If you've designed your own garden...

[glassbrightly]

What tips would you give me? Don't want to pay for this professionally as well do some work in a couple of years which will impact the garden and am quietly determined to do this ourselves.

Thinking about new patio, extending the grasses area and laying a new lawn, narrowing and replanting borders.

I think the best thing is to check out which areas are in shade, where gets most sun etc and plan accordingly. Check out whether soil is dry or acidic, or moist, or suffers from a lack of drainage, etc. then you can correct or work with it before expensive mistakes.
Look to create privacy if you need it and consider maintenance issues.
There are loads of websites and books etc on garden design that are worth looking at beforehand.
Keeping it relatively simple in the style you choose means you can add and develop it as you go. Start with the basic structure with hard ladscaping, shrubs etc and build from there.
The beauty of a garden is that it is constantly changing and evolving, so you will be able to adapt with planting as you go. It will be far more rewarding than paying someone to do it.

Think about how you currently use outdoor space as well as what you want to be able to do

Think about what areas are sunny/shady, especially if you plant trees think about where the shade from the mature tree will fall

How much ongoing maintenances you want to do, if very little think raised beds / pots for plants, add bulbs / ever green plants, ones that don't need trimming every year.

Climbing flowering plants make a fence look nice without the work a hedge takes, if you want a hedge you don't need to use conifers, my neighbour has one using forsythias which gives lovely spring colour.

Do you cook? If so do you want a herb garden / space to grow veg?

Do you want a greenhouse? Where will you store garden tools/bikes/ outdoor furniture in winter (or have something that can be left outside all year)

Lawns take work, look at other options if this doesn't appeal, clover lawns or wildflower meadows can look pretty but don't need mowed every week

Do you have kids? Where can you store outdoor toys? (A small 6/4 shed in a corner can double as playhouse and toy storage)

Do you have pets that need outdoor space?

Do you want space to hang washing? Where can you put it to get max benefit from sun/wind but reduce how obtrusive it is?

Get one of Matt James’ books. Either “the urban gardener”, or “how to plant a garden”.

Both books cover the basics of good garden design, with the first having a bit more focus on hard landscaping and lots of ideas for smaller spaces. Even though my garden is larger than average, I’ve used a lot of ideas from this book when designing mine

The second book has more of a focus on planting schemes and is full of inspiration and ideas for how to create year long interest. It’s another book I can’t recommend enough!

As above: start with what you need your garden to have/do. Include storage/shed and composting spaces if they are important to you (and it’s nuts to design a garden without a ‘utility’ area or without planning how you are going to deal with the practicalities like mowing and grass clippings.

Then plan/plot sun/shade, views you do or dont want to hide, think about how much gardening you want to do, and if you have extreme soil (very acid/chalky/free draining/clay) - although in all honesty if it’s not obviously very much one of these you will probably be fine.

Great idea is to take and print out a panorama pic of the garden and get some tracing paper to overlay when designing. Definitely also need a reasonable scale drawing, especially to see how much patio you need for a decent table/sofa whatever.

Planting comes last, sadly.

@Stickytreacle & @Purplewithred - how do you work out what sort of soil you have? Is it based on where you are geographically or might individual gardens be different?

Check out information on the RHS website or gardening websites to see how to do this, also youtube has videos, much easier. It’s partly to do with what a handful of soil feels like and looks like. Whether the soil is particularly acid or alkaline will depend on your area but you can use a soil testing kit to check it, or just look at what grows happily already. Is your garden established but not to your taste, or are you starting with a new blank slate?

You can test your soil by taking a sample and putting it in a jam jar with some water. Let it settle overnight. If it's a bit silty it'll probably be fairly neutral. It if turns to a very heavy clay that's your answer. I'd google diy soil test for better details.

What sort of garden do you really like? Look at books to find your style. I'd recommend getting what you want now while you're starting out and in the mood as it were. I compromised and while the garden is okay it's not as fabulous as I'd wish. It'll take more effort to have a second shot at it ifswim and I wish I'd got it right first time. The situation is not irreparable but I'm a decade older now and I'm not sure I want to do it again.

@Purplewithred & @ginghamtablecloths thanks very much for the information. I'm starting out with a big (for london) garden & have zero gardening knowledge. It's south west facing & as I don't have the skill or time I'm hoping low maintenance Meditaranian style planting might be the way forward. But, I appreciate I need to put in a bit of effort to figure out the basics. Everyone says to pay a gardener to get it semi established/set up but I think it might be nice to give it a go myself first. There are a few trees/shrubs that were already here which I won't touch as they seem healthy & to do their own thing. Otherwise, I've just been growing pot based plants with varying levels of success

We’ve been doing just this in lockdown over the past year as it would have cost us a fortune to have it done professionally (due to access difficulty). You can do it! The good thing about doing it yourself with low expectations is that you have the freedom to experiment and make mistakes, and you could potentially also end up with a really nice garden for cheap. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what we’ve been able to accomplish by ourselves with some success. We’ve built stairs and several retaining walls, planted grass and some fruit trees, and cleared loads of brambles among other things.

I would just say that it’s a good idea to have a plan in mind of the general design (where you want grass/patio/path/beds/etc) before you start and try to mark things out beforehand to see if you like walking through the space with that design. As yourself if you want your plants and bushes to be functional (like fruit bearing plants and trees?) or just beautiful? Do you want space for vegetables? Where is the best light? We ended up having to move our staircase because we didn’t do that the first time around, and it was a pain. So before the big projects, really think about what you want out of your garden, then measure twice and cut once.

Obviously check into what plants or trees will go in your area. We didn’t bother having the soil tested and it was fine. We did have someone at the garden centre help us pick out the right kind of grass seed. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube about how to plant, the best time to plant, etc. we found that mixing our topsoil layer with some compost made our dirt (literally, it was nothing but dirt!) really lush and green on the first go, but that could be down to a number of unrelated factors I suppose. They say you should wait until after the final frost to plant, because newly sprouted baby grass won’t survive a big freeze.

The RHS have 2 usefulbooks to browse. The Small Garden Handbook (small is anything less than massive!) and Encyclopedia of Garden Design. I used both when starting out and still dip in now and then.
As well as all the excellent advice from PPs, also remember the dull bits and where they will go. Do you have a washing line? Bikes to store? Include them on your plan and check your proposed lovely seating area doesn't just have a view of pants and bikes!

Seems like lots of great advice above. Building a garden up yourselves is so satisfying. Love knowing all the plants and bulbs personally, so to speak,as I've put them in and encouraging them to grow.