What can I do with this really ugly patch of garden (pics)

[ACoverIsNotTheBook]

I have this piece of garden at the side of my house that is really sloped, it seems to get a lot of sun but I don’t think the soil is that great underneath and it is really bumpy and uneven.
It is overlooked by my kitchen window and I really want to make it pretty. The grass will be cut on it next week but what I really really really want to do is plant loads of lovely plants and flowers and have a kind of wild garden effect, would it be possible with the slope and the big ugly grate in the middle? I have lots of time but not too much of a budget!
Any advice from gardening experts would be appreciated :) I have no clue 🙈

Maybe raised beds? I would plant herbs and fruit and veg if it is close to kitchen and gets lots of sun. You could do some flowers for cutting too.

Vegetable patch?

That's a lovely triangle, I'm very envious. I would either do a cutting garden with a fuck ton of bright flowers or a Mediterranean herb triangle.

Thank you, I love the idea of the herb triangle! Would I need to take it up and let new soil or just dig down and plant what I wanted? Should I start in a certain patch or around the edges first?

Any ideas on what flowers would be best to plant first for this time of year? I would love to have a massive lavender plant but is that feasible?

Cottage Garden!

For your herb patch you could just clear off the turf, dig over the soil and add some organic matter (from your compost bin or buy a bag of compost).

Also when you plant add some fertiliser (ie blood/fish/bone or slow release fertiliser).

Your lavender plant is perfectly feasible.

You might be better off regarding the flowers waiting a few weeks and then sowing some hardy annuals directly into the ground and getting some half hardy annuals. Give us a yell if you want some suggestions.

Are you in a new build? Sometimes the topsoil is very thin on new build gardens and there's rubble and all sorts just a couple of inches down.

If this is the case do raised beds as pp suggested. Although it takes more planning and a bit of time it will be massively easier to have the soil of your choice (free draining/loamy/gravel mix ect) if you can just buy it in and tip it into a shallow new area. Digging over and trying to enrich poor or stony soil is hard .

or a rockery with alpine type plants

So many good suggestion! Yes I’m in a new build and would say it’s very likely that there’s a layer of top soil over a load of rubble :/ I’m not sure how raised flower beds would work as it’s so uneven, could I rake it all up, add my own good quality top soil and plant an assortment of shrubs and plants? Ideally i would like shrubbery around the border then an assortment of flowers and herbs in the middle, but ideally I would like it to look natural with flowers intertwining and not too regimented looking? Does that even make sense, as you can tell I’m a complete novice, I don’t think over ever even cut my grass before 🙈 yes any suggestions as to what I could plant would be greatly appreciated:)

I think. Given the probable under grass issues, that you might try an arrangement of pots, especially as herbs and not pretty to look at in the winter.
A selection of pots on gravel put over a membrane, could be moved around to great effect.
And the pots themselves can be very attractive too, and will cover the drains .
Quite a lot of climbers work in large pots too - to cover the fence a bit ?
Jasmine is pretty much an evergreen and can grow in a large pot.
Clematis, not evergreen, but some types flower all summer.
Purple sage goes beautifully with lavender.
Dogwood (cornus) is amazing for winter colour. And a small potted Christmas tree might be a bit of entertainment?
Exotics like agave, palms, bamboo ( black is amazing and evergreen) and multicoloured grasses grow well in pots.
Chives, red sorrels, cut and come again mixed salad leaves, all great handy by the kitchen.
One pot on another upturned would give you height for trailing cherry tomatoes.
Chillies peppers come in a vast range of colours too!
Borage (flowers for your Pimm's too) makes a good liquid fertilizer.
Nastertiums flowersfor your salad, and peas or beans on canes in a half barrel ?

Oh and a chair...then you can sit in it

Strip the turf off.

Bung lots of topsoil over it - not compost, as that's too rich (and expensive) - to level it as much as you can.

