new garden

[danmae]

i just moved into a new house with an acre of garden, its a completely lawn.

i know nothing about gardening but would like to start planting something in pots that i could later transfare into flower beds next year.

has anyone any sugestions on what to plant that is easy to grow, colourful, transfareable and will grow back next year?

OMG, you have bought an acre of garden and don't know anything about gardening?

Plants that come again next year are the ones called 'perennials' - they die back in winter and grow again in spring/summer. You can put them in pots for a year but they need more looking after than if you just go for it and create a flower bed right now. There are about a billion colourful easy to grow ones to choose from.

It really is best to start with some kind of a plan. BUT with that size of garden (my last was a biggie) you need multiples of everything - just one of everything looks stupid and spotty.

I couldn't live without paeonies, alchemilla mollis, angelica (which you can buy as a tiny plant from people who sell herbs and grows to a huge triffid), verbena bonariensis, huge yellow rudbeckia, heliopsis, grasses....oh dear need to go to bed with a catalogue

For good garden porn check out the Sarah Raven website.

Sweet peas, roses, wisteria, jasmine, clematis, camellias, monty don -- ooh you've got me right going now...

you need to work out what type of soil you have - sandy/clay/acidic/etc. you can get kits from garden centres to test it. personnally i would pick low maintenance things - shrubs or perennials. I would consider things that you can divide in a few years - allowing you to make further beds. Hessayon does a range of books that tell you about different plants - where they should be planted and how to look after them. that is an awfully big garden

As I often say on here (hope I don't sound like a broken record!) IMO your best bet is to go to your local library and borrow a shed load of books about gardening and take it from there.

For beginners I think Matt James is very good. His books are about city gardens (not sure if your is city or country?) but he talks you through the basics like garden aspect (which is key), soil, conditions (windy/coastal/exposed/hot/dry etc).

He also has good suggestions re planning and planting.

For a garden that size i do agree you are best off with some kind of plan.

For the size you have I'd really recommend putting in some nice trees and shrubs. I can real off loads if you like?!

Can you afford to get some help? Perhaps a good local gardener who also does border plans or garden layout designs?

I don't really understand what you mean about putting things in pots and transferring next year, do you mean you don't want to plant up the garden till then?

thankyou so much for your replies. going to get started tomorrow. i think i was blinded by the "kids will have so much space" idea but the true horror of what i am under taking is only hitting me now.

think i will set baby in a wheel barrow and toddler can dig with me. child labour will help as i cant afford a gardener. should have all done by the time they hit the dole quey or uni.

we are secretly just jealous! if i had a garden this size i would make some over to a football pitch and a vegetable garden (so i didn't need to be on the list for allotments that don't exist). having done the same as you, but with a much smaller garden i think you might think about spending a little money for a garden designer to do a plan; hiring a rotivator (assuming you don't have lots of weeds as this will just chop them up and encourage them) and thinking about how you can cut weeding down in future (groundcover/material/woodchip) would be good idea. if you look at some of the allotment websites they will advice on putting black plastic etc down for a year to kill off weeds - if digging gets too much for you. i lost tonnes of weight, just digging my tiny patch

The best way of having plants that are happy is to look at the gardens around you and see which plants are growing happily - spot the ones you like and find out what they are!