I have a garden!

[Glitterkitten24]

We have recently moved home, and now have our first, very own garden! The house is very old (1910s) and has large, mature gardens.
The last owner had a penchant for concrete but someone in the past has taken a lot of trouble to plant lovely things- we’ve been in since last summer and have loved seeing all the emerging plants as the seasons progress.

My problem…I have NO clue what to do with a garden. I don’t know what to plant, what soil I have, what plants I have, when I should be maintaining stuff.
Any ideas of websites/ books/ resources that could help a complete novice?

Oh how exciting!

I think the first step is to ID what you have. Have you pics you can post?

Gardeners World (when on) is a nice seasonal source of info, although we have to fast forward through that Carol when she is on. Annoying person.

Have you neighbours with nice gardens, who might be friendly? Most people who garden are pretty happy talking about their garden. They will know about your local soil. You can get test kits from garden centres too.

I’d get an Annual subscription to Gardeners World magazine. It will take you through the year and has excellent articles.
Draw a plan of the garden and plot where the sun is throughout the day, this will help you make the most of the growing conditions.
You can buy cheap soil testing kits from garden centres or just put a large spoonful in a jar of water. If it settles, it more clay. If it mostly floats it loamy.
Have you got planters on the concrete?

PlantNet is quite a good app for telling you what the names are of plants you have, just upload a picture.

If you or your neighbours have hydrangeas or camellias, azaleas then you probably have acid soil. But take a soil test.

If you don’t know much about gardening then I’d just start with annuals which you can buy and plant from May onwards, they’ll give you instant colour whilst you learn and figure out various perennial plants and what you can plant where. Different Plants sizes and requirements can be a bit of a minefield.

I love it when I get a new plant and I have to look it up and figure out where to plant it.

Hope you can enjoy gardening.

Plantnet can be insanely wrong, though.

This place is great though. Post pics, preferably with close ups of leaves and flowers, and someone will know, and advise.

I like Alys Fowler, the horticulturalist. She suggest buying cheap plants from the supermarket to see how it does. It's about discovering what grows well in the conditions of your garden. It's a process of time, and quite wonderful.

MrsBertBiddy PlantNet has identified at least 5 plants in my garden accurately, but it definitely helps if you take a clear picture of the leaves AND flowers.

First thing is to decide what you want from your garden - somewhere to sit, a place to grow veg, fruit trees, something to attract wildlife, somewhere for the kids to play - you get the idea. Once you’ve decided what you want and need from your garden you can then look at individual areas and work out in more detail - for example if you want somewhere to sit with a glass of wine on a summers evening, you could look at options for plants that smell nice. If you want to grow veg, you might want a greenhouse or raised beds. Do it but by bit and it’s not so overwhelming. I focused on a small area each year. It’s taken a few years but you gradually find out what works best in your soil. Seeds are a really cheap way to experiment as well.

In terms of identifying things Google have an image search function which is really helpful.

The other thing that people always suggest but is really hard to do, is do nothing for the first year so you can see what you’ve already got.