Don't know what I'm doing in the garden. Pic inc

[Cathaka15]

I moved into my house 2 years ago and had a lovely front garden. The previous owner was a landscape Gardener so he was out everyday looking after it. we have been busy decorating inside and having an extension done for dd with SN. So we have really neglected the front garden. Now we want to fix it little by little but have no idea where to start. I have asked a student Gardner to pop in and have a look but he's asked for £23 hr. I want something that's easy to maintain and pretty to look at. I really don't know where to start. I have tried some gardening in the past but failed miserably. Not sure if the pictures are any help but Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It doesn't look like the previous landscape gardener owner did much landscaping or am I missing something ?

Are there borders with plants or is it all grass?

There are boarders with plants. Well it had plants. All dead now. It really did not look like this 2 years ago. there is another part of the garden I haven't taken a picture of not sure why it's not letting me load anymore pictures on here.

What way does it face? What is your soil like? I'm concerned that all the border shrubs are already dead! They should be alive and thriving.

£23 ph unqualified is extortionate. We have paid about £12-15 ph in the past for a general tidy up of the grass, which in itself will improve the look no end. Do give the plants a chance to come back . When they can see the light again and are watered you may be surprised. Otherwise our neighbours have got narrow borders topped with gravel on which they place plants in big pots. A few colourful containers dotted about and baskets will lift it too.

My dh did say it was expensive. Should have listened to him. The plants are definitely dead. But the gravel idea with pots sounds clever.

Id start with a bit of weed and feed on the lawn and tidy up the edges so that they are defined. You could employ someone to do that. The borders seem narrow and very dry. If you want shrubs I would make the borders wider so that the shrubs have room and get moisture away from the house.
Otherwise, gravel along the edges and pots. Although pots take more attention than garden planted shrubs.
Hydrangeas are good shrubs for front gardens.

If you cut your grass every 2ish weeks, rake up all the cut grass and don't cut it on the shortest setting it will look healthier I think.

My dh cuts in that way. But we have bold patches on the grass. Which we did buy feed for. But I think the birds keep eating up the seeds. We have also used liquid feed but it still Looks dry and patchy.

What do you want from the garden? What does everyone else want from the garden? What are your limitations? (Kriek asks good site limitation questions, but there are other limitations as well.) What are your resources?

Monty Don had a tip for bald patches on grass. He grows grass seed in plugs or small pots when the grass has grown a few cms. he plants it in the bald patch.

Mums gardener charges £30 per hour for two people
Offer your chap £15 an hour

There is a lot of work to be done
I dont see any evidence of landscaping

Make a map, decide where you are going to sit when in the garden and decide what you would like to look at and go from there

A mistake that is often made with a new garden is to try to tackle the whole thing at once.

I would mentally divide the garden into 12. The area closest to where you sit should be your first area to work on. Possibly you could put some trellis at right angles to your fence. Grow some climbers up it, plant up a couple of pots, a small shrub and some bedding plants. This will give you a really pleasant little garden to start with and provide a nice area to sit, drink tea/gin while you decide on the rest.

It is good to get the horticultural wire and trellis up for your climbers before everything gets too rampant . I like to get the climbers and structure ie small trees etc in first also decide where the swing trampoline tree house sandpit washing line shed etc are going to go

Thank you all for advice. Bought some gardening tools. Going to start with weed pulling and mowing the lawn. See how I go.

You mention your DD has SN. Are there are requirements related to this ?

eg wheel chair access, no jaggy or poisonous plants , garden needs to be secure

DD isn't in full time wheelchair yet. But she maybe be a few years down the line. So have to take that into consideration when doing the garden. I also have a very active and adventurous 15 month old dd. Who will eat everything and I've noticed we have lots of nettles in the garden. Someone said they attract butterflies but not good for toddlers obviously.

In that case you will need to plan for the garden to be wheelchair accessible , remember she's only to get bigger and heavier. I'm guessing that's why you've built the extension.

Think about paved paths rather than gravel or grass ( sorry, it's more expensive ) and perhaps raised beds if she wants to do some gardening herself / see the plants close up .

Your garden can still be very beautiful as well , it just needs a bit of extra planning now , so you don't do things that need undone later

I would love for her to do gardening. She doesn't really use the garden that much at the moment because it's not level for her so she's afraid to go out there. The raised beds would be perfect. I really didn't realise how much work was going to go into making a nice garden for all the members in the family. Any ideas as to what flowers to use that will work all year round but look colourful and pretty.

Is it mainly flowers that you want to grow? Whereabouts are you - north, south, coastal, altitude? What way does the garden face? Shady/sunny? What grows well in your neighbours' gardens?

Can I suggest herbs rather than flowers OP? I am not very patient or knowledgable green fingered so our front garden has bark chipping things on the ground and a conifer tree (was there when we moved in amongst a million random flowers which we pulled up). Now we have potted herbs in big wooden trugs. We have Rosemary, thyme, sage and mint and also a lavender plant. The sage and rosemary are green throughout the year, the thyme gets little flowers on in the summer, the mint is huge, the lavender blooms and as its getting older the branches are going a lovely whitish colour and the whole thing smells lovely.
It attracts bees and butterflies and is very low maintenance - I chuck water on it when it's hot for a few days in a row and chop everything right back every so often when it gets out of control (mint and sage are the worst for this). And that's it.
Plus side of this is that they mostly get washed and chucked in meals

When i started gardening i went to the library and looked at lots of gardening books for ideas. The books i liked most i went out and bought. There have been quite a few gardening programs on tv about landscaping gardens such as alan titchmarsh and these programs will all have books where they will show the floorplans and what they planted. I would find a few gardens i like and draw up my own plan copying bits from the books and use the plants they suggest. You will learn as you go. Railway sleepers are good for making raised beds.

This would do for some one who is mobile but needs a flat surface to walk on and somewhere to sit while working

This kind of things allows a wheelchair user to garden without twisting around to work

Gosh, that's a brilliant idea!

I love a bit of pallet gardening. I want to make a vertical planter to go on a wall, out of pallets.

The herbs look good in it as well.

OP, do you want fragrance as well as pretty flowers?