New house, garden is bare, what to plant and when?

[pimmsperfecto]

We have just bought a Georgian town house which has a 40 feet garden at the back, laid to lawn but with virtually nothing else. Also, at the rear of the garden the houses behind (modern and not very pretty) can be seen. The neighbours on each side seem to have lovely gardens which are both private and screen out the houses behind.

We are complete novices in the green fingers department, but love roses, clematis, lavender, rosemary, honeysuckle (ie highly scented and low maintenance plants). We would also like a couple of fruit trees and something tall to screen out the houses at the back.

There is no independent access to the garden so anything new needs to come in through the house.

I would be very grateful for any ideas. We were thinking of maybe having the garden designed and planted in the first instance. Has anyone done this and can you recommend anybody? Also, how much roughly did it cost?

When is the best time of year to plant? Can we do anything now or should it be left until Spring?

All advice gratefully received.

It sounds as though you're going to want to put some trees in for screening -the time to do that is after leaf fall. Which may mean you want to get cracking on the garden design side of things fairly soon!

You can get various different packages. The most comprehensive design-and-plant solutions will be about £15-20k all in I would guess. In that, you pay a lot of money for larger plants that 'fast forward' your garden 5-7 years. If you're prepared to wait a bit longer for the garden to mature, and to do some work yourself, or to use a young designer, you may be able to do it considerably cheaper than this - say £5-7k for design and basic landscaping.

Thanks Holly, that's really helpful. Can you recommend anybody?

Sounds like you could do with planting some 'pleached trees' to provide privacy at the back - these are trees which have been grown with tall trunks and the branches have been trained horizontally at the top. Google image it and you will see what i mean. I dont know where you live but you could ask in local plant nurseries or garden centres for recommendations on local garden designers/landscapers. Also go to the library and browse some garden design books for ideas and look on pininterest for ideas.

Go on your local Facebook page and/or check out garden centres for local designers. Alternatively post some photos here and you will get lots of 'advice'! Which way does the garden face? how sunny is it? what is the soil like? What do you need in the garden - shed? play space and play equipment? drinks on the patio? hammock? massive barbecue? vegetables? washing line?

Thanks Dog and Purple, that's really helpful. We haven't actually moved in yet, but I might post some photos in due course as the advice is brilliant.