NOVICE - Advice on how to prepare my current garden border for fresh flowers?

Hi guys!

My name is Dan I am a newbie to the forum and also a complete newbie to gardening!

I will provide you with a little background before I ask for your help.. Me and my fiancée purchased our first home together just over a year ago now and we spent the first 8months completly gutting the inside and making it our own, now the weather is starting to get nicer I want to make a start on the garden!

My first job I want to do is prepare one of my borders for fresh flowers, I have some photos of the current state which I will attach at the end of this post to show you how it looks now. At the moment there are conifers all the way along upto my shed at the rear of the garden, I want to take all these out and some of the other stuff that's growing there so it's completely bare again to start from scratch, once this is clear i am going to be putting fence panels up to neating the appearence as there is the old wire fence hidden behind the conifers.

The advice I need is once I have cleared the area and put up my fence panels, how do I go about making the border area a good solid base for planting new flowers? I mean do I need to prepare the soil for a few weeks/months before planting? Once the soil is ready Is it best for me to buy flowers from the garden centre that have begun growing or start from bulbs?

As I stated at the beginning of the thread I am a complete novice when it comes to gardening, I have trailed the Internet for the last 2/3 days looking for advice and it's just a minefield so I then thought this forum maybe best way for me to learn how to create my perfect garden .

I live in essex, my garden is kind of North-west facing but I get the sun currently just under halfway pretty much all day, then in the summer its 3/4 of my garden all day fading off towards the back of the garden nearer sunset. I know North facing gardens are ment to be pretty much shady all day but mine really isn't.


I look forward to learning a lot from you all

 

to GC @DannyB

I have a NW facing garden and by the look of your photo, I'm guessing that side gets the afternoon sun?

Great idea to get rid of the conifers if that is the case. It will be hard work, but achievable
They are thirsty, hungry beasts so they will have taken much nutrients out of the soil. So, once you have dug up every scrap of root, you will need to add some goodness to the soil to replenish those nutrients and enrich it.

What you dig into the soil to improve it for planting could be one of several things: well rotted compost (do you have a compost bin? Yet?); well rotted horse manure or the more expensive option would be to buy bags of compost from a garden centre/diy store and dig it all in and mix it with what is there. Please do not use fresh horse manure as that would burn any plants you put in. Another option may be to add a slow release fertiliser into each planting hole when you put your plants in (you can get Blood, Fish & Bonemeal from the Poundshop these days) but I think if you have conifers there it would need a faster boost than BF&B would give it. No reason you could do both though ... e.g. improve the soil with one of the three options I've mentioned and still add BF&B to the planting hole

Realistically, you are going to want to see something "instant" from your efforts and that would mean either buying some plants from a garden centre, or, asking friends/family/neighbours if they have any plants/cuttings you can have (cheaper than garden centres). Also, right up until June/July there are a good number of Half Hardy Annual seeds you could scatter on the bare soil which would take and grow and flower this year and many which would make great cut flowers to put in vases in your home too.
Bulbs? Spring and Autumn are the time to plant those, so for Spring planting much would depend on how quickly you can get rid of your conifers and enrich your soil
But, do remember: Rome wasn't built in a day! You can achieve a lot this year, but, you really should give thought to the longer term too (plants are expensive to buy and seed is by far the cheaper option even if they can be slower).

PS: CongratUlations on your new home (ok, I know it's 18 months or so, but I'm sure it still feels 'new'

 

Hi DannyB and welcome to GC I bet it is a bit daunting to start with! At least the conifer hedge you mention isn't a 30ft monster If you want plants to thrive where they've been growing, you'll need to get the stumps and as many of the old roots out as possible. Then dig in some soil improver (well-rotted farmyard manure, bags from garden centre, home-made compost, anything you can get hold of!) If your soil is heavy and claggy it would help to mix in some horticultural grit too.
Then just sprinkle a balanced fertiliser and rake it in and away you go! Blood, fish and bone is the Rolls-Royce of fertilisers...organic, slow-release but dear. Gromore is stronger and is used up more quickly but is better than nothing.
Just a tip from the design point of view....you don't have to follow the line of the fence. With the straight path, that would draw the eyes straight down to the shed! Lay a hosepipe out on the grass to experiment with a few curves. That will also give you more space for planting shrubs that will get bigger with time. You could infill with annuals, perennials and bulbs for instant impact
Oops...crossed with "M".....I'll get my coat.......

 

Welcome! Great advice from "M"...just to add I would want to add a few shrubs for winter interest and them some low maintence herbaceous perennials such as phlox. You could do cosmos from seeds this summer, they are very easy and grow quickly.
Good luck.

 

Wow thanks for the quick reply's! Thank you for the warm welcomes

Hi M, Yes that side does have a lot of the afternoon sun, and believe it or not in the summer I have sun in the garden all the way down to where my drain cover is in the first photo. sun coverage really is good in my garden considering the way its facing.

Yes them conifers are going to be hard work, but well worth the end result so I'm determined!

