Advice sought on new borders - positioning / plants!

Hi everyone, I'm new here and we have recently moved into a house with a decent sized garden that I’ve made a good start on! I could do with a little advice on my front and rear garden - specifically the borders, what plants to use, where to put them and border positioning.

We live in Wilmslow, Cheshire if this helps for climate info and we have two boisterous toddlers who love to pick flowers and rip leaves from plants when we're not looking!

When we moved in the front & rear gardens were in an awful state covered entirely by weeds (see this link for photos of both gardens over the past 10 months since we moved in; https://plus.google.com/photos/1093...s/5732809095423170033?authkey=CKDr66aAptXImQE

The rear garden:

The grass I am happy with, due to the amount of weeds that were in the garden I think I did a half decent job in getting rid of most of them, I still have a few rogue dandelions that I am slowly getting rid of with weed killer and there is also patches of couch grass that I’m not too bothered about.

The garden faces north west and the now lawn area measures 10m wide x 7m long. The soil appears to be quite damp and on the left side near the seat and the grass appears to be thinning out (https://plus.google.com/photos/1093...3/5732810829380484210?authkey=CKDr66aAptXImQE). I'm not sure if this is due to the shadiness of this area or because of the soil always feels quite damp here.

I'm not sure what to do with the rear garden at all, I was possibly thinking of two rounded corner borders, whatever it is, it needs to be quite practical as we do regularly use the area and I don't want to restrict to much what the children can and can't do in the garden. The swing in the pictures is not fixed and the washing line is also moveable.

We also have 4 heavy railway sleepers spare that I was planning on getting rid of but I would be happy to utilize these somewhere, I was thinking about straight corner borders rather than rounded and using these but I'm not to sure how it would look.

The front garden:

The front garden gets quite a lot of sun and faces south east. I have decided to simply turf the large soil area and leave the hedge and round bush things (I know very little about gardening!). The bit I am struggling with is the border near the wall, it measures 400 x 65cm. I would like it relatively low maintenance but with plenty of colour (pink makes my partner happy!). This can be slightly more delicate than the rear garden as the children are only briefly whisked passed the front and in to the house. There is currently a climbing rose that has white flowers and some sort of green bush that takes over everything!

Budget wise for us is unfortunately fairly limited so the cheaper the better..

I know my post sounds fairly presumptuous for a new user that somebody is just going to come along and solve all my issues but I have done a fair bit of reading of other posts and I have just tried to cover most of the questions that seem to get asked as thoroughly as possible. Any help that I get would be greatly appreciated as I really am struggling with the planting side of things!

Thanks

 

Hello CT and welcome to GC

The grass on the seat side appears to be in shade quite a lot, partially due to the plants which overhang it. I've got the same with my north facing border. You could fill in any patches with lawn seed specifically for shady areas.

Alternatively if you build a raised border down that side with the railway sleepers and plant shade loving plants (plenty of Camellias and Rhododendrons come in pink!) then that would solve the problem in part. You may need to improve the drainage though depending on what the soil is like. If you put a border down both sides, you could grow stuff to eat in the more sunny one.

Whatever you plant though, you will need to double check that it's safe for children if they are likely to pull at it with little hands.

I am sure that some other more knowledgeable peeps will be along soon with more advice

 

reasonably unfussy plants: hardy geraniums (there are some in pink too. There are some threads on this in gardeners corner)
for your front garden border by the house, assuming its quite sunny and more on the dry side:
red valerian (may flowering), very unfussy, brings a second flower when deadheaded.
if you want sth showy but still quite straightforward: echinacea (summer flowering). then you need sth which has some autums colour, maybe a sedum? they can come in purple leaves too if you want or greyish leaves. Different heights to suit your taste.
Get some bulbs in autumn and plant them before the frost to have sth nice in very early spring: Crocus.. for a bit later:Tulips, chionodoxa..

General:
Grasses can be quite ornamental and easy maintenance too, just make sure you get sth hardy. Miscanthus sinensis varieties? Not sure about their shade tolerance though.

 

I admire all your hard work- garden before and after pics are awesome.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions

I like the idea of having a long vegetable patch on the sunny side, however managing vegetables sounds like it could be complicated!

I think i'm going to come up with some designs incorporating some of your suggestions and see what you think.

Thanks westwales, pic 7 in the background shows my ice bucket full of beer and the portable BBQ, it was a week of very hard work!

 

Would something like the above work for the front border?

T & C stand for tulip and crocus, have I put enough / too many of these?

The area is 4m in length, I would move the positioning around etc when I get the plants depending on heights/size etc, however, as a rough idea would this be over crowded or would I need more plants?

also, the existing spreading bush, would simple regular hacking away at it keep it from taking the whole area over or would it be best to get rid?

 

Can you explain the "weird spreading bush", it's difficult to see in the photo, does it have a trunk/trunks and branches or is it shoots coming straight out of the ground? It looks a bit like a periwinkle in the picture which is good if you can contain it but want the ground covered. Generally, if whatever the bush is, it's spreading through root suckers and coming up from the soil you'll have to dig it out if you don't like it but if by spreading you just mean the branches are getting longer/thicker and taking up more space you should be able to cut it back to the size you want. Key question is do you like it?