How long did it take you to create a decent DIY garden

[aliumbear]

If your garden didn't have anything in it to begin with, and you're not well off, then honestly how long did it take you to fill out your garden with plants and make it half decent doing it yourself? Assuming you haven't paid someone to do landscaping or put landscaping stones down and made virtually everything artificial. AIBU to judge someone with an artificial hedge etc.

If you are able, grow perennials from bare roots and seeds. Much, much cheaper and very rewarding.

Ours was just scruffy lawn with a treestump and a very small and ancient/grotty patio. It has gradually evolved over 20 years or so, the biggest change was making a decent sized patio and getting some furniture out there, I have created beds and planted a couple of trees that are pretty big now and added a biggish shed. Every year I try different things out with it, it’s always changing. There’s a lot of trial and error involved which is why buying inexpensive plants from doorstep sales etc is a good idea, or look at what grows well in your neighbours gardens. A few pots make for a quick and easy improvement but you need to keep on top of watering.

One thing you could do now is buy a few packs of biennial seeds: foxgloves, wallflowers, sweet williams, honesty, sweet rocket. Sow a seed tray of each, and 'prick out' into small pots in a month or so. You'd then have dozens of plants to plant out in september, which will flower next year and often self sow, all for perhaps £15 for seeds and compost.

All interesting gardens change over time. I'd say starting with nothing it's going to be ten years at least, as you have to allow time for shrubs and trees to mature.
The garden always changes, some plants live for decades, others don't, the garden may need to incorporate use by children etc.

I've had my garden for 30 years, but in the last couple of years have had to do some large scale rethinking of borders, as I have had to remove 17 large box balls due to blight and box caterpillar, as well as removal of a 30 year old holly as high as my house which died from holly blight. I was very sad about the losses but then decided to enjoy the process of change and bringing new ideas.

It really depends on the size as well as on what you want with it. Things like trees will take a decade or more to get to size, but you can get a lovely border within a couple of seasons by using perennials and annuals until the shrubs get established.

Its lovely to hear about everyone's garden evolutions. Makes me feel better about moving things around!

A year. From an overgrown terrible mess full of unwanted sycamores , brambles and ivy to a lovely lawn, raised beds and full of plants. Did it all ourselves, very low budget, but a lot of hard graft. Yes, theres things id like to change, and we will when we get the money, but its really beautiful. Im very proud of it.

Our house has a massive garden, but it was exclusively lawn and gravel (over weed membrane).

Previous owners really despised nature.

I'm in year 3 and now I have a fully operational kitchen garden with 6 raised beds

A kitchen garden border that I turned into a good forest/polyculture area (berry bushes/ bare root trees bought very cheap in autumn/herbs etc)

A shady area with hostas, brunnera, bluebells etc.

A few ornamental borders, but all kinda edimental catering to pollinators

I grew lots and lots from seed, took millions of cuttings from the wild (I live semi rurally in Scotland) and from friends. I took free plants from Facebook, invested in deals like 3 for £5 on perennials and large fruit trees for £20 at Morrisons (of all places) and divided perennials.

I got a free greenhouse on Facebook, painted it black and replaced some panes.

I got a worm farm at Christmas which gives me castings, compost and worm tea. I have my eye on a Hot in for composting.

My biggest investment was soil. We do "no-dig" so lots of compost because it was such a large area. But got loads of cardb from supermarkets and leaf mould in Autumn which made beds and borders cheaper.

I want to innoculate logs with mushroom spores and want water ponds for frogs and other creatures.

I don't think it will ever be done.

When I started I had the idea that I'd create the garden (from the existing weedy lawn and brambles) and then it would be "done."

Hahahahahahaha.

Well, maybe if I'd done a lot of hard landscaping that could have been the case but I wanted a cottage garden full of plants and wildlife. And what I didn't consider is that I might catch the gardening bug and when you catch the gardening bug, the process is actually the fun bit. And it never ends.

Agree with pp. Small plants are cheaper than big plants, seeds are cheaper than small plants. Fairs, fetes, local plant sales, FB Marketplace, local nurseries, are all cheaper than garden centres. I started by growing few annuals from seed, to see if I could, and then when I learned what perennials were I found cheap or free ones on Facebook (local groups, local gardening groups, and Marketplace) and planted them. I knew absolutely nothing when I started.

Over the last 5 or 6 years, the garden has changed beyond recognition. Compost has been the biggest expense but I am now making my own (which is easier the more plants/vegetation you have but difficult when you're just starting out.) I do still have to buy compost, but not as much. Everything gets cheaper as you go along, in some ways, because the more plants you have, the more seed you can collect, and the more they self-seed, and the more you can divide them and take cuttings to create new plants. So then you get loads of free plants! But you need plants in the first place to for that.

I used to look at full, beautiful gardens and couldn't understand how people created them from scratch, both financially and practically. For me, the answer has been "a bit at a time". Create a small bed and plant something in it. Sow a few seeds. Learn a bit about those seeds and plants and your soil and where the sun is. Repeat. Make mistakes. Understand that you can't control the weather. View failures as a learning opportunity. Enjoy seeing more wildlife visiting your garden now you have more plants. Keep going.

Don't be fooled by "influencers" that you need to buy all kinds of expensive things. You don't.

Become obsessed with the garden and have endless plans, hopes and dreams for it. This part might be optional. But I'm not sure it is.