No I do not currently have a compost bin would this be something I would need? Ok so I need to enrich the soil again with one of the three options you suggest, is there any recommended amount to mix in or is that irrelevant? would I have to leave this soil dormant for a while after doing this or would it be pretty much ready to plant flowers straight into?

Ideally yes i would like to see a kind of instant look so buying some plants from the garden center will properly be the route I will take but I will also plant some seeds around as you also mentioned. I also like the idea of the cut flowers into a vase

Thank you, the house is finally a home so now its time to tackle the garden!


Hi noisette47, Yes very daunting, and i am very glad it's not a 30ft monster! lol
It's funny you should say that as I was thinking of making it a bit more 'curvy' instead of a straight line so experimenting with the hosepipe I shall do, how far would you recommend coming out off of the fence?

Hi Charliebot, Yeah I would defiantly want some shrubs for winter interest as i don't want it to look too bare through the winter season. I literately have no idea apart from the above mentions, on what to grow along this fence line, I want it too have something kind of going on all year round if that makes sense and flowers that complement each other etc, what would be a list of what you would recommend for me to maybe plant? I do apologize for my ignorance I really am new to all this so I'm learning all the time

Thank you so much for your reply's already!

 

Have you got Pinterest? If so, there's some fabulous garden designs on there to whet your appetite and give you inspiration! Also, you tube is invaluable for ideas and how-to's etc...

There's some very knowledgeable people on here, and reading through the threads has educated me on what soils, feeds and plants to use. I'm chuffed with what I've achieved in 1 year of remodelling my tiny garden, and couldn't thank these guys enough.

However, DO NOT look at Canna 2012/13/14/15 threads.... It will cost you dearly.

 

Dogwood (red barked or midwinter fire) is a must! I'm biased though.
You could try spirea or a dwarf buddlia too.
I can't recommend rhododendron, azelea or camelia without knowing your soil type.
I also have a lilac (purple flowering), weigela (dark pink), forsythia and Kerria japonica (both yellow). All of these are flowering (weigla can flower twice) and tough, but you'd need to make sure they were kept in check size wise.
I also really like box (buxus) which looks nice trimmed into shapes. Looks good all year round and only needs trimming once in May.

 

If you want to grow shrubs to cover the fence, then 3ft minimum for a single row. Less than that and you'll be forever trimming them back. It's best to avoid little wiggly curves and go for a nice, gentle sweep...it helps when you're mowing too!
With shrubs, if you aim for at least 50% evergreens, even 66% if you include coloured stems like the Cornus that CharlieBot mentioned, it will look lovely all year round.

 

I just signed up to that and wow! some amazing ideas on there thanks Simon!

Thank you CharliebBot I will look into them flowers

Noisette47 - Yeah I think I would like the shrubs to cover the fence so I will look up them ones too thank you. Is there a kind of rule of thumb to how many different plants/shrubs you should grow in a certain area/space without it looking to over crowded and wild?

 

When I created a flower bed in a rough, tough old space, I mixed in as much compost as I could get my hands on ... which, thinking back wasn't a huge amount but probably a good couple of inches deep when put on top of the soil (before working it in and mixing it together). I planted straight into it (no dormancy period) and then I covered all the bare soil with chipped bark. I created that bed in May 2013 and by August it was flourishing.
As for a compost bin - it is entirely optional - but, do bear in mind that now you are dipping into the realms of gardening you will build up an amount of garden "waste" (grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, old flowers etc) and by putting them all into a compost bin - then waiting a year - you will get 'free' compost. Plus, you can add vegetable peelings and tea bags from the kitchen too.
Eventually, you may wish to consider putting some guttering along that shed and collecting the rain water in a water butt (free water for watering your plants - and plants do like a frequent drink in dry months).
Check out your local council website (or even your water board website) because they offer discounts on water butts and compost bins. I've got a voucher from my local water company website giving me discount on bark chippings this year

 

Right looks like that will be the same task for me then, I popped into asda earlier today and I see they had all the compost bags outside and for multi purpose compost it was 3 big bags for £10 does this sound like a good deal for what I need to achieve? I cannot remember the litre size but they were big.

A compost bin sounds like a good idea so I shall be looking into that

I have no winch so looks like man power will have to do, hopefully they wont be too much hard work but i have a feeling i am under estimating the task ahead lol

Ah right, so are the shrubs etc cheaper around that time? why is that?

I looked at your thread and wow looks awesome! if i can get my flowers looking anywhere near that I will be happy

I'm looking to start this weekend weather permitting so I will post up some photos of how I got on.

 

Compost is £6 something for 125 litres at b&q, have found it to be good quality but would not use it for seed sowing.

 

Good morning, @DannyB those 3-4-£10 deals are quite average and can be found at garden centres too. It's not so much the price to watch out for (per size of bag) but the quality of the compost can vary enormously. There is a thread on which brands GC members have used and give their feedback on and I'll link to that when I've located it.

Edited to add ...
Here goes: Best Supplier of Compost 2015
Plus, if you get yourself a compost bin, this is a good thread to read to get good results: Instructions on Composting ... 2015