If you've got rubble and sand underneath, that's actually brilliant for growing most herbs - my front garden is block paved, built on almost pure sand and is in full sun for several hours each day, and I have large, healthy lavenders, rosemary, coriander, oregano, dill, mint (in a pot with no access to the ground - it's invasive), thyme, sage - all growing happily throughout the winter. The woody herbs are the happiest of all.

I'd also add camomile, oxeye daisies, naturtiums, and other meadow type plants, as they love poor soil and good drainage, plus they attract bees and other pollinators.

And, my personal favourite, a dwarf rootstock cherry or plum tree.

@Mitzik I love the sound of your garden 😍 so I’m thinking I will give your idea a try first as it sounds closest to what I’d like, with maybe a large pot covering the grate! I’m excited to get started now!
another question if you all don’t mind 🙈 do I need to buy already established plants/shrubs/herbs or do I plant from bulbs/seeds?

Have you heard of Charles Dowding’s No Dig Method?
You don’t even need to clear the grass. Cover it with cardboard and dump a load of well rotted manure. Ideally, free from some local stables. You could mix it with top soil.
I did this last year on my allotment and grew some lovely veg. I was quite sceptical but it definitely worked and on checking this year, the soil/compost is beautiful.

I believe in the survival of the plants best fitted to the prevailing conditions I'm lazy. So I chucked some relatively established plants in places - some things lived and thrived, some things died - added some small garden centre herbs where I knew I wanted to eat them soon - and tossed seeds around to fill in the gaps once the soil warmed up.

The Rosemary was (against all advice) a supermarket herb shoved into the 90% builders' sand, 5% leftover gravel from where they pebbledashed a wall with rude words painted on it and a scattering of compost left from doing my windowboxes (which are also a great idea for spring flowering bulbs/stuff that isn't edible). One of the lavenders was a roughly foot high plant - the English kind, not the more temperamental butterfly type - from the garden centre and, after it had finished flowering the first year, I chopped off the flowering bits and took strips of twigs with fresh leafy growth on them and poked them straight into the sand. Two years and they were happy, strong plants.

The tree was my treat. About three foot high and in a pot when I bought it, then put into a much bigger pot the following winter. Not cheap, but worth it for me. and maybe one summer I'll get more than three cherries before the pigeons get them

Everytime I get herbs from the supermarket or market (because I sometimes want something different), I'll get the growing type and, rather than throw it away or let it die, I'll take a chance and shove it in. If I've got seeds left over from sowing with A Plan, I'll tosh them wherever looks a bit bare. If something appears that I can identify/think it looks nice, I'll leave it.

The other thing I did was plant a honeysuckle by the door/window. The scent is unbelievable on summer nights. All I do with that is chop off the straggly bits at the end of the summer or now (if I've not got round to it and it's starting to sprout) and randomly hack off bits that try to come into the house.

If I were making a proper effort to grow food, I'd put a lot of things into pots or high up, as pests can be a right pain, but I'm not hugely fussed and won't use any pesticides. The price of that is losing things to slugs, birds or occasionally caterpillars (the Nasturtiums are a great sacrificial crop - cabbage whites love them - and you can eat the flowers and fresh seeds - I just scattered and left them to it, pulling up anything that went a bit too crazy). And I'd grow more from seed and more expensive, larger plants. But I'm not and I'm skint, more to the point.

I love the scents, the herbs that have survived, the bees (Bumbles, Leafcutters, Masons, Honeybees) and the birds that scoot around making the most of it and pissing off TwatCat because I won't let him out there if there are birds in the garden.

It's not a competition, just chuck it in and see what happens.

Except mint. Never ever ever ever ever allow that stuff to touch the ground. Or your whole garden will smell like a lamb chop hidden in a minty forest.

Oh, and I shoved a sad looking spring onion into a glass of water two years ago, then poked it into the windowbox.

It flowers every year and is nearly the size of a cricketball now. For free.