I need to start gardening and I've NEVER done it before

[SaltResistantSlug]

We need to sort the front garden especially. I can't help but feel we're lowering the tone of our street with our unruly grass and abundant weeds :) . But aside from cutting the grass and pulling the weeds (is pulling or spraying better?), I have no idea where to start. I'd like it to look pretty, eventually...

Any ideas/advice would be gratefully appreciated!

Is it just lawn or are there some beds too?

Begin by mowing the grass...pull the weeds by hand...it's safer than spraying.

If there are beds, clear them of weeds and dig them over..remove rocks and weeds as you go.

As you're a bit late to plant any seeds really, you could try some seeds ready for spring next year? Or buy some shrubs to add.

Have a look at bulbs to come up next year such as tuplips and daffs....you usualy plan them in October or thereabouts.

Oh me too! I'm about to move to a house with a sad square of grass and nowt else. We're only renting but I feel like I need to cheer it a little. May I lurk? I know nothing of what to do and when

Lurk as much as you like! Some great advice already from Nerd.

It's a small lawn although at the very front there's a Christmas Rose (so my MIL tells me) - so I suppose that could be a bed...

If I wanted to create a bed, would I just dig one?! (Sorry for the stupid questions - I really am 100% novice.)

Im getting a garden next month and I am going to weed dug over the soil fertilise the soil and sow some over wintering seeds incluing lettuce chicory and veeteoit. I have some purple spouting broccoli I have been growing from seed on a window sill for a month.

Do you have a border around the lawn? Yes you just dig up where you want to plant, remove the grass and maybe add some compost or top soil. Stick some plants in or a shrub. That's what I'd do anyway. If you already have a border (parts with just soil) then just get the weeds out, stick some plants/shrubs in and sprinkle a few slug pellets if plants. keep on top of the weeds when they're small with a hoe or by hand with trowel. Also putting some bark/chippings around the plants helps keep slugs off and weeds at bay. Once you get started you'll love it. Planting herbs is good too. I have thyme, rosemary, parsley, coriander, mint etc.. just in my yard. I got an allotment this year too and am addicted to it now but like you I was lost in the beginning.

Good luck and keep posting with updates and for tips.

a few good tips here I echo feeding the soil. The garden we inherited (allotment) was covered in weeds but the soil under it is fantastic, thanks to the old guy who had it until he was 90! And our vegetables are thriving. So if you want healthy plants then feeding the soil, adding compost etc.. is good.

Oh and relax Try not to stress about it. As long as you don't spend a fortune then it's trial and error.

Go for a wander in the garden centre and read the labels on things you like the look off...plants that spread are good for borders...and things which add height.

There's a great book called "Right Plant Right Place" which gives ideas for what to plant in various conditions - shady, sunny, dry, damp soils or what plants grow to cover the soil or flower etc. Really handy if you are a novice so you don't waste money planting plants where they are doomed to fail

I recommend the book "Sweet peas for summer." Lots of advice on planning, basic stuff like creating beds and what you can do right now to make a difference.

Thanks all, this its so helpful. I'm looking forward to stuck in now.

Curious good to hear you were a novice too - I esp like the idea of planting herbs as I use them all the time in cooking and spend a fortune on pre-packed ones!

I'd love to plant one or two (not sure of sp) Pryacantha's in the back garden - they have lovely bright berries in the autumn. My mum had one in her previous house and it always looked beautiful. I'd also love a magnolia tree - does all that sound too optimistic?

Thanks mama and Waiting for the book advice.

Do you love pruning and have a passing interest in BDSM? If so then go for it regarding the Pyracantha.

I quite like pruning and agree they're beautiful but have conceded the relationship was far too abusive and had DH rip the bastard out. We replaced it with a Ceanothus - green year round and gorgeous flowers in the summer.

You're going to get so hooked

Honestly, if I were you I'd start watching Gardener's World. I used to think it must be either a)very boring or b)very expert and full of things I wouldn't understand because most people who garden are retired and have been gardening for 102 years already. How wrong was I. There is so much good, basic advice, and it's very relaxing viewing. I've learnt so much.

I'd also say just get some catalogues - there's tons to choose from but Suttons seeds and J Parkers are good basic ones. Just have a browse through the photos and I'm sure you'll get lots of ideas.

Just marking

I got some good gardening advice from my granny:

Plant lots of bulbs
Have one tree appropriate to the size of garden (or group of three eg birches if you have a big garden)
Have one big bed rather than lots of little ones, a couple of big shrubs rather than loads of little ones
Edge the grass (some sort of barrier between grass or beds - otherwise you will spend the rest of your life stopping the lawn taking over the beds
Buy something in the garden centre every month for a year, that way you get lots of variety throughout the seasons
Be careful of taking too many free plants (if they divide like wildfire in someone else's garden they may be weeds in yours).

She also gave me a lovely book called Gardening from Scratch by Gay Search which you can probably get second hand which is a good way to start off.

A magnolia tree will either cost you many hundreds of pound or it will take a long time to flower or both! You might be better to go for something that will flower quickly.

In general I'd go for flowering shrubs (ideally evergreen ones) and perennials (which means they come back every year).

Do you have any photos? Then we can give you guidance on borders and planting.

Lots of advice from others, so I’ll just add one. If you like Magnolias then have a look at Magnolia Stellata varieties, they are small, usually about 3ft when bought and can grow over many years to 10 ft.
They come in white or pink flowers. Because they are small to begin with they’re sold quite cheaply in garden centres. They usually are in stock In the spring at flowering time, but you could get one now on line.

