Starting from the beginning

Hello

This is my first time using a forum and my first time serious gardening as I've never had the space or my own proper garden, however I have grown a bit of fruit, veg and various flowers successfully before but with no real planning or preparation so you can imagine my excitement of having an actual garden to call my own and a fresh start to the year.

The first thing we have decided to do is sort the front garden and tidy it up so we can hopefully leave it alone and focus on the back. So this morning I've been weeding the strips by the side of the path ready to plant something pretty. My dilemma now is what to plant? At the moment we have quite a few rose bushes spread out round the edges with lawn in the middle. Ideally I would like to keep the roses bushes as they are really pretty but they are really spacious with gaps in between which are pretty full of weeds (or were).
I'm after some ideas of things I can plant in the gaps to cover some of the soil area so that the front of the house looks nice with as little maintenance as possible.

So far I have some daffodils, a mix of wildlife friendly annuals, tiger flowers and harlequin flowers but none have been planted yet, are these the right sort of things for what I'm after and how and when should I go about planting them for maximum and instant effect? Is there anything that I could get to give me a beautiful border?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

Welcome to the forum, you picked one heck of a friendly forum for your first one........

Dahlias all kinds.

Veronicas Tall for boarders.

Liatris also boarder flowers, great for bees.

Hollyhocks Tall.

 

Thanks sounds like I saved my self for a good one!!

 

Yes,

I hav'nt been here long myself but visit everyday.

What you can do is what I did earlier today. I had bought a box of seed called 'shake n rake. you just shake out the seed, sit back.

The packs

http://www.wisethoughts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/scented-flowers.jpg

I chose the yellow garden.

Want to buy some
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/items/__s...word=shake+n+rake&geo_id=21&ff4=228459_228459

I did'nt think to look at Ebay, I got mine from a local store.

 

hello and welcome to the funny farm
they are a great bunch on here:D
just jump in and pop the kettle on

 

Hi and welcome.

I've read a few articles that suggest that lavender is the perfect complement to roses, and I've seen a few photos showing it in action and it looks good.

 

Lavender IS the perfect compliment to roses I used to have a large bush growing right next to my Danse de Feur rambler and they looked so pretty together :D

 

Ho di Ho
Welcome
I am new to gardening too, though I have lavendura between the roses, and they completment each other well, even this month when it is all twigs and greenery
I also learnt to propagate on here, and now have a full opposite border of Lavendura, or will be when I put them in next month, all ready about six inches high in the cold greenhouse

Enjoy your visit and post lots
The more questions, the more answers and the livelier the forum gets, nice and busy
Do not forget to visit and post in the non gardening forum where we have several Agony Uncles, they do not neccesarily help BUT they are AGONY :-)

Jack McHammocklashing

 

assuming you garden is kind of sunny -with having roses there:
if you choose seeds to sow annuals on the spot directly, they are cheaper but not everything grows or the slugs it the seedlings, I usually have very good succuess with mariagold/=calendula and poppy in that repect. they also give loads of seeds for the following year so you never have to buy seeds again:-)
The surer way is to plant perennials because they will definitely grow (if you plant them properly:-)
Decide first how tall you want them and whether you want different types for a varied look or and what flowering season.
My rule is to have always sth flowering in the garden all year round
if you only plant lavender, you have no flowering before june/july most likely or nothing after its finished.
For lavender there is an absolutely fantastic (online sale) nursery: snowshill lavender, in the cotswolds. They have lots of different sizes incl miniature lavender
also very easy to grow : yarrow/=Achillea -comes in all shades of yellow/reddish/terracotta and it flowers nicely on with deadheading
also very easy to grow: blue types of cranesbill /=geranium, they also respond well to deadheading
for spring interest you will best plant spring bulbs this comming autumn, tulips are my favourite
you also need sth lateflowering for autumn interest, but i am a bit at loss here what would fit to roses espaecially

 

You could have different varieties/colours of Lavandula which would give a lovely effect.

Bees love it too, and of course it's fragrant

 

Ornamental grasses look nice too. Have a look round your garden center to see what different ones they have.

 

Oh oh I forgot DIM's Heucheras, they look pretty good too as ground cover

Jack McH