I’m new to gardening, can you come and help me with some questions?

[Kittenmumma]

First time I have a garden and have some very basic questions. I am keen to understand what people do in order to always maintain beautiful gardens with seasonal flowers. Do you spend a lot of money at the garden centre every 2-3 months and regularly throw away the dead flowers after the season ends? Or am I supposed to just trim them and they will come back? Seems like a lot of ££& needa to be spent in order to keep a pretty garden full of flowers, am I missing something here?

Second questions is: what flowers would you get at this time of year and is it even worth spending on it given summer is about to finish? Should I just get shrubs instead and wait for next year for flowers?

I have also attached a pic of flower beds we have in our garden, not keen on the look of them, what would you do to make them prettier? Gravel? I have no clue!

If you buy plants labelled as hardy perrenials then they will grow back every year. Shrubs are the same. The trick is to go to the garden centre each month and buy a couple of things which are in flower that you like, then you get flowers all year round from different plants. Would also recommend watching gwrdwners World to get ideas for styles of garden or plants that you like.

I have learned to garden over the last five years and I have to say, it hasn’t been cheap! I have moved into a house with a big garden that previously only had brambles and bindweed, so it has been a big investment. I know I’m lucky to be able to garden this way because it has been a shortcut to a lovely garden. There are better and cheaper ways to do it, though - I just didn’t learn them quickly enough!

The first thing I would do in September is to widen the borders and edge them with a sharp spade to make the edges neat, and in the new bit uncovered from under the grass, plant a lot of bulbs. Put in daffodils, narcissus, hyacinths, grape hyacinths and crocuses. Read a bit about the varieties that come back year after year and plan your planting so that you have well spaced clumps all along the border with some gaps between them - I have tended to plant too many and not leave gaps, which means that while you let the leaves die back in April, the garden looks pretty awful just when you want to be getting outside in the spring weather! Leave bigger gaps than you think because in November you will want to plant tulip bulbs. Again, check the varieties that come back, because some tulips can be a bit useless and die back after a year (and the price of the bulbs doesn’t make a blind bit of difference).

If you want roses or fruit trees, plant these in November too.

Think about your budget, because bulbs can be either cheap as chips or really expensive.

If you have a hidden bit of the garden, eg down the side of the house, the alternative to letting daffs etc die back in borders is to have a bunch of pots for your spring bulbs, then just hide them away while they die back and have other pots for the late spring/summer.

I'm not a great gardener but I have been attempting to do what you describe for a great many years. My main advice to you would be to leave as much of the garden as you are able for up to a year and see what comes up because many plants, eg spring bulbs or herbaceous plants, aren't visible above ground all year round. It takes a full year to see what you already have.

As above post, shrubs will do stuff all year round and hardy perennials will come back each year. Annuals grow/flower and set seed in season so those are more‘throwaway’. It’s coming up to spring bulb planting season so that would be a good start for next year. I wouldn’t go mad buying a load of plants right now, possibly a few shrubs for structure, then see what comes up in the spring and buy a few perennials then.

From when is that photo? Those look like early spring bulb leaves (snowdrops? or agapanthus and allium?), and your lavender isn't flowering, which is unusual for August.

Agree with wider borders for a less scrappy feel. Make friends with other gardeners for free plants. B&M and B&Q price down loads by 50% on the Tue & Wed after bank holidays (I'm planning to go next Weds afternoon). Get the tallest you can afford. Grow from seed. Watch Gardeners World.

There are a variety of plants.

Big:
Trees - self-explanatory
Shrubs - many-stemmed bushes, smaller than trees.

They will be either evergreen or deciduous (shed leaves in autumn). Some don't flower at all, others flower at different times of year depending on what they are. So you can have a garden full of trees and shrubs, and have at least something in flower pretty much all year round.

Small:
Annuals - grow, flower and die all in the same year. These are often the ones that people have in pots and hanging baskets in summer. You throw them away at the end of the season.
Perennials & bulbs - grow and flower, then die back (often to ground level), then come again the next year. You keep these ones.

Again, if you choose a variety of plants, you will have a garden that looks good all year round. Some plants are chosen not for their flowers but for their brightly coloured autumn leaves or berries, or for their striking appearance.

Most gardens are not full of flowers all the time. For at least part of the year, some bits will have nothing going on at all.

Lots of good advice.
I agree with widening the borders and using a half moon edging tool to make a neat edge.
Also consider not necessarily having straight lines, or flower beds just around the edges.
Think about seating areas and making a pretty setting for them.
Also pay attention to where the shady and sunny parts are as different plants will thrive in different places.
Climbers, such as clematis, are great. You want to have different heights, foliage colours and shapes as well as flowers to make a pretty garden.
Pay attention to how big things will get once mature (especially shrubs) and allow enough space with planting.
I learnt about gardening from reading gardening books.

The first rule when moving is to do the bare minimum of gardening as you do not know what/where anything is. That half dead bush could burst into glorious spring blossom, perfect for those over wintering bees and other necessary bugs. That boring flowerbed might be full of hidden but wonderful spring/summer/autumn bulbs which shouldn't be disturbed at a certain life cycle.

Just pull up the "weeds" and mow the lawn for the first year and see what there already is there. And research to see if those "weeds" benefit our decreasing wildlife, they need all the help you can give.

Creating a garden is a bit like putting together a capsule wardrobe. Styles come and go, but what matters most is finding the look you like and how much time you want to spend on upkeep.

A cottage style garden with a riot of flowers is like a wardrobe full of bold prints - colourful and fun, but it can take a lot of work. A more formal, or easy-care or minimalist garden, with evergreens, trees, neat shrubs and a few seasonal highlights, is more like timeless classics - easy to live with and far less demanding.

The trick to achieving a good balance is layering.
Trees and shrubs, including some evergreens, are your core pieces - the jeans and jackets that give shape and structure all year. Flowers - bulbs, perennials, annuals - are the accessories, the scarf or jewellery that add colour and sparkle. Get the backbone right, and the flowers become the icing on the cake rather than an endless chore.
A well-chosen mix of trees, shrubs, bulbs and perennials keeps costs low by giving you colour and interest year after year. Around these you can enhance with, annuals and bedding plants.

If you've recently acquired a garden and have a limited budget, then patience is the key. Wait to see which plants appear for the first year - you might have lots more than you realise. Then research trees and shrubs, and aim to keep this as a focus at first. If you're happy to develop your garden gradually over a few years, shrubs can be bought cheaply as small plants in spring from supermarkets (or grown as cuttings from other shrubs for free, as many of mine are).
Once this structure is in place, the maintenance evolves to suit the garden style.