Complete beginner - book/ website/magazine recommendation

[kirkandpetal]

We've just bought a house that has a garden that is mainly grass and paving at the back, but which also has a front courtyard with raised beds.

At the back there are large containers that i would like to do something with. In the courtyard, the previous owners had some strawberries, rhubarb and herbs growing - I'm struggling to figure out what each is - some look dead or almost dead.

So, what i'm after are recommendations of books/websites or magazines that walk a (pretty much) complete beginner into what to do, a month by month (or week by week) guide and ideas for what to plant where. I'd like to build a garden that lasts rather than having to plant pots every year.

(I've potted the odd fuschia etc in my time, and managed to cultivate a pretty healthy clematis, but they were literally shove into the pot/ground and took care of themselves.)

TIA

I'm watching with you OP. Mind you we left our new house garden for a while and all sorts of interesting stuff grew up. We had thought everything was dead. Watch where the son falls in the garden.

Sun, I meant

Geoff Hamilton's Practical Gardening Course. Alas, now out of print, but plenty of second-hand copies available. Very comprehensive and readable.

I'm also a big fan of D. G. Hessayon's Expert books - ditto availability. D G learnt his gardening when chemical controls were seen very positively, but, despite that, are still very useful. Later on, he updated his views and wrote a Green Garden Expert - I don't have that one, but all those I have are uniformly good.

Last year, a MN gardener recommended buying the BBC mag for a year and keeping them for reference, which I thought was a brilliant idea. BBC website (with a big forum) and RHS ditto.

Don't forget good old Gardeners' World and Gardeners' Question Time.

Good luck - gardening is fab!

All of the above advice, plus Pinterest has lots of gardening ideas. Some of it is American, but the only thing to be aware of are the different seasonal advice.
Lovely to be starting on your gardening journey. Have fun, but remember that all Gardeners have disasters occasionally and we are all still learning.