Good Morning!

Hello all, what a fab website! I have been lurking for a couple of weeks and thought it about time I sign up and introduce myself. I live on the Bucks / Herts border and have been ignoring the garden for the past 6 years. I have two girls now 6 and 4 and worked on the principle that the more lawn the better but this year I've decided to give gardening a whirl and am eager to overhaul everything. I am an absolute beginner so any advice hugely appreciated. I shall see if I can get to grips with posting pictures and show you all around my 'garden' as it is at present. Cheers, Sam

 

SamB Welcome to GC

Pictures are always appreciated

Which type of gardening are you most interested in? Flowers? Fruit and veg? Shrubs? Trees? Are you going to get your girls interested and give them their own patch (great way for you to learn together!).

What size garden are you working with? Does it have anything about it which you absolutely dislike? How are you at DIY?

 

Thanks Mum.

I think my main goal at the moment is to get some flowers in to the garden, I've always liked cottage gardens so that is my plan for now. Once I've done that I would love to start growing some veg. Don't think I have room in my garden for that though but have good allotments in the village just a few minutes walk away so have my name down on the list for that. I could have one now but I think it would be too much work for me to take on at once.

Am definitely keen to get the kids involved. I bought them their own gardening gloves at the weekend and noticed my local garden centre has kiddy sized tools going half price so might pop there and get them some.

My garden isn't big it wraps around the house which leaves me with a shady corner at the side which I may turn in to more of a woodland themed area. Distance from house to back fence is about 24ft width maybe 40ft then the corner bit tagged on! We are overlooked since removing the conifers so climbers are high up my to do list.

I love doing DIY, am much happier using power tools than loading the washing machine! Not that I am very good but I am very happy to give things ago.

Hopefully my pictures will work :



Since taking these photos last month I have removed the Leylandii to stump level, painted all the fence (which has made an enormous difference!), started to dig the bed where the Leylandii were removed (NE facing) and added farm manure and lifted 2 rows of patio slabs as I am shifting the patio to outside the conservatory. I'm too scared to start planting yet as don't want to kill everything so am busying myself with the hard landscaping bits for now!

Sam

 

Good luck and welcome Sam.

 

Look forward to your work in progress

 

Beginning with the hard landscaping is probably extremely wise!

 

Welcome...

 

hiya Sam & welcome to the forum i was half expecting a wilderness when you said it was untouched for 6 years but you actually have a nice garden, nice & neat & tidy. its not unlike how ours looked before the gardening bug took a hold of me...it must be contagious though as i nearly have the rest of the family as bad as myself at this point

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

 

Thanks all for the welcome. So relieved you said that honeybunny as I was feeling quite ashamed of that state it's in! Have started a new thread in the garden projects bit to record the progress of my.... garden project!

 

Welcome to GC Sam. You're making a start at the right time of year, spring is a good time to get your garden going, weather permitting of course.

 

Hello and welcome Sam.

You might be surprised. There are veggies that look fine in the flower bed. Think of all the lovely colourful lettuces for example, or the less obvious stuff like Chard - Bright Lights (sometimes sold as Rainbow Chard). Runner beans have stunning flowers, strawberries, then there's edible flowers like nasturtium. Even 'conventional' veg that isn't known for being pretty can look ok in the flower bed if planted right. I grew onions in my flower beds last year. Just a few clumps of onions dotted here and there. It didn't look wrong, yet I didn't have to buy onions for several months. Its just about throwing the rule book out of the window. Veggies don't have to be grown in regimental uniform rows. They're plants after all.

 

Thanks, will definitely look into squeezing some veg in. Definitely fancy some runners to quickly cover the back fence to give some screening this summer. The kids will certainly be more interested if there's food involved at the end of it!