Oooh! New house has a real, live, garden!

[butterpieify]

For some reason I thought it was just gravel, but went down today, and it has SOIL! This is the first ever time I have been responsible for real soil, on the ground, with plants. It is looking a bit threadbare now, but we are allowed to plant it up :D

So...veg patch? fruit bushes? Loads of flowers? We have small children, we are up north and I know nothing about gardening, but oooooooooh!!!!!

Hiya butterpie! I am also excited as I have just got my first garden too. Moved in two months ago to a rented house and I love it so, so much. Mainly gravel but we have two flower beds, a damp shady corner and I've got loads of colorful pots, and a tiny greenhouse.. I am sure we will have a few disasters over the next few months As I am a complete novice, but I am so looking forward to seeing things grow.

We should have a first time gardeners support group :)

Vegetables are harder than they make you think! I know this as last year I made an attempt in my shiney new garden. . I did do okay with tomatoes in grow bags though - but I cheated and bought them as seedlings.

Start relatively small in terms of effort - I'm learning that I can go out and spend a fortune and it ends badly because I didn't really understand what the instructions meant by "well drained soil" or whatever.

Having said that, there are SOOO many things you can do and this is a great time of year. You just need to work out if your spots are sunny or shady and roughly what the soil is like. No point planting something like a hydrangea if it's a full sun spot - it will burn and die very quickly on you. But if you've got a nice, not too hot spot, that's well protected in winter (I plant mine in pots and then move them very close to the house over the winter), hydrangeas are lovely and surprisingly easy.

Get some seeds going - things like sweetpeas are easy (you can even buy them as little seedlings for a quid or so at your local garden centre) and look gorgeous trailing up a wall or something. Also, take a walk around your local garden centre and find plants/bushes/flowers that they say are easy and that suit your garden. You can quickly brighten things up too with bedding plants like marigolds or pansys - easy, cheap and pretty. But tend not to last past the season (not sure if that's because I'm a beginner gardener or the plants themselves!).

Personally, I'm all for the odd rose bush. My grandmother would insist on flashy ones but I've loved my smaller cheaper ones from the local centre planted either in pots or in the ground - there's something so satisfying about seeing a rose flower for you.

Pots can work well too - and look lovely. But remember they will need much more regular and careful watering than plants in the ground.

Also, what about some herbs? Rosemary is easy to grow. So is thyme. Mint can take over so keep it in pot. Lavendar can be nice too - I am going to plant some this year for the pretty purple flowers.

Agree, veg are a pain in the bum. I've been gardening for a few years but I'm very lazy Low maintenance things you can eat- strawberries, salad leaves (grown in pots). Native plants are usually fairly easy to grow and you'll probably get a lot of things growing on their own deposited by birds or the wind.

Yes, rosemary is very easy to grow, so is oregano. Mint will take over unless you hack it all down to put in your Pimms

Self-seeding things like nigella, foxgloves, antirhinam (snapdragons), forget me not and alchemilla mollis are all fab, you don't need to do anything with them apart from move them if they're in the wrong place. You'll probably be able to get a lot of seeds for free if you know anyone that's got a garden.

You can get mixed packs of seeds too, look for ones that say 'sow direct' because you can just chuck them straight in the flowerbed.

Strawberries low maintenance? Haha - mine grow fine, but the maintenance required to avoid birds and snails getting them nearly killed me last year. DH still laughs about the day he came out to find me yelling at the strawberries about the birds that had been eating them. He thought it was hilarious. I am still angry.

Just bought more mint - I was surprised how quickly I got through it last year after just two bbqs. Clearly that's because there wasn't enough mint and had nothing to do with the endless jugs of Pimms being poured...

I've added some pictures of the garden to my profile - any ideas welcome!

We have quite a lot of passers by to the front, so I'm thinking of lots of bright flowers, sweet peas on the fence, and loads of colourful mixes on the ground. Maybe some big heavy pots on the decking bit. It seems quite stony and clay-like though, althought it is sunny - will it be ok?

Out back, I want to grow veg and herbs - one patch (the one next to the trellis) seems to have better quality soil - it feels lighter and more crumbly, and is easier to dig (I went out and dug a small patch of each bit, to see what it was like), and the other side of the path is the same clay like stony stuff that is out front. There are high fences, but we back onto a kind of open space bit (I think it is a grassed over slag heap - we live right near a pit head) so we should get plenty of light.

I spoke to the landlords today and they were really happy for us to make a go with the garden, I'm really excited!

Hmm, or at least I thought I had added pictures, but I can't click on my name to see them...

Sweet peas SHOULD be easy but IME they're not, you have to dead head them and water quite a bit in dry weather. I 2nd the herbs and perrennial geraniums Johnson's Blue is lovely and easy.

Clematis montana is easy a bit invasive but it grows well.