New garden advice

[Mammia28272]

Hi, we’re buying our first home together and will hopefully move in August.

I have no experience with gardening having grown up in flats. Our garden is a complete blank slate and facing east. I don’t know where to start. I would love to establish some trees like cherry blossom trees, but as it is a medium term house (5-10 years) we may not be there long enough to see them mature. Beyond that I want to grow some rose and flower bushes and try my hand at growing vegetables. I have a child as well and would like to get him involved. And ideally we would hope a lovely garden will improve the value of the house for when we move on.

I would love some advice, or advice on where so should start looking for information.

thank you!

B and q do very lovely good sized trees. I bought a cherry tree from them about 5 years ago for around £40 and it is beautiful. I think you can order online now too.

will hopefully move in August.
August is not a good month for doing much because it is (hopefully!) too hot and dry for plants to establish well. Your best bet for then is to prepare: improve the soil, decide on your design, start sourcing materials, etc.
My top tip is to concentrate on design, not plants.

I love Alexandra Campbell's videos. She is so practical and relatable.
Oh, and I spotted a book in the library the other day by one of AC's buddies so I got it out. Her style (modernist) is not my style but her advice on design, generally, is spot on. How to Design a Garden.

Can you tell me what you mean by design not plants? I'm quite haphazard and just buy plants I like the look of resulting in too many tall ones at the front and things getting overwhelmed. I don't want plants in rows as I like the messy look but perhaps not this messy...

This is not the best time of year to plant trees. Wait until autumn now, or in early spring next year.

Spend time watching where the sun rises and sets. Where would be a good place to sit and the morning and evening? Investigate the soil - consider getting a professional soil analysis. Are there any views you’d like to distract the eye from, or something you’d like to draw into your garden? I have an oak tree behind my house which I have ‘borrowed’ by planting a tree in my garden, along with an existing one so they are a group of three. Wander around the area, what plants are thriving in other people’s gardens. Are there any NGS gardens open in the area you could visit for inspiration? Make a plan for the whole garden so even if you only do some of it, you won’t have to undo earlier work as the garden develops.

Do you want a lawn? It takes effort to keep them looking good, but they are wonderful for children.
If the garden is small enough, consider other options like paving or gravel.

Then work out where your flowerbeds will be. Dig them thoroughly, put in lots of compost.
In early August you might chuck in some cheap bedding plants from a garden centre that last one year (annuals) just so the beds don't look empty, but you may need to water a lot (but August may be non-stop rain!).
Otherwise if it is late August or autumn leave the beds empty but keep weeding - the more you weed the less there is to do in subsequent years as you are continually getting out all the seeds and roots.

In autumn, do two things:
Plant lots of patches of bulbs to come up in the following spring and early summer. Keep a plan of what is where - the little white plastic labels tend to get washed clean in the rain.
Plant perennials (flowers that last many years) - either from seed or as baby plants - you can get good deals on mail order. Baby plants can be posted to you, in specially designed packaging (I use Thompson and Morgan).
Some perennials are best planted next spring instead of in autumn.
Again, find a way to mark what goes where. Herbaceous perennials die right back to the ground over winter, so you think they are dead and vanished, but in the spring they re-grow. When they are young it is easy to 'weed' them out by mistake, so labelling or marking the spot with short sticks is helpful.

Have very low expectations of vegetable gardening. It takes years to become expert enough to get good crops. By the time you have spent money on compost, netting, etc. it can be no cheaper than a supermarket for things like potatoes and carrots, so just concentrate on expensive foods like berries and tomatoes.

Invest in an outside tap if there isn't one, and a good hose, plus consider setting up water butts to catch rain from roofs. It all depends on how much you want to spend - gardening can get as expensive as you want to make it...

My top tip is to concentrate on design, not plants.
OP is starting from scratch so she needs to design the whole structure of the garden: deciding where to place seating, the veg beds, the boring bits (the bins, the shed, compost heap, the washing line), etc, etc. Does she want a lawn? What sort of hard landscaping (patio, paths) will she have? Etc, etc.
She needs to make sure that she has height, so she needs trees and shrubs.
"How do I plant up this border" is way down the list.

Adam Frost (Gardeners' World) is quite good at "what plants?". He suggests that you don't look at a plant in isolation; see how it interacts with its neighbours. Match / theme / echo colours of flowers, but contrast the foliage.

Make the front of a border look good and it fools people into thinking the whole thing looks good! Have blocks of plants (as you say, not rows) of about a yard square for impact; don't do individual, bitty plants. Try to have gradual changes in height i.e. make each plant a comparable size to its neighbours (rule of thumb: no more than one third taller/shorter). Have about 30% shrubs, permanent features to give year-round structure to the border.

Basically, I'm afraid, if you want brilliant borders then you have to plan - not buy on impulse. I know, I know, we all do it.

This is all amazing advice, thank you!

This is brilliant advice thank you so much. I'm inspired by watching reruns of Gardeners World so am going to make some good plans for next season.

Easy veg that are reliable, easy growers are:
Main crop potatoes (in bags or the ground)
Peas (Rondo variety are nice big peas that don’t get pea moth)
Onions (I grow Red Baron, they keep ALL winter!)
Any runner beans