Help me I'm a beginner

[boomerang1]

Good morning,

I moved into my house just over a year ago. The previous owner had created and maintained a beautiful mature garden out back. It was a hobby of hers and i am so great full that she left us with so many lovely trees and plants. It's not a huge garden but it's my favourite part of our house. My husband has continued to maintain it really well. We have not added to it yet but I really want to start gardening as a hobby. The thing is everything I have ever planted has died. I even kill ready grown pot plants. I don't know where I go wrong. At the front of the house we have a small grassless stone filled yard. Last year I bought some pots and some flowers I liked the look of and put them out there to brighten it up. They lasted a little while. I want to start here to build my confidence and start small while I'm learning. I like brightly coloured flowers for the front. They need to be able to live in pots and be beginner friendly. Husband wants a couple of trees out there. Any suggestions?
Also other than google how can I learn more about gardening and not kill everything 😩
Thanks

Join a gardening group on Facebook. So helpful and inspiring

Try the Radio 4 gardeners question time facebook group and the Which? Gardening Facebook group, lovely helpful people and lots of good advice. Start listening to gardener’s question time (podcasts available) and go visiting local gardens with the National Garden Scheme - they generally have good tea and cake and very cheap plants as well as lots of inspiration on offer. Watch gardener’s world. Get a subscription to which? Gardening, it’s excellent, and browse the gardening mags but Gardener’s World is good for beginners.

Also work out which way your gardens face - north south east or west? - and how sunny they are. And post a photo of your current garden!

Watch Gardeners World.

Pots need water and drainage. Lots of water. And you can deadhead the flowers to help them last longer.

Trees can be tricky because you don't what anything too close to the house. Just check what their mature height will be as well as the canopy spread. Acer's are lovely but lose all their leaves in the winter, but the right one can give the most phenomenal autumn colour. Birch trees have gorgeous bark and tend to be slim trees but can get very tall. Again lose leaves in the winter.

The best advice for a novice hardener is just get out there! Keep trying, look up stuff that you're not sure of and have some fun! See of you can find a local authority nursery or a charity nursery where plants are likely to be cheaper so if you do make a mistake, it's a cheap and cheerful one!

I've been learning for a few years now - it's a slow process with gardening but I've found it's largely a combination of experience and information gathering.

Definitely watch Gardener's World, if you're in the UK anyway. Then work out your geographical circumstances - where and when the sun hits, what sort of soil you have, how you can irrigate - and then work out what plants respond well to those conditions. That's easier said than done, though - I'm not in the UK and have a very specific set of conditions in my garden. I've learned to work only with those plants which are supposed to thrive in those conditions but somehow I've still found that even of those plants supposed to suit my growing conditions, about half do really well and there are some I just cannot keep alive. I can't tell you how many fucsias I've killed! And peace lilies - supposed to be one of the easiest to care for houseplants but I just can't keep them going. On the other hand, dracaenas do really well in my house, so I've started to focus on them. This is what only experience can teach. Just keep planting until you find out what works for you.

Placemarking as a total beginner/plant killer. DH is currently laying some sleepers for raised beds and I’ve no idea what to plant.

I’m a beginner too, about half of the plants I get don’t do so well. I found out the hard way it wasn’t as easy at putting a plant in some soil and give it a bit of water once in a while! I love gardening podcasts - The Virgin Gardener Podcast in particular. Good luck!

OK, so for your pots.

They need to be a decent size, otherwise they dry up too quickly
They need to be filled with compost or soil compost mix
Chose cheap and cheerful bedding plants, petunias are good as they like sun, and do well in post
Plant them, and give them a good water, the whole post should be wet through.

Then, and this is the hard but, you must water them every single day, even if it is raining, as a pot full of flowers doesn't allow much water to the roots.
Don't underestimate how much water either, water from the top until some runs out underneath. (all pots should have holed in the bottom)

That should work! Water int he morning or evening, not the heat of the day too.

If you snip off the dead heads they will go on until the first frost.

If your plants 'disappear' while they are small and you are left with just stalks, that is snails eating them, and some snail pellets, or standing them on sharp gravel will help

"They need to be a decent size, otherwise they dry up too quickly"

Depends on the plant though, that's one of the things I had to find out the hard way! Over potting and over watering can lead to root rot, and some plants are happier rootbound in a smaller pot... This is where your information gathering comes in handy.

Oh, another thing I found helpful is to look at what else is growing well around you - if loads of your neighbours have massive, lush hydrangeas then they will probably do well for you too because they like the local conditions. If the only roses you see are straggly and pest ridden then it's probably not worth bothering with those at this stage of your gardening career.

Also, for almost every plant, make sure you water the soil and not the plant itself.

of course you are right sharplily, I was thinking about pots of bedding plants for the summer.

One of our local garden centres has a garden club, with evening talks on ‘how to’ - it might be worth checking your area for something like that.

When I started gardening I bought lots of secondhand books from Amazon, 50p - £2 . Also look at Charity Shops and local Library. If you have a local garden centre, not the big chains, make a visit each month and see what is available. Staff are great at advising you, especially for trees and plants that will do well in pots.

To avoid expensive mistakes start with places like Wilko or Morrison until you build up your knowledge. A lovely tree for a front garden is Amelanchier. You can buy them from a few feet up to really tall . Acers and ornamental Cherry trees also do well in pots. My favourite Acer Is Sango Kaku. It has bright green leaves then scarlet stems all through winter