As above, I'm rendering a garden wall this weekend! 
I'm quite adept at plastering however I have never worked on exterior walls.
Area coverage is approx. 3m sq. On to bare brick (about 100ys old). I've already patched holes etc with a ready mix (just add water) mortar.
What sort of mix, sand & cement will I need? Should I add lime? What coverage will I get with a standard bag of cement? How many bags do I need?...so many questions!
Any hints/tips would be greatly appreciated! 
I did our front garden wall about 12 years ago, I used a pretty standard mortar mix, 3-4 parts sand to 1 cement, water to make up a suitable mix.
I'm no professional but it's still on now.
The wall 3 doors down was done by a professional about a year later, with a mesh to help it hold. The mesh is still there... 
you can just about see the wall bottom left corner of this picture, the bit painted white:
it starts at the bottom of the steps at about 4ft high and the road has a gradual downhill slope so that at the end of our property the wall is about 7ft high
btw that's not a vulture on the chimney
If you go in Sainsburys, do you become Jackson Colin?
cheers JD, your work certainly seems to stand up to the elements!
Elfinsafety, sorry that has gone right over my head!
that's an extreme picture, taken 24/12/2009 - that's probably the first snow we'd had in 7-8 years. We got plenty more after that though. And we're only 10 miles from Leeds
Have a quick search on http://www.diynot.com
Loads on the subjects there. Use SBR as a bonding agent though, not PVA. It is more expensive, but far far better and more suited to outside work.
As it's your first time, allow for twice as long as you estimate, try not to rush it or work the mix too much when it's on the wall. Also, don't worry about getting it perfectly flat right away. Let it harden slightly, them scrape it back using either a darby or a 2 x 2 with square edges, not rounded.
Your arms and shoulders will ache and burn!
Cheers funkymonkey. Is a bonding agent essential? The bricks are quite rough so there is plenty of 'key' and have been treated (albeit 12 months ago).
Your arms and shoulders will ache and burn!
Not essential no, but I always do and it doesn't fall off!
What was it treated with? Don't saw thomsons water seal or something similar. If it is, you'll need to scutch the wall first to get a key. Pretty much nothing will stick to that stuff properly
FWIW I didn't use any bonding agent - didn't know about it at the time - but I did use a plasticiser towards the end of the project.
Having said that, the wall was made of rough concrete blocks so probably didn't need any
bugger, looks like I'm scutching the wall first then! 
Sat and Sun gone!
Knocked old rendering off 1yr ago (I wanted bare brick work, just a bit of pointing I thought). Bricks not in best shape so treated them with water seal to try and stop them deteriorating further, until I got round to re rendering the wall. Just got round to it now!
oh well you live and learn! thanks for the advice
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