New to gardening! Where do I start??

[Sakura03]

I have attached pictures of my garden, I moved in last year (rented) and I’m desperate to have an area for my little boy to play, sandpit, mudkitchen, a lawn but also some pots or perhaps raised beds. The slaps are uneven and previous tenant had a decking area but the council agreed to remove the rotten decking, however, there are still a lot of pebbles and a membrane down which need to go. What would you do? I have very limited knowledge of gardening and gardening design, can I do it myself? It’s a little overwhelming but any budget friendly tips and ideas would be most appreciated.

It’s rented so I wouldn’t do anything to the garden that you can’t take with you.

Just buy a sandpit (little tikes turtle one is good), a mud kitchen (TP toys do them) and some big plant pots.

You can get foam tiles that have drainage holes and are suitable for outdoors if you want a softer surface - google for flooring for under climbing frames and they should come up,

Otherwise I’d just tidy up - remove membrane and pebbles, pull out weeds. Should be ok to do it yourself.

You could get rectangular planters, put them along the bottom of the wire fencing and grow climbing plants up the fencing.

You can also attach some pieces of piping to create a water play area on the fencing.

Find a gardener - seriously, you could have the whole thing looking amazing this year and you won't waste money on the wrong plants etc. I spent a few hundred pounds getting mine sorted but now I'm just maintaining it's almost zero.

Thank you so much for taking time to comment. I th8nk we will be here for years so it maybe worth getting a quote from a gardener, ScribblingMilly I thought I might be looking at spending a couple of thousands but you think it can be done for a few hundred pounds? That would be amazing!