It is all relative to the entire property, the house and the yard. Is this a part of the pedestrian circulation or a seating area? Are there utilities adjacent, is it in the front yard and viewed by neighbors, or part of your private space. Is it viewed from the dining/living rooms or just from the bedrooms. Will it be used by tricycles or just feet (no golf shoes please). In my experience, (don't you hate it when someone starts off a sentence in which he offers advice with that phrase), the mondo grass is too large for any pedestrian pavement. There are a large variety of more prostrate plants you can walk on at your garden center, I expect. Some can be walked on daily, and others less often. Some are evergreen, some have attractive flowers, some are into more gray or smoky colors than just green. You can mix them up, just as you do with groundcovers in your plant beds. Enjoy!

Hi Chris The cheapest option is Grind & Seal, but we usually recommend Mechanically Polished Concrete for inside of a home. This is by far a better option, if you were to go for a Matte or Satin finish it is less expensive than a higher gloss finish. Mechanically Polished Concrete does not have a top coat sealer requiring drying and curing time and does not need re-applying in the future which will save time and money in the long run. Because Polished Concrete does not require drying or curing time it can be used as soon as the process is completed unlike the Grind & Seal option. All floors are slippery when wet, a non slip agent can be added to a top coat sealer which would be the Grind & Seal method which we do apply in a shower area if there is not a shower base. Polished Concrete in Matte and Satin finish does have a very good slip rating, has no grout lines as with tiled floors where dust can get trapped therefore it is a wonderful easy to clean flooring solution. Hope this helps, I have provided some details regarding the 2 main processes below There are 2 different finishing processes / methods that are commonly called Polished Concrete, they are very different so it is important that you know the difference & which process/method you want and which is being used on your concrete Polished Concrete - 12 to 17+ step process During this process the concrete is ground to the desired level of stone exposure. After grinding the concrete surface, the Polished Concrete process begins. This process has a densifier applied in multiple stages that is absorbed into the concrete which hardens and strengthens the concrete. A Polished Concrete Floor is Polished in Multiple stages in a Refining Process using diamond tooling & resin pads. A penetrating sealer is applied in the final buffing stage to complete the process The "Polished Concrete" process has "NO TOP COAT SEALER" applied therefore there is no drying or curing time required so your space can be used as soon as the process is completed Grind & Seal (a 3 to 4 step process) This is NOT Polished Concrete. Grind & Seal is often referred to as Polished Concrete, this is the cheaper substitute that gives a "Polished Concrete Look" With the Grind & Seal method the concrete is ground to the desired level of stone exposure and a TOP Coat Sealer is applied such as water based, solvent based, urethane, acrylic or epoxy requiring 5-7 days to dry & cure

Thank you Siriuskey and Julie for the ideas above. They are lovely, however, I need to cover the manholes with the putting green as well. They need to be 'invisible' but still gain access to them to check water levels in the water tanks below ground. However, I still need to build around the manholes so that when laying crushed rock and crusher dust to build up the level, it needs to be clear of each of the manholes. I think I may need to resort to the builder. But thanks once again. Cheers

i use a laptop and couldn't manage without being able to edit all my misspelling... and Rose, we think of minimum ceiling height being 2.4m but you also need to allow for the thickness of the frame so first measure from the bottom of the upstairs windows to the ground to see how much space is available...the frame will need to be 15 -30cm thick depending on the length of each beam so there needs to be enough space for the frame, ceiling height and then maybe dig down for a level space and. as siruskey asked, why a deck when a gravel or pavers could be easier if you don't want the structure to obstruct the upstairs windows to allow for enough height