Garden like a wilderness - WWYD?

[stuffedcrusty]

Our garden is about 80 feet long, so not huge, but hasn't been looked after for about 10 years. The previous occupants let it go, and we have no idea about gardening so have just been cutting the lawn and trimming back the odd bramble that's sticking out too much. I don't think that there are many decent plants - it's just mainly brambles, weeds, and ivy everywhere in the beds.
Now that I'm starting to get a bit of time back, I'd like to rescue it and start again but I don't have a clue where to start.
Should I first strip everything back completely and then start with a blank canvas and put in new plants? Or do it area by area? It's going to take forever
Any book/website recommendations for complete beginners on how to start a garden? Thanks!

If you strip it back and have bare earth, then that's a lot of places for weeds to grow until you can get them filled back up again, so I wouldn't do that unless you have the time/money to do everything in one go.

I'd probably start by getting an overall plan for the end result, so there is a coherent idea - eg rectangular lawn with beds round the edge, vs lots of wavy lines. Nice and tidy vs wildlifey. Grown up areas vs all child friendly.

Then pick a chunk and do it - whatever annoys you most, or something you can see from the house, or a nice area to sit so you feel you've achieved something and want to go out there more.

If the lawn is not a total disaster area, then there's things you can do to improve it - feed/weed/mosskiller in the spring or autumn makes a big difference, so does improving the drainage if it tends to be squelchy.

Whatever you do is bound to take time - gardens are like that I'm, afraid!

I've a garden like that, I tended to the lawn then cut the brambles and spikeys back. Next, I have it a year to show me its beauty, show me what's there, what hidden treasures someone's lovingly left. That's where I'm upto. So now its a case of cutting back and developing from there

Remember yours is a wildlife haven at the moment so watch out for hedgehogs etc when cutting and strimming

My first choice would be to get a gardener :)

Failing that I think you need to be honest with yourself about how much enthusiasm you will sustain in the long run. I am currently turning my garden from a very high to a low maintenance one. I want to be left with lawn and a line of shrubs (possibly 2 shrubs deep) around the fence. All island and peninsular beds are going. Getting rid of established shrubs in mounded beds and dispersing roots and soil is a lot of work!

I have visions of starting from scratch and putting that weed proof membrane on newly cleared and leveled areas, then planting shrubs, covering in bark and then never weeding again :)

Ha ha, yes a gardener would be lovely!
Thanks for the good ideas - I think I need to plan this a bit better. And I probably need to be less impatient...

We had a garden like that. We trimmed back all the big stuff we didn't want to keep, sprayed the brambles and weeds. Started off planting a small herb garden which I and use frequently for cooking and that kind of spurred me on a bit more. We saved the grass that was passable - it's full of weeds but they are of the soft non sting variety and seeded the rest. It's not perfect but it's tidy and not bad to look at, the grass is fine for kids to play on.
I'm not keen on beds but have planted some climbers to hide the hideous fence.
I love the idea of a mowing strip around the fence so mowing is quick and easy and I can avoid strimming and the hazard of chopping my down, so that's my next project, it'll be a great way to use up the masses of bricks I dug up before seeding.