Our first garden! Blank canvas - where to start?!

[NameChange30]

My husband and I just moved into a new house (yay!) and there is a good size garden but it's basically bare. We've never owned a garden before so we're complete novices when it comes to gardening. We work full time and we'd be happy to do a bit of garden maintenance, but I'm not sure we have the time or the knowledge/skills to do the initial work that's needed to get the garden started...

The garden has:

• NO plants apart from weeds!
• a large decking area by the house
• some lawn, which we want to keep (hopefully for future kids to play on!)
• a large raised bed, which we want to get rid of (it takes up 1/3 of the garden, and if we do have a raised bed I'd want it to be smaller)
• an ugly path to an annex at the end of the garden - we'd like to replace it and maybe add a small paved area by the annex, in the corner that gets sun at the end of the day
• a small shed, which we want to replace with a bigger one (to fit garden furniture, bikes, tools etc)

We would like:

• trees / shrubs / climbing plants to create some height and cover the garden wall and fence on either side of the garden
• flowers to add life and colour! it would be good to have flowerbeds on the edges of the lawn and also potted plants/flowers on the decking area
• a small/medium herb garden in a container by the patio doors or in a hanging basket under the kitchen window
• maybe a small vegetable patch, probably at the end of the garden

This is not even including the front of the house which is also completely bare... there is just a gravel driveway and a low brick wall. I would love to have a paved driveway and some plants there too.

The problem is, this feels like a very big project for complete novice gardeners. I don't want to spend lots of time and money on the garden only to get it completely wrong :-/ I'm wondering whether we should find a garden designer / landscape gardener to help us get started? Do you think it would be worth the money? And if so should we do it sooner rather than later? There are a few things to sort out in the house, but I'm told that autumn is a good time for planting several things and I don't want to miss the boat!

What a brilliant opportunity.I think shrubs,trees and hedges are the things it is best to get planted in autumn. I would look to see what grows well locally that you like the look of. Other gardeners will flattered to be asked for advice. There are lots of gardening magazines and websites to get ideas from and I would not rush at it. Look at lots of other gardens before deciding what you really love and then go for it. I think you are likelier to get something you love if you take time rather than hiring a designer. I would caution that paving can mean gritting or slipping/skidding in icy weather. I have gravel to avoid having to clear huge lengths of path and driveway.Easy maintenance tends to mean evergreens - no leaves to sweep up

PS The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) website has a section on garden design which would be a great starting point.

There is also the National Garden Scheme, that has gardens open for charity all over the country. You can get ideas by visiting local ones, and they often sell plants, seeds cuttings etc.

Just go to 'ngs' and put in your postcode.

Get help to get the design right, and to do any hard landscaping that needs doing. If you have no time and no experience it will be well worth the investment.

But lots of lovely garden porn mags and chop out pictures of what you like, to show the designer.

Where are you? By the coast, in Northern Scotland etc?

What sort of soil do you have? Sandy, clay, acid, alkali?

If you are planning on having kids, I would avoid anything with lots of thorns.

Best to take it slowly - I am three years in to planting out a new garden that was just a bare patch and things I put in at the start are so much larger than I expected so I advocate taking it steady or you will waste money on plants you end up taking out as it gets too crowded. Buy sone books in plants - rhs guides a bit pricey but excellent and get others on garden design, and use annuals for quick colour while you make longer term plans? Good luck and enjoy!!