What would you do with this?

[ListenLinda]

Hi, very much a novice here but I find myself with quite a large front and back garden and I want to make it nice to sit in and enjoy for me and my two small children. The front garden is divided by a path but is basically two large lawns. However, it is the back garden I need help with.

It’s a south east facing garden, it gets the sun all day until about 4pm ish. There are two raised bits, full of weeds and stones and brambles. The bit at the bottom was the previous tenants dumpings so need to clear that. Landlord has said he wants to replace fence eventually.

So aside from weeding, what would you do, planters with flowers? i know nothing about flowers and what grows, just that I love the mix of colours I see all around and would love to have that.

Hope you can see the pictures attached, and can shed some words of wisdom!

Get all the weeds up, fill the gaps between slabs with builders sand to stop the weeds.
I would go for planters/tubs which can be done at a fairly low cost, quite a few places are still delivering plants.

Thank you for the tip about the builders sand, would I need to add anything to it or just fill it in like it is @JKScot4?

I’m also thinking of getting a proper shovel and digging the raised bit under the window, laying weed prevention material and covering with some decorative stones and pots maybe.

I would seed the gaps between the pavers with something like a low growing creeping thyme. Or aubretia. Google 'planting between paving slabs' to get other ideas. The benefits are two-fold: you get something soft and attractive, and in doing so it competes with weeds and prevents them from growing

I’m in agreement about seeding the larger gaps, it makes the environment soft and good for insect life.

Remove the weeds, by hand is best and avoid weed killer. Natural weed killer is vinegar and boiling water. In the meantime remove the dandelion flower heads before they seed, you could make it a game for your little ones, if they’re old enough.
It looks like you have a clump of bluebells, in the bottom of the second picture. Lovely if you could keep them.

I do have a clump of bluebells @Beebumble2 and some more in a little raised bit that isn’t in a picture. I will try get one when I go back out along with progress I have made.

Another question, I was digging out some weeds along the fence and as I started digging a lot of cracked paving came up with soil underneath. Could flowers be planted directly in, either from seed or beds? Do I need to do anything to the soil?

Make sure you not pull up those snowdrops that have 'gone over' now. Or if you, dig them out carefully and put them somewhere else in your garden..

You could add some compost to the bigger areas of soil. Then plant something like nasturtiums or other annual seeds.

All sorts of annuals self seed in the joins of my paving, such as lobelia, Mimulus and violas. They have seeded from previous years and chosen where to grow.
If I was planting between cracks, I’d look at creeping thyme plants and little rockery plants. You could just scatter some annual seeds such as candy tuft, Californian poppies and Nigella (love in the mist) and see what happens. Be careful not to weed them out when they grow!
Gardening is often about experiments, thats the fun.

‘Gone over’? Havent even looked at the raised bit yet but I will look to be careful when I do :)

Here’s a few more pics and one of the soil patch