been laid out for plant edging around the patio to seamlessly blend the grass and the patio together.

Mark also transformed the patio into a cosy hangout space by adding outdoor furniture, including a sofa, two chairs, and a table with a firepit in the middle to help keep warm on chilly nights.

The comments on all of Mark's videos were inundated with other people asking if they could be the next lucky winner of a free garden transformation. Many of them said they were in desperate need of makeovers to make their outside space more accessible and safe for children with disabilities.

In his first video, Mark explained how other people can be eligible for a free garden makeover. They first have to follow his account and then share the video with as "many friends as possible" before leaving a comment saying they'd like a free garden.