Complete novice gardener...HELP!

[JustBeingJuliet]

Moved into a new house in January and have a lovely garden, mainly paved but with borders which are planted with some shrub type things, and then on each side, there's about 10ft of border with nothing in where the old owners had plants in pots. I need to do something with this, but I have no idea what? I have dogs, so need something hardy!

I also have two concrete planters dividing my property from my neighbours out front; there's a couple of biggish trees/bushes, but the rest is (I assume) weeds. How do I know what is weeds and needs pulling up, and what is supposed to be there? I'm hopeless at this! Only ever had patio and lawns before!

Thank you :)

Can you post pictures? Then we can tell you what the different plants are (and which are weeds).

In terms of the stretch where the previous people has pots, I wonder if there is/was a reason for this - poor soil with few nutrients, roots from something else taking up the space? Before you can think about what to do with it you need to know what sort of soil you have (sticky clay, grainy sand), which way it faces, how much sun it gets.

If you can it is a a good idea to live with an existing garden, particularly one that has been looked well-maintained, and see which plants perform well during the different seasons and which don't. Take lots of photos to jog your memory. There will be some plants that still aren't doing much - May not even have leaves yet - that might be a riot of colour in midsummer.

Ime, most plants are pretty tolerant of dogs, it is just the grass that suffers badly.

I will take some photos of the front later. Back is South facing and not shaded so gets a lot of sun. Soil is quite flaky, certainly not clay like. I've got some photos of one side of the back. Thanks :)

I'm assuming all the green at the front of the pic is weeds?

The red/purple one is a Cordyline. It doesn't do much and will look like that pretty much all year round. Very low maintenance. If you like it keep it. I'm not a fan but that's just personal preference.

I can't tell what the green stuff at the front of the photo is. It's not that clear in the photo. Not necessarily a weed.

South facing, sandy soil is great for growing things. You'd do well to dig in lots of well-rotted manure to give the soil a boost before planting anything new. If the soil lacks nutrients your new plants will not thrive.

Right! I have friends with horses so manure is an easy one :) Will get onto that this weekend. Thank you :)

Ooh that's good. The only thing to watch out for is not to use fresh manure (too strong) . It needs to have rotted down - year or so old. It will make a huge difference to the quality of your soil though.

I recommend watching Gardeners World tonight (or I player) . I reckon you'll get some inspiration and tips. It's very accessible to novice gardeners IMHO.

Like you, I am a novice gardener. I recently found this thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/a1593355neverhadagardenb
, and luckily managed to buy the recommended (but no longer in print) book - First Time Gardener by Kim Wilde, it is surprisingly useful.