It went brown and died.
This is part of gardening. Things die, usually the things you really want. It does increase the sense of success when things don't die and go on to flower. All gardeners have failures - you just don't see them, because you see all the other bits.
In this weather, it's mostly a case of keeping things alive so they don't die from lack of water.
LongSummerDays's questions are a good starting point. How long have you been there? Are there already plants or trees or paths or anything there? Have you worked out which areas get a lot of sun or are mostly shady? Are any areas particularly dry (often by walls) or usually damp? And also, how much time do you have? I have some weekends and at this time of year, a couple of evenings - I just wouldn't have time to manage a large garden like my parents had, but Mum was mostly a SAHP.
There are websites (and books) which will tell you what tasks you should be doing at what time of year, but remember it's not an exact timetable, and will vary according to the weather (we had a late spring this year, which delayed things; now it's really hot, and that's affecting things ripening.) It also depends where you are in the country.
For me, the first flowers of spring are important - so late summer/early autumn, I plant out spring bulbs, so I will have snowdrops*, crocuses, daffodils. There can be quite a lot of planning ahead like that in gardening, which is why it can be useful to find a website with a guide to tasks for this month.
*I probably won't have snowdrops. I've spent a fortune over the years on bulbs, and green plants and planted them in a load of different positions and conditions, and they just don't work for me. Same with lily-of-the-valley. Other people have them like a weed. We all have our gardening problems.