Keep the edges of your grass tify. Even if you haven't had time to mow, tidy edges will make your garden look cared for.

Plant the borders so that the plants merge into each other, ie don't aim for the sort of bed where you have bright coloured bedding plants and bare soil in between - if you can't see any bare soil, weeds will find it difficult to get a hold, and won't be so obvious if they do.

Accept that having the borders well-filled now means you may have to remove entire plants in a few years time when it gets too crowded. If you do any pruning, do it just after flowering (except when you want the berries; and plants that flower in late summer you can leave pruning to Feb-Mar).

Your garden will probably reflect what was in flower when you visited the garden centre - so if you want all year colour, visit the garden centre at different times of year.

My first advice is to buy the very best tools you can afford. Make sure they are stainless steel, because you only have a small patch I would just stick to having a decent trowel and hand fork and a large fork for digging ATM. Think about getting decent secateurs if you think you will be doing any pruning. Get gardening gloves, I was given a hugely expensive pair that had very long gauntlets which were brilliant but are now worn down to holes, so I am currently buying dirt cheap ones but not expecting them to last ! Expensive ones will be going on my Christmas list. I don't wear gloves if I am planting, but do when I am digging or clearing Sorry to go on, but if you are just starting out it can be very frustrating if things don't work properly.

Plants. Great time of year to be starting out, bulbs are available, wallflowers and sweet William roots will be around soon to plant our for spring. Stick to tried and tested for bulbs, ie daffodils and tulips, grape hyacinths etc, catalogues can be too tempting with exotic and expensive stuff. Plant in clumps rather than singles, Beth Chatto always advised throwing a handful of bulbs down and plant them as they fell. She always advocated planting in odd numbers, so do handfuls of five or seven. If you are not sure how you want things to look eventually then plant them in pots so you can move them to more permanent places later. Start a herb garden as someone upthread suggested, quick return, very satisfying.

do not buy anything that is promoted as good ground cover. It is garden speak for something that will never be eradicated. Ivy, vinca, mind your own business, sweet woodruff....... Learn from my mistakes!

If you can visit other people's gardens, bit harder to do this year, but with any luck things should be better next year. The yellow book scheme is online and will tell you which gardens are open near to you. Read books about gardening, Beth Chatto as above, Christopher Lloyd, Margery Fish .Rosemary Verey, are my favourites, they know about gardening, garden design and they write very well.

Last of all get a compost bin or preferable two (your local council might have a cheap bin scheme) and start composting vegetable waste, clippings, grass cuttings, free horse poo from your local stables etc. With soil you get back what you put in.

Cutting the grass regularly will make a decent lawn in a season. If you weed kill weeds you are left with the brown leaves for several weeks once they've died. Better if you can pull them out.
Flowerbeds can be fiddly to look after if they don't have neat clear edges. So maybe make one to start with, if it's wide, say 3 feet, you can have shrubs at the back and annual flowers in the front. Make sure your flower bed isn't in the shade of eg a wall , or the house. Plants need sunshine.
You don't say where you are in the country. My magnolias haven't thrived but I'm in the north and in a windy area.

Some great advice here already. Just a couple of things to add from me (I only took an interest in my garden when lockdown started so this is what I've learned in my first summer).

If you plant mint, put it in a pot; it is rampant!

Take time to figure out where the sun is in your garden. What I thought was a dark , shady corner actually gets full sun until about 1-2pm so the plants I chose that like the shade have now been dug back up and moved to pots on the patio as they weren't doing too well.

Small bedding plants can be completely eaten overnight if put directly into beds, I'm going to try lots of pots or planters for them next year (not keen on the slug pellet idea as I've heard it harms other wildlife).

Don't be impatient. The first year my beds still look fairly empty but things need time to grow and as you learn you don't want to have run out of space to plant things.

Cuttings are worth a try... get a cheap plastic propogator and have a go - read up online or there are some useful threads on here. They may not always work but it's so satisfying when they do.

Could I join please?
I have a habit of planting things possibly in the wrong place. A few years back I planted a camilia that is doing ok but isn’t flowering, and my clematis has grown against a wall but the leaves went brown & crispy mid July. (Although another shoot appeared last week so don’t think it is dead?)
I have a narrow bed next to a fence that I spent today weeding out. There is 1 rose that looks a little scraggly and a lovely lavender (but not lavender thing - you see it in France a lot)
The neighbours own the fence and until recently it was covered in ivy, and will be replacing or repairing it sometime soon...
It is NE facing & that’s all I know
My question (eventually) is it too late to plant anything in the fence bed?

Thank you - will peruse the rest of this topic!

It's a great time to plant plus3 (at least it is where I am, the summer seems to be over, it might still be a bit hot and dry where you are).

If it's a hot sunny narrow bed you can plant anything if you water it; I'd prune the rose this winter and tie it in if it's a climber. If you are replacing the fence don't plant anything too big until you've done it, but you could plant some bulbs this autumn and decide in the spring what to do with the fence.

You need to find out the name of the clematis - some flower early and then go scraggy, some flower late and need pruning right back in spring. Generally they like sunny heads and shaded roots, so you can feed it with manure or compost around the base and shove a couple of large rocks to shade the roots.

Camellia like ericaceous soil so if your soil is limey it might not flower too well and might have yellow leaves. I had a camellia that only flowered every second year for some reason.(

Thanks Orange think the soil might be a bit clay like in places. The camellia is next to an Ash, so it might not like that?

Another silly question....if I plant lots of bulbs, does it hurt to disturb them when planting after they have flowered?

Will have a wander around the local garden center...was worried that planting now was a bad idea, got all keen seeing a tidy bed!