Newbie to gardening

Hi

I wasn't too sure where to post this, so please forgive me if it should've been on a different board. Due to ill mental health, unfortunately our house has been a little neglected for the last five years. I'm at the stage now though where we've both decided that we'll be doing up the house and garden over a long period of time (due to budget restraints).

Our front garden is first on the list to do as it's become a bit of an eyesore (well to us, maybe not to others because of the area!) and we were hoping someone might be able to advise us on what they suggest doing with the area.

The front garden is about 11ft wide by 6 foot to the front ish. There's a 1 1/2ft bedding area that goes along the front and then from the front to the back on the right hand side (at the far end as you look at it on the photo) that has some sort of very thorny bush (not sure what) and then 3 rather overgrown dwarf conifers which reach 8ft.

Ideally we'd like something that will give a bit of privacy (so say with a height of no more than 5 - 6 ft) but will allow a bit of flexibility in terms of what we can do with the right hand (far) side against next door. Our plan is to cut the conifers tomorrow or the day after and then pull them out completely at the weekend. The front fencing also will need replacing, but at this stage we're just going to go for the overlapping fence panels again. The bins will also be going at the back of the house which should free up some space.

Since our main rooms are at the back of the house, we would really like to go for something which is low maintenance (evergreens?)

As you can tell, our gardening knowledge isn't great, but we're here to stay and learn, so any advice would be greatly appreciated for our tiny garden

Thanks in advance

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

 

Welcome to GC John....enjoy

 

John - Enjoy your time here. Sounds as if you have a bit of a task on your hands.

 

Thanks all. I'm hoping we'll get some nice weather again this year :-)

Edit:- I've just realised that I have posted in the wrong forum. Aplogies! By any chance does anyone know if you can change your display name? I normally use a character name

 

Welcome to GC John. PM (conversation) one of the Admin staff, they will help you with changing your name.

 

No worries, its fine here as the intro forum is an introduction only bit & you've come straight in with a question

I can change your user name if you pm me what you'd like it changed to

 

Hello and welcome <new username pending>

 

Welcome to GC

 

You appear to have a rather hard task, It`s difficult to offer any suggestions from your pic,perhaps post another without bins.

 

Hi ... and welcome .. seems to me that your Weely Bins are taking pride of place .. so is there any way they can be re- positioned some where else .. if they can, then one of the first things to do is jet wash the flag stones or scrub them clean with a patio cleaner and then i would say buy yourself some nice pots fairly large, fill them with fresh compost and plant them out with summer bedding some time towards the end of April .. looks a little shady there so maybe Busy Lizzies would do well and thrive ... best of luck and enjoy your gardening Micky

 

Hello

 

Many thanks for the warm welcome and replies. I'll take a couple more photos tonight as I'll be moving the bins to the rear of the house (where they'll be staying). The connifers tbh really have to go as although you can't really tell from that photo, they're about 8ft in height and probably aren't doing the house any favours with their roots (I've noticed the flagstone in front of them slightly raised). I'll be giving the patio area a good clean with the jetwash as the flagstones on the drive need refilling in any case (I've been told to use Fine Dried sand to fill the gaps).

Eventually we'll be looking to replace the concrete fence posts and fencing with a double thickness brick wall and iron/steel spikes. Ideally we're still looking for some sort of privacy (but no more than 5-6ft) something that is easy to maintain and can stay outside all year around.

In terms of light, the house is NW facing and we pretty much get light from midday until about an hour before the sun sets.

I imagine the bush at the far side (against a brick wall) will probably be coming out as I'm not sure how far the roots go.

Once those connifers go, it will pretty much open up a space - albeit still small, but whatever replaces it should let more light through to the front.

The problem is that we enjoy our privacy, but not at the expense of it looking out of place with the other houses on the street.

 

Removing the conifers is best as their roots can do a lot of damage to property, especially that close. Don't worry if you can't get all the roots out, just cut them off and they will die without putting up new shoots.

Is the front fence a slot in panel? If so you could replace that with a taller panel or one with trellis built in which would allow you to grow a climber through it giving you privacy.