Please help me - complete novice trying to keep garden understand control!

[AddictedtoAIBU]

Hi,
We moved into a new house last year and so this is our first Spring/Summer here. The lady who lived here previously was very garden proud but I just don't know a weed from a flower 😓
If I post a few pictures, can you please help me understand where to start? I am afraid to pull things out incase I am damaging pretty bulbs etc for later in the season.
I have planted a few bits myself to try and make a mark but unfortunately many of them died!
I have had grass/patios and pots previously so this is my first attempt at a planted/established garden. All help gratefully received xx

Has this photo attached?

What a lovely problem to have 😊 will give it a go- off to do some gardening myself but will pop back periodically to see if I can help (I’m not an expert by any stretch but can recognise some weeds). I recommend that you watch any you aren’t sure about and see if they either flower or start multiplying, if they start multiplying rapidly they probably need removing.

Examples of how it looks....

I can see the photo in the thread but can’t see it when I click on it

Thanks Slightly! I am very excited but my visions of becoming a natural seem to be disappearing the longer I stand there afraid to touch it all 😀 I really want to keep anything planted with love but am afraid I'll end up lovingly tending weeds!!

Second photo is loading, they all look like plants

The only way I know to attach pics is via the 'choose file' option. Is there a better way?

Wonderful, a positive start! I think cutting them back last year would have set me on a better foot this year. I just didn't think too, I will know in future. Hopefully no lasting damage done?

My husband has an app on his phone to help identify plants from a pic, a bit like Shazam for plants. One of this would help tou

I have one called greening answers but it doesn't seem to accurately recognise my plants, I think it is American. I will look for other ones, thank you 😊

Gardening not greening

You will learn quick O/P. There are really no mistakes in gardening. Honestly just enjoy being outside. There are loads of gardening groups on Facebook etc who are happy to ID plants. There aren't that many types of weeds and you'll soon work out what is what.

There are really no mistakes in gardening

This x 1 million!

With gardening there is almost nothing you can do that can’t be undone. Every year is a new beginning.

Your new garden looks lovely :) there are some fantastic gardening facebook groups that are great for ids and stuff.

Gardeners world and beechgrove are great gardening programmes on the tv and great for beginners as well as veterans.

I would recommend that every month you take photos of each side of the garden. If there are things that are really ugly dig them out. Most shrubs are pruned, or cut back hard through the winter. If in doubt prune something after it has flowered. That’s why you need the photo because it is easy, once something has died back underground, to mistakenly dig it up.

Don’t be afraid to get rid of things. I had a garden make over recently and at first I put lots of my favourite things in pots. Then I realised how overgrown and tired they were. I ended up getting rid of 90% of the old garden.

Even though I had been gardening for 40 years, i found the advice on here better than any other resource. So if you don’t know what a plant is, or how to care for it post a pic. Loads of advice will flood in.

Don’t be afraid of it op! When we first moved to a house with a garden I was scared to touch anything for fear of harming it - and as a result everything got all overgrown, and I didn’t really enjoy the garden because they weren’t ‘my plants’ and I felt like it was an overdue job rather than a hobby.
From the photos you’ve posted it looks like you’re going to have loads of lovely established perennials (which will come up and flower every year, and be hard to kill!) - so all you need to do is take out anything you don’t like, and pop plants that you do like into any gaps!
I understand the stress of identifying weeds - but if you keep an eye out you’ll soon start to recognise types of leaf that keep popping up between the more attractive plants. This list might be useful for you www.rhs.org.uk/advice/common-weeds The best thing to do is just ask about anything you’re not sure of - here or ask a gardening friend to pop over.
Have fun! It looks like you’ve got a lovely garden to play with.

I would relax and not feel overwhelmed.
And be brutal - it is your garden and if you have a plant you don't like get rid of it-a neighbour or friend might enjoy it. Take your time and you can do worse than looking on You Tube, which is packed with all sorts of advice about weeding, sowing, pruning. Also I learnt loads from the little local garden centre so if you have one go and have a mooch around for ideas.
Tackle a bit at a time, see it in small sections. That's how I approached mine, otherwise I'd have been utterly daunted by the enormity of it.

If I was you, this year I'd just wait and see what comes up. Then you won't be damaging anything that is waiting to come up a bit later.

Make a note of which ones you like and which ones you don't. It looks to me from your photos that you've got possibly forget-me-nots (small blue flowers) and definitely a foxglove in the second photo - tall spike. See how they fit together. Do the colours of the flowers go together. You seem to have lots of blues and pinks complementing each other at the moment which is nice.

Once you've had a whole year's worth of watching you'll know what is there and where there are gaps. This year you could just plant up some pots with annuals and move them around the garden to fill in any obvious gaps.

I love games like this. In your first photo, the pink flowers (back right) look like aquilegia. Perennial, and seed easily. Orange flower in front of those is a poppy (welsh poppy maybe?). The variegated leaves with purple flowers are vinca. The pink in front of that might be geranium. Behind the tree might be rhubarb. Not quite sure because the picture is showing up a bit blurry on my phone. Agree with everyone's advice to wait and see what comes up this year. Take loads of photos. You'll want before pictures, and they also help with remembering what grows where. Looks like you'll have some treasure in there.

On your first picture, the little blue flowers look like forget me not. They self seed very well so if you don't like them, get them out before the flowers go to seed. On the right hand side is that raspberry or bramble leaves?

Under the pink sleeve you have purple aquilegia, as is the pink and white to the right of the photo, prolific self seeders; next to the purple, with the round zigzag'ed green leaves is alchemilla mollis (?sp); again, perennial and self- seeding; behind that to the right a bit, the green plant with leaves like cabbage texture is I think a sedum? Green is very common. Chelsea Chop that right now to keep it bushy (pinch out the growing tips by 2-3"). On the fence, the pink, is honeysuckle; not sure but I think the 2 spikes in the foreground are weeds!

2 tall ones in the foreground are probably foxgloves. There is lots of potential in this. Lots of lovely cottage garden plants

Yep, the tall plants in the front are foxgloves. In my garden they tend to spring up unpredictably in different places every year but I usually leave them be, as they're so pretty.

In the first photo I reckon you might have a couple of clumps of variegated hostas (the green leaves edged prettily in yellow). Slugs love these but yours look good to me - mine are munched full of holes already!

It's very pretty and the honeysuckle must smell divine.

Foxgloves are poisonous fyi

Right at the front, in a little brown patch, it looks like a small crainsbill geranium. It probably grown larger by now and has flower buds. A very easy plant to have.
I wouldn’t worry about foxgloves being poisonous, many plants are. Just don’t eat them!

Sure, JT05, but I was thinking OP might have small children. Because foxgloves are A&E style poisonous, not just "wash your hands or you'll get a bit of a rash" poisonous.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2017/08/foxglove-and-other-poisonous-plants/