I don't know where to start - front garden

Hi all.

I am a gardening newbie - and I have decided to tackle our front garden first after moving into our house.
The problem I have is that I only have one day off a week, and I really want to start doing something with it asap.

At the moment, it is a square patch of grass, with what looks like very neglected flower beds all the way round. I think I can see a few daffodils popping up through the weeds!

I plan to strip the garden back to a blank canvas, to start again, and hopefully save any plants that may be there. There is a large long spindly plant, all on it's own, that had a single white flower and a few big leaves at the bottom in september - I have no idea what that is, so I may post a picture for ID when I can take one.

Ok - so once I have cleared the weeds, mown the grass and edged the flower beds into shape, what should I do with regards to soil and plants?!

It's a north facing garden, minimal direct sunlight, and from what I can see, without testing is that the soil is full of stones and it's more than likely clay type (I live near a village called Barton - Le - Clay)!

It is about 15 foot long by about 10 foot wide, and I have 2 x 120 litre compost bags in my back garden. Should I dig this into the soil? Will that be enough for a boarder of about a foot wide all the way round?

As you can see, I'm a bit new to all this! Any advice would be appreciated!

 

Hi OnTheHut, and welcome.
Sounds like you've pretty much got a good plan already. Yes, clear the weeds, mow the grass, get rid of everything that's dead, or that you don't like, and see what's left.

My next advice would be to get a few packets of seeds (veg or flowers), just cheap ones, sow in seed trays indoors (about now, or in the next few weeks), pot them on to larger pots when they start growing, then plant them all over the garden. This will give you some good colour/produce for this season with minimal work while you work out what you actaully want to do with it. I wouldn't bother with much composting or soil improvement at this stage, but just add a handful of compost in the hole before you plant your new seedlings. You can liquid feed them over the summer as they need it.
Different plants have different soil requirements so you'll know what you need to do with the soil once you know what permanent plants you want.
To help choose plants that are OK with little sun, and for other ideas, just look around your neighbours gardens. See what they're growing, and what looks healthy or not.