If you could give one bit of advice to a novice gardener, what would it be?

[ohfook]

I'm the novice gardener. This is my third year of haven a garden and I'm slowly getting better but feel free to imagine you're giving advice to someone completely clueless but with bags of enthusiasm. What would you say?

How do you test your soil?

If you do any weeding, take your time and make sure you get the root out. If you just rip them off to ground level, they'll be back and it'll be never ending. Better to do a small area properly than rush it and have to do it all over again in a couple of weeks.

I've created my own system for keeping on top of the garden inspired by my success using The Organised Mum Method in the house for several years.

You must be an eternal optimist. There are always failures but always be willing to try again, try differently and hope that This Time is The Time.

This is actually cruel. To dangle perfect dungarees in front of us that are no longer imported! Grrr!

So much excellent advice here! I'll only add to it some hardy but beautiful plant recommendations:

Plant lots of allium bulbs in September. They are easy to grow, produce purple globe shape flowers in the Spring and then once they have flowered their seed heads still look really cool in Summer. They'll come back for a few years too.

Sedum is another easy to grow plant, very hardy, bushy, with pink flowers in late summer

For seed growing I recommend foxgloves and strawflowers. Strawflowers in particular are really cool flowers, their petals almost feel like paper and the plants are very hardy. Really rewarding to grow.

These plants like to spread out and seed themselves. Some gardeners don't like that but for me, it makes my life easier: poached egg plant, forget-me-not, calendula, crocosmia

Just writing random things as they come in to my head....

Try to focus on some winter interest planting in an area you will see in winter, for example outside your patio doors, outside office window if you WFH or front garden if that is all you get to see in daylight over the winter months. It can just be one or two pots.

Don't just think conifers (big and small), deciduous trees and shrubs with nice bark, evergreen perennials and grasses, perennials and grasses that keep their shape and form and lovely seed heads over winter, and early bulbs.

Keep a list as you add plants of when they should be cut back and what, if any winter prep they need.

I made mistakes and ended up with expensive plants dying over winter.

A little time doing winter prep will pay rewards the following year.

I’ve found that tomato food is a great feed. There’s no need to buy a more expensive one

Not every plant will thrive but that is just the way of it. Some may have to be sacrificed and some will do o better elsewhere in the garden, it is part of the process.The other side of this is that you will get plants popping up there and there that you hadn't planted but that come grime birds, foxes or just the wind blowing seeds across... again it is part of the fun.

Powder feeds are generally less expensive per dose than liquid ones; an article I read a while ago found that Phostrogen all purpose powder was the most cost effective. The expensive branded ones aren't worth paying for, they all have the same ingredients.

I make my own plant food: comfrey leaves, nettle leaves and banana skins fermenting in a bucket of water. Looks gross, smells pretty bad, but the plants love it.

Sorry.

I think Carhartt might sell denim ones with pockets for knee pads but can only find normal dungarees at the moment. Patagonia do a pair of canvas ones with knee pockets, but they are Patagonia prices £££

Remember that a failed plant is a planting opportunity

If I changed one thing in the past it would be to buy fewer plants, but more of each type. It makes the garden look less bitty, and plants can make an impact.

Know what type of soil you have and grow the things that like that type of soil. We have slightly alkaline heavy clay and it's so much easier and cheaper to grow things that like that soil than to try to improve, compost, dig in drainage etc etc to enable other things to survive. Also important to look at the shade/sun you get.
Don't ever think you'll make enough compost in a compost bin - you might stuff it full to the top but by the time it's broken down (rather a long time!) it'll be no more than a third full. If you keep topping it up it'll be forever before it's all broken down and you can use it.
Do grow a comfrey plant and make comfrey tea - I'd have a Comfrey plant over a compost bin any day for helping stuff to grow well.
Look at how big trees and bushes are going to grow and leave a lot more space for them than you imagine.

Can I second this.

You can buy a little kit. Have a look on Amazon, then shop around.

juniperlandscape.com/how-to-test-your-soil-using-baking-soda-vinegar/

Don't by Russian vine - or what the garden centres now lovingly call fallopia baldschuanica to fool people into thinking it isn't Russian vine. It's not nicknamed mile-a-minute for nothing, and you'll never get rid of it. It used to be called polygonum which gave away its family connection to Japanese knotweed!

Don't buy leylandii conifers either.