First garden and looking for advice

Hi everyone,

I just bought my first house. I'm completely new to gardening and still trying to figure out what to do with my garden, and I'm hoping the members here in this forum can give me some advice.

I've attached a picture of my garden. Besides needing a bit of mowing in the center (I've already got a manual mower on the way), I'm trying to work on a design.

As you can see in the picture, it's a fairly small garden with two round brick borders in the center, making something of an 8 shape. Outside the borders is mostly gravel, with some smallish round borders.

It feels like an odd design to me and I'm not sure what the previous owner was trying to do. Maybe someone can shed some light?

I like lush gardens so my original idea was to keep the lawn in the middle, but replace the gravel with soil and plant everywhere outside the "8" with lots of flowers. But I've been reading about gravel gardens and Beth Chatto's so maybe I can achieve the same without even replacing the gravel?

Any good ideas or suggestions?

Thanks.

 

to GC @amatos

Lovely to have you join us and ... CongratUlations on your new (first) home So exciting, isn't it!?

I can see why you may think it is an odd design, but, from my reading/experience, the design is quite a good one for a "small" garden: the idea being that you don't see all of the garden at any one time and the figure of 8 elongates the "eye" and tricks it into thinking it is longer than it actually is. Once in full bloom/growth the idea is that your eye is lead up the garden through the narrowed part of the figure of 8 and opens up again to "reveal" another open area. Does that make sense? I know it does in *my* head

My very first thought is: new home, new garden; WAIT!

The standard advice for anyone who moves into a new home is to wait one year to see what pops up in the current garden before you begin pulling up/weeding out/replacing. That means a) you get a good idea of what will grow there; b) you could save a few bob and c) what's your hurry when this is your home for the long run? (What? No interior decorating to be done?)

You have some established (yet undefined) shrubs and trees already planted - these are your garden backbones. It would be wise to know what they might be

My gut feeling is: whoever had this garden before your arrival had a little bit of an inkling as to what they were doing (from a design perspective), so, back to the idea of waiting one year.

There may be a very good reason why they chose the gravel option: I can't know that one way or another. But, here are some thoughts for you:
- where are you situated? (County is fine, not your actual address)
- what type of soil do you have?
- what do *you* mean by "lush"? Evergreens? Tropical?
- which direction does your garden "face"?
- do you wish to grow your own plants from seed? From shop bought young plants? From the grand investment of mature plants? E.G. what level is your budget?
- have you considered whether you would like an easy-care garden, or an intensive garden experience? Or, somewhere in between?
- do you want an "instant" garden, or one which you can patiently nurture then stand back and think: "I did that!"
- do you wish to incorporate edibles? Or, avoid them like the plague?
- you have a lovely patio area - do you think you would enjoy container gardening?
- which colours call to you and which colours would repel you?
- do you wish to have a wildlife friendly garden?
- do think (hard!) about how much time you could actually *give* to your garden (daily/weekly/monthly/annually)

I know I have thrown the book at you (so to speak) but, it really does help you (and us) if you have a clear idea on, not just the space you have, but the time and budget you have available to you to achieve the overall look/feel you wish to achieve. And it is equally ok to have no clear idea of what you wish your garden to look like in one year/five year/ten years time because ideas, expectations and needs are very fluid.

I suppose I'm saying: no ideas/suggestions *prior* to you deciding your time/budget/wish list scale

We will help you every step of the way.

 

there is some good advice from m there. i can see what the previous owner was trying to do with the figure of 8 lawn and curved patio but it looks a bit wonkey in places but not bad. planters are allways a good way to introduce plants and colour. keeping the gravel will help keep it low maintenance

 

Hi and congrats on your new home,
have fun with your project

 

I wonder what those trees are?

 

Hi Amatos



Congratulations on the new home and new garden.

Your garden looks lovely even in this wintery spell and it will be interesting to see what materialises over the months.

Like you, I was new to gardening... and went about things far too quickly.. so I agree with @"M" I now wish I had waited the year, I dug up that many bulbs... (I did keep them and dry them out and have now replanted, even though I don't know what they are... so another year wait)

Once you have established what is growing where, you can plan around what else to do.... I should listen to my own advice

I will look forward to watching your project grow

 

Thanks everyone for the kind advice. I will take it slow. M, here's some answers for the questions you've asked:

- where are you situated? (County is fine, not your actual address): Essex.
- what type of soil do you have? I'm not sure, actually.(I'm really new ) Any good pointers on how to check?
- what do *you* mean by "lush"? Evergreens? Tropical? Something like the picture attached (along those lines anyway, but not so heavy on trees).
- which direction does your garden "face"? West
- do you wish to grow your own plants from seed? From shop bought young plants? From the grand investment of mature plants? E.G. what level is your budget? I was thinking of seed and bulbs.
- have you considered whether you would like an easy-care garden, or an intensive garden experience? Or, somewhere in between? Something in between.
- do you want an "instant" garden, or one which you can patiently nurture then stand back and think: "I did that!" Patiently nurture, definitely. It can take time.
- do you wish to incorporate edibles? Or, avoid them like the plague? I don't need to incorporate edibles.
- you have a lovely patio area - do you think you would enjoy container gardening? Possibly.
- which colours call to you and which colours would repel you? Nothing in particular.
- do you wish to have a wildlife friendly garden? Yes.
- do think (hard!) about how much time you could actually *give* to your garden (daily/weekly/monthly/annually) I was thinking 2 hours per week (would that be realistic?)

 

The one in the further right hand corner is bamboo. The one closest to the patio I'm not sure.

 

Thats a nice garden in the making. If it was mine I`d fit some trellis panels onto the fences allowing flowers to be grown up them to give loads of colours to look at.

I`d loose the picket fence and gravel creating flower beds instead. I would have to have a palm or two in there too.

At the bottom fence I would plant (carefully) tall bamboos to screen the open view over the carpark.

A fence panel repaint might be a good move ? Im slightly colour blind so might well be wrong there

Enjoy it

 

Where abouts in essex are you? Im from eesex too

 

I agree that M has given an excellent appraisal. The previous owner had an eye for design and hopefully planting too. Wait a year before you make any changes. You have a lot to look forward to with spring fast approaching. I think I would make written notes as to what appears when and that help you decide what to change (or not). It looks like a nice garden in the early stages.......Patience is what is required here I think.

 

You've got a decent garden there for a first home!

I moved into my first house in summer and the forum has been so helpful! "M"'s advice is good, but my garden is in the front (it's rare to even have a garden in my type of house in my area - all terraces) so I felt I had to get stuck in straight away!

When planting I found loads of bulbs and they are all coming up now. They are growing much better than the bulbs I put in myself!