How to have a nice garden when I'm no good at gardening

[Bearfrills]

I'm about as far from greenfingered as can be and I don't have time/patience for anything other than basic weeding and tidying but we've recently moved to a house with a good sized garden and I need some help deciding what to do with it.

It's rectangular, nice and open, and has very little in the way of shade. There is a strip of lawn down either side and a large strip of earth down the middle, I think this was a veggie patch at one point so I'm willing to give it a go with keeping it as such. Around the edges are flower beds which are currently full of daffodils and primroses with some very trimmed back rose bushes (they're trimmed right down to the ground so there's only a couple of inches of branch sticking out of the ground).

What can I plant in the flower beds - bush, shrub, flowers whatever - that will grow best if it's left more or less alone but won't take over the entire garden?

For the veggie patch, what are the easiest fruits/veggies to grow? We're in the North of England, soil looks like it has good drainage as it doesn't turn into a bog when it rains, and it gets the sun all day long.

The only plant I've ever managed to keep alive is a money tree.

If you don’t want a lot of work I wouldn’t go for vegetables.

I have a book called ‘the no work garden’ by Bob Flowerdew which has got a lot of good ideas about keeping things easy - worth looking up.

I’d turf over the veggie patch, and maybe put an apple/pear tree in the lawn somewhere if you like the idea of growing something to eat - fruit’s much easier than vegetables on the whole.

Or you could keep a small patch and fill it with herbs - most common herbs don’t require much work. I have a patch with lavender, rosemary, marjoram, oregano, chives, chamomile and parsley and it all more or less takes care of itself with a little trimming and light weeding.

As for borders, I’ll let some more experienced mn gardener help you - I’m currently trying to work mine out. I’m aiming for a mix of shrubs, perennials and bulbs that is low maintenance and colourful but not got it all sorted yet!

Flowers that I know of that aren't that high maintenance are Geraniums, and they look so beautiful once bloomed. English ivy is also good for adding some greenery and also low maintenance.

Get creative with the decor in your garden.. there are loads of blogs online that help with DIY ideas. I recently came across this blog post (will try and link below) which has a few ideas on ways to get your garden ready for summer. Good luck!

www.completepumpsupplies.co.uk/get-garden-spring-summer-ready

If the roses have been cut right back then someone has pruned already this year and they will start sending out fresh growth soon.
If you don’t want a lot of maintance to do I would add shrubs like hydrangea in the shadier areas and hardy fushia, dahlia, cosmos and dianthus to the sunny areas. I would add some cranesbill( root geranium) for ground cover and to cut out some weeding.
Veg I would go simple until you get the hang of it and want to be more adventurous. So onion sets, seed potatoes, runner beans and maybe some rhubarb and soft fruits like raspberries

As a pp has said I'd avoid the veggies if you have no time or patience for gardening. We created a kitchen garden last winter and its become my hobby because I am out there so much. There's always something to do.

You could perhaps put in some fruit bushes?

Fruit bushes could work, DS lives on strawberries/raspberries/blueberries.

The person who lived here before was an elderly lady, she passed away in January, and the garden has very obviously been well cared for but most of the plants except for the daffodils/primroses/roses have been removed. We do have some chamilias(?) and a bush with hundreds of little yellow flowers that smells amazing.

Are you sure plants have been taken out ? Could it be that some died down over winter and haven't emerged yet ?
( hopeful )

Definitely taken out, the neighbour told us that the family took most of them which is fair enough. The daffodils are beautiful, big sunny clumps of them all over the flower beds - they're my favourites.

Oh ,bugger .Shame .

I'm not entirely sure it is "fair enough" though . Have a feeling that removal of plants should be specified when selling a property .

For this first year I would not plant very much. I would scatter lots of easy grow seeds, like Nigella, Marigolds, Calendula, Cornflowers, California Poppies.Nasturian and candy tuft.

In the middle of May, when the bubs have died back, cut the greenery off, and rake around the soil. Then every week for the next 6 - 8 weeks just throw some seeds down and lightly cover. Do it really thinly. My preference is for mixing the seeds packets altogether in a bowl with some fine horticultural grit or some perlite. Then just grab a handful and throw them down. If you prefer clumps of the same flower then sow them as individual packets.

When selecting seeds look for those that say Hardy Annual, not ‘Half Hardy’.

You will be rewarded with a cheap and colourful garden and it will give you time to see if anything has survived from previously. Quite often when taking out shrubs, bits of root get left behind. So you might get a nice surprise.

Is the boundary fenced? Do you want climbers? My climbers took 2-3yrs to get going so I'd get some in this year if you want to see results.

Courgettes and runner beans are easy to grow - just protect the young plants in the ground from slugs until they're established.

I have multiples of lavender, pyracantha (firethorn), hardy fuchsias, passiflora, clematis (some evergreen varieties), climbing roses, ceonothus and buddleia along my long sunny borders. All excellent for wildlife. A tip I found on here was to buy multiples of each plant if you have lots of border to fill. Your borders fill up faster and you get a nice visual symmetry/rhythm going
Buddleia grows very fast and will require pruning back often. It bounces back very quickly so you can prune quite hard.

Structural shrubs/herbaceous plants I have in the sunny border include the aforementioned lavenders, hibiscus, potato vine, erysimum bowles mauve, perennial geraniums Johnson Blue (dead easy to divide), acers, camelia, eunymous, choisya, viburnum, lots of foxgloves self seeded, peony, rosemary, lilac, day lilies, scabious, dianthus, phormium and rhubarb!

I need to get onto Astrantia's method. I'm rubbish at remembering to sow certain seeds straight into the beds. I always miss the sowing window! Apart from nasturtiums which I strangely remember to do and which reward me favourably

At the moment I'm cultivating a massive patch of forgetmenots and tulips

We inherited loads of irises in our garden, they are no trouble at all and look amazing when they bloom. They also give good height & spread all over the place. But we have quite clay like soul so don't know if they would thrive everywhere (?)