A new garden

Hi guys.
Just joined the forum.
We have moved into a house with a garden. Our first in 23 years!
Its a wreck, so we have a blank canvass.
I dont know where to start!
The house is 6 years old and the soil has subsided,the lawns are a mess,so we are looking at pulling up the lawns, bringing in top soil and re starting.
Do you know any good sites with photos, ideas of layouts?
Ian

 

Hi Ian and a big welcome to Gardeners corner.

First you must decide what type of garden you want,low maintenance, dry garden, wet garden,shady garden, water features ,fruit and veg,secret gardens,garden rooms,lawns etc........The choice is endless.
Soil type to is important too.See what grows well in local gardens
Spend a little time looking around GC there are some nice ideas around.
Good luck....

 

Hi Ian and welcome.

Garden design is such a thing of personal preference that you can look at all the sites in the world and still not find what you really want - and that's assuming you know what you want ... 'cos we didn't!

Although you don't say how big your garden is, my humble suggestion would be to spend a bit of time planning. Work out which way the plot faces, so that you can see which bits get most sun and which bits less or none. Find out the pH of the soil you've inherited which will have a bearing on what you can grow easily. Do you want just grass? Flowers? Some veg? Any combination thereof? Trees and/or shrubs? Raised borders? High or low maintenance? Formal or informal? Pond or water feature? Play area? An area of 'hard standing' ie a deck, patio, etc? Greenhouse? Shed? Somewhere for dustbins/compost bins? When you've written your list the fun bit starts planning where each of these elements will go ... although of course, gardening being what it is, in 5 or 10 years' time you might still be changing your mind:hehe:

What we did was measured the garden and took photos - at ground level and from a bedroom window - printed them off and sketched in (or stuck on) pictures of what we liked and moved them around until we were happy.

On a practical level, I'd probably do what you've already decided ... start again with a nice flat surface of decent soil (when we bought an 8 year old house and were told the soil was 'rubbish', it turned out to be because 12" down there was just builders' rubble and a huge tarpaulin that they'd used to cover the ground and which, rather than take up had merely covered with a bit of 'dirt' - in no way could it have been classified as soil).

If you can't find a design you like on the web, look on Amazon for books which might then be available in your local library or failing that, charity shops often have them (our first garden owed more to Cyril Fletcher's 'Planning the Small Garden' than anything else!!).

Oh, and we love before and after piccies on here!!

 

Lots of good advice already.

I'd just add:

1 - don't be in a hurry to have the "perfect garden". It'll take years, your ideas will evolve and that's the fun of it.

2 - get the basics right by clearing away any builders' debris or other rubbish right at the start

3 - keep a gardening diary and/or a photographic record of all your work

4 - be prepared for some things to go wrong, we all make mistakes