Major help & advice for a extreme novice - if you could?

Hi everyone!

I am new to gardening & have just moved in my first house (with a garden)

I'm a little bit stuck & could really do with some practical advice, but dont have any family or friends who can help me, but I dream of a lovely garden!

I'll start you off, if you dont mind, so you get the jist! Firstly i'd like to show you some pictures! We moved in to our house a couple of months ago & before us the house had been empty for 6 months & the garden had not been tended to for years. Alot of years! Below are some pictures of just how overgrown, shown very well in the pictures of the hedges! The one picture shows just how big a job we have to do, due to the size of the garden...







You can see how much work there is, but we are just going to concentrate on one area first, quite near the house...

Here is a proper before picture, taken just as we moved in



Now i've edged it in (a bit) i'm a bit scared to do anything else until I know what I can create here. It is 9 metres long (approx) 1 metre deep at the one end & approx 4 metres deep at the other end.



The main problem is, is that this is a rented house. We are long term renting it for around 2 years or more, so I do want to create something here & our eventual plan is to buy this house, so we dont mind spending our own time, or money (just not too much) on creating something, especially in this part, as it is the only main flowerbed in the garden & its right near the patio.

There are some plants here already, see pictures because I dont know what they are! There is a flowering tree of some kind, a purple buddleia that is spreading! 2 rose bushes, 1 pink, 1 red, some grasses? that flower cream... but I think thats about it! I planted some petunias my neighbour gave me just to add some colour & believe it or not, I did trim back the buddleia in april! But now i'm really stuck, I dont know what plants I have or what to put in around them to create a real bed. Plus there is a big gap at the end! HELP!















Thanks for looking! Any advice is appreciated! Rach x

 

Good evening Rach and welcome to the site. That bed isn`t too big a problem and easy to sort out. What I would do is keep the Buddleia, roses and the grassy things ( they are actually plants called Sisyrinchium ) and your Petunias of course, Then dig over the bed removing the weeds.:gnthb:

 

Oh ok thanks. What about the space under the tree thing? Any suggestions of what I could fill in that gap with?

 

Where, in that bed, is the floweing tree thingy?:hehe:

 

Hi all. I hope I am not jumping in where I should not, but I have a Albizia (green variety) which looks as though it is struggling, and I would like if possible to take cuttings from it just in case it is on its way to the garden in the sky. Does anybody know anything about this please.

 

Lizyann, post a pic so as we can find the problem with the tree first. We may be able to save it.:gnthb: