I'm ashamed of my garden

[doggiesayswoof]

I have no idea what to do with it. Have lived in this house 4 years and the garden's been neglected. We have very little time or cash to spend, so I'd really like it to be low-maintenance but still pretty, with living things in it... ie I do not want to slab it or monoblock it or put down decking like all my neighbours have.

Any tips for

1. clearing out and tidying - it is a real mess currently
2. things I can do to make it easier to maintain

TIA

Weedkiller!
Put down mesh so weeds in future cant get through.
Bit of lawn - fairly easy to maintain & cheap.
Supermarket or market plants are quite cheap - or beg cuttings or unwanted plants from any friends/rellies redoing their garden.
Fast growing plants like bamboo/mini conifers
Hard to kill exotic plants like cordylines
Cover with bark over the planting/gravel area for seating?

i thought you meant your lady-garden as it's called on MN.

I've never trimmed mine or waxed it or done anything special. Am I the only one?

pmsl Cariboo
Re-read the following line applying it to ladygarden - I am shaking & have tears rolling down my face {grin}
"so I'd really like it to be low-maintenance but still pretty, with living things in it... ie I do not want to slab it or monoblock it or put down decking like all my neighbours have"

lol cariboo!! you've been here too long!

our [house's] garden is a state too. I need those garden-makeover people or a bomb landing on it. have made some attempts to attack it but the weeds grow faster than I can get them out. Am watching this thread with massive interest hoping to get some answers too

then we should start a gardeners-anonymous thread...

omg jackstini this is getting worse DH is giving me funny looks cos i'm laughing soooo much

We have a very small garden - typical London 'postage stamp' size.

But neither of us have the time to really take care of it, and it had got terribly overgrown.

We had a card through the door from a company who do garden maintenance and they came out and spent a day clearing it out and digging over the lawn and removing the turf, ready for laying a new lawn.

The guy who came was brilliant - worked really hard, cut everything back, did the lawn and then removed all the rubbish. And it only cost us £80.

I just couldn't have done the job in the time he did so it was money well spent.

Where do you live? I can highly recommend this company if you're in South London!

dh is now laughing harder than me!!

Can I have the name of your guy, becauseimworthit?

read the previous two posts again with your ladygarden mentality

pmsl. I like it

I have a large-ish garden and it just looks boring. It has a path, and a lawn with the kids climbing frame and the trampoline on it, and my spinning washing line thing and thats it. No bushes, no plants, no flowers. It a bog standard HA new build garden.

Ed's Garden Maintenance:

www.EdsGardenMaintenance.co.uk

0845 108 0121

I think it's a central number and they have people who work all over, as the guy who did my garden is a representative of the South West London Region

careful if you plant bamboo - some kinds are apparently massively invasive and take over your whole garden, as our neighbours found out when theirs broke through their concrete patio.

Bamboo or Japanese Knotweed? They look similar.

no it was bamboo. but only some types are dodgy - we've got bamboo planted by previous owners and far from being invasive it is half dead....

Start by clearing out any rubbish, dead wood etc, and definite weeds.

Then try to identify what plants you have to see if they are valuable and can be restored to health. If you have shrubs, you are mostly safe to give them a good pruning (need to do this soon though before they start an new season's growth).

There are loads of books available about low maintenance gardens (try your library). Basically, you get a lot of value out of a lawn, shrubs, and bulbs.

Randomly checked "threads I started" and found all these posts

Thanks for replies and sorry I did not come back - in fact I have neglected this thread in pretty much teh same way as my poor garden

Another question for you green-fingered types: Will I damage plants by cutting back/pruning, now that they have started to grow? Eg my roses have a lot of green on them and I never got round to pruning them. Should I leave them now?

You can definitely still prune roses now (just!)

I have to hack back a lot throughout the summer. Depends what the plant is - whether hacking OK or whether a more technical prune ..

I have only just hacked pruned my cornus

And pretty sure you can still prune buddleja

jura that sounds exactly like ours (only different scale)

I'd love to get someone else to do it. I should get quotes... although I'm sure it will be too much.

Jennster I don't think I have those!

The prob is I don't know what half the plants are called - I am so ignorant - so I can't look them up to check whether they need to be carefully pruned or can be hacked. I need to get my hands on a big picture encyclopedia.

Fuschia - can that be hacked? I have a giant one threatening to take over.

Ahem that should have been fuchsia

Tis this one

Fuschia can be hacked back to almost nothing and it will continue to flourish.