Newbie needs help planning please...

[spiralqueen]

Moved to a house with a decent sized garden, mainly lawn but with border round 2 sides of the lawn about 18" - 2' deep. The elderly previous owner had covered the border with bubble wrap, covered that with gravel and then put a variety of pots on top (most of which have been left for us) so that it would be easier for him to deal with.

Pots are not great for us as we have a lot to do renovating the house so remembering to water comes a long way down on the list. We would like to re-establish the borders and plant some shrubs so that it looks after itself rather more. The earth underneath the bubblewrap looks rather grey and sorry for itself so I assume we will need to dig it out and put some compost in it.

My big question is when should we do this? Now? Winter? Spring? How do we best prepare the soil and how long after preparing the border should we plant? Any recommendations for a good book to read?

*book to give us instructions preferably but if the advice is to wait until the new year I guess any book recommendations would be good

If you have a lot of house renovating to do are you sure the garden won't end up as a dumoing ground during the process - if it might then save the garden to the end. You are still going to need to rememebr to water newly established plants so no different to pots initially.

If you think the garden will remain fairly protected then sit down with a nice cuppa/bottle of wine and work out what you want from your garden - this will allow you to plan before you act.

do you want a "sanctuary" or bolt hole? do you need something child friendly? do you want something productive e.g with a bit of room to grow food even if it is only an apple tree! Many veg can be grown in a border and look fairly attractive e.g. curly kale, brocolli

You then need to get your soil tested to see where to start - you can get self testing kits from Garden centre or online

From here you may want to get some compost or soil improver to dig in to prep for next year, I wouldn't rush to put anything in this year if you are going to be working on house a lot as you don't want to rush it.

Books - there are loads on the market butit depends on what you want out of the garden, have a think and get back and I will see what I can find

You may be able to tell i am away from my garden at the moment and really missing it

Fortunately we have done the stuff that would have filled the garden with building supplies it's really time that is the issue. It's primarily play space for DD (We have been given a big wooden wendy house for DD which is up in one corner). We have inherited a shed, a green house and raised bed suitable for growing some veg. My idea was that the border would be a good introduction to gardening for us and that we can expand our horizons as we learn what we are doing.

Ok - well the previous owner put down the bubble wrap stuff to prevent weeds obviously so if you want to take that and the stones and pots up and away and give the soil a bit of breathing space now would be on okay time to do so. Then work out what pH your soil is with a test kit, this with tell you if you have an acid or alkali soil and will guid what plants you will have success with. you also need to look at soil texture to work out what sort of conditioner/treatment you may need if any. give it a good dig over - is it hard and in big lumps? If so soak a bit and see if it looks like clay - this will be a heavy soil which will need someting to help break it up a little.

Instead of books why not start by looking at the Gardeners World website - this will give you some ideas of what you like.

How old is your DD? It may be nice to use the border for herbs - they are useful, smell nice and most are easy to grow.

Hope that helps a little - let me know

So you want to know how to prepare the border for planting, get an appropriate planting plan, and then care instructions?

I'd recommend Nigel Colburn's 'Garden Magic'. It's 'planting by numbers', but extremely well done, and his plant suggestions really do work. You can take one of his border plans, plant it up, and enjoy watching it develop.

There's also a book called 'Old Garden, New Gardener', which does exactly what it says on the tin!

www.amazon.co.uk/Old-Garden-New-Gardener-Search/dp/0563371269

With your requirements, you can't really do anything till Autumn. Frankly, I'd even leave the bubble wrap (????) down, since it means you won't get any annual weed seeds creeping in. Have a look at the 'Old Garden' book, and that should guide you through.

Thanks Grendelsmum just the kind of thing I had in mind.

Mrssnaplegs DD is 2.7 so very keen on digging and watering.

Soil seems quite fine and pretty free of stones. Doesn't seem to be much evidence of clay. We have an old lilac in the garden and a clump of pampas like grass with very sharp leaves. Local gardens seem to have loads of begonias, sweet william, fuschias that kind of thing.

spiralqueen

I was going to try and work out the local soil from what plants you have said are growing locally but they are all fairly tolerant of a wide range of soils so no luck there.

Some nice plants for borders that are hardy (will tolerate poor weather) and grow fairly well as well as being useful are Lavender and Rosemary, both smell nice, flower and you can use them as well. i find growing herbs in a border useful as you can just nip out and pick them if you want to cook with them and often they need little work. some herbs e.g. basil are not hardy and won't survive the winter but chamomile, chives, thyme, oregano and mint all will. Be careful with mint as it does go a bit mad and tries to take over!

Other things then to consider - don't put anything in that has leaves or flowers that are toxic incase LO takes an overactive interest - i'll find a list of ones ot avoid.

You may want to consider some of the plants that have edible flowers e.g sweet williams, nasturtiums - these can be used on salads if you want and it doesn't matter if LO wants to put them in her mouth too much

A blueberry bush will also be fairly tolerant of most weather although you may need to protect it if it snows - they do prefer an acidic soil though so this one may either need to be in a pot or test the soil to see what you have.

Do you want bulbs to come up for the spring? Daffs or crocus? If so then you may want to start thinking about where you want them now and get them in in the autumn.

Often a good place to go for advice can be your local garden society/ club - just put your local town and garden society in google and it should come up.

Come back if you need any more help or ideas