Make my garden presentable please! All help appreciated :)

[MrsVoleTheVet]

I have a north-facing garden with a reasonable lawn, but the borders are scruffy and patchy with various shrubs/berry hedges, and gaps.

I'd like my garden to look neat and presentable this spring (hoping to put it on the market) - please can anyone give me ideas of what I can do now and later to make this happen? Ideally I would like to spend very little, but make the garden look neat and appealing with minimum effort!

Lawn is used for much football and bikes etc. I've had reasonable success with tomatoes in pots at the very end of the garden where we get the longest sunshine.

Any pointers/websites/advice would be gratefully received!

[Doctordonowt]

If it is purely for selling, I would suggest go to Wilko in February. They have very reasonably priced plants. For north facing I woul buy
Ferns
Heathers
Holly
Euonymus
hebes
Anything with glossy leaves anything with berries

These will stand up footballs and will have filled out by the spring.

[MrsVoleTheVet]

That's really helpful, thanks for the advice, Doctordonowt!

[cakeandteajustforme]

I'd say bamboo in rectangular pots or planted for nice columns of green? and Japanese maples for spring colour. But depends how much you're willing to spend as they're larger than some pp suggestions (hebe nice but small?) but also more expensive

[MrsBertBibby]

Biggest tip is to mow the grass and trim the border edges. Amazing what a difference that makes!

[giddyupnow]

Maybe either give the lawn a treatment or pay for someone to do it? My lawn was a waist high meadow when we moved in, there’s a lot of work still to be done but the difference in appearance of the house when we had professional mowers in (it was that bad) then i added a autumn/winter feed was amazing! Can’t wait until spring to do some more work to it.

[Wakeuptortoise]

Do you have any pictures?
I would just try and treat the lawn. Neaten it by edging it. Maybe mulch in between your shrubs. Prune any straggly shrubs. Trim any hedges, etc. Once it is neat and tidy consider filling any gaps.
Alternative is to remove the bedding plants and extend the lawn up to your boundary.

[Doctordonowt]

A big bag of ornamental bark spread between the plants hides a multitude of sins