By Charnwood
Dublin,
Ireland 
Good morning, not really my usual gardening question but I would appreciate some advice if possible. My garden walls were a lovely white when rendered a few years ago. As you can see from the photo they are awful now, what can I do about them, is it a paint job? Thanks
6 Jun, 2015
Answers
If it was just rendered and not painted on top, then the weather elements will discolour the cement pretty quickly. You should paint it with a good masonary paint. These paints are designed to withstand the weather, they do the job pretty good and they will last for many years. I believe some of the well known brands give a 10 year guarantee.
6 Jun, 2015
I forgot to say, love the mirrors...
6 Jun, 2015
Thank you both Bamboo and Myron. A paint job it is, if I had known it would go like it did I would never have bothered, as it was very expensive, it had a lovely touch of glitter and all the green was lovely against it, as for the mirrors I have them everywhere.
Many thanks.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/123178002@N02/18338704230" title="image by Pat Dunne, on Flickr"><img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/396/18338704230_d26c443001_z.jpg" width="640" height="360" alt="image"></a>
6 Jun, 2015
Well if you paid a company to do this, can you not contact them and ask what you should do now? Seems a shame that you're now going to lose the glitter effect, maybe they know of a specialist paint you could use that would reproduce that... or maybe there's a wash they know about that would clean it up.
6 Jun, 2015
Good point, Bamboo, would pressure washing remove the muck?
6 Jun, 2015
MIRRORS! I thought they were windows.
7 Jun, 2015
Yes, I'm afraid you do have to paint them. There is a render system using colour, which means its actually in the render, but its expensive and not many contractors use the method. Even that gets stained on top anyway, so repainting seems necessary however its done.
6 Jun, 2015