Mature garden - help

[Peanutbutteryday]

We’ve inherited a mature garden with our new property. I really want to simplify it so it’s becomes much more easier for day to day maintenance - but have absolutely no idea where to start!!! Any tips?

I agree. This is a well-planned garden that really works and (to me, a lifelong gardener age 60) looks very low-maintenance. It is wildlife friendly, too.

Go a year to observe the changes with the seasons. You may find that you want more evergreen for color in the winter, or something like that. But give it a chance before you make major changes.

Thanks again everyone. One thing I’ve noticed the last few days is that lavender is very popular round here (also popular with the bees!). Could this be a sensible replacement for my exponentially growing ground coverage plants?

Lavender needs pruning every year then every 5-8 years you have to pull the plants up and replace them.

I have ground coverage plants e.g. geraniums that have lasted longer than lavender plants, simply because I've chopped them back 1-2 times per year.

(Pruning = careful removal of parts of plants, chopping = randomly cutting parts back because they look messy.)

My dear MIL, a great gardener, used to say- 'watch a garden for a year before doing anything drastic'.
It looks like a low-maintenance garden to me as it is. Shrubs and ground cover plants and a not-too-massive lawn. I'd watch for a year and if any of the things didn't justify themselves (I think every plant need to do 2 things- e.g., fragrance and winter colour, or good for bees and useful in the kitchen, or whatever.
(You'd have to weed under lavender.)

What ever anyone says, it is your garden, and if you don’t feel happy with it that a good enough reason to change.

I would take out a lot do the shrubs bordering the lawn. Then reduce the height of the other plants.

then I would wait a year to get used to the feel of the garden and how you want to use it. I would suggest not rush to buy new plants until you have seen all four seasons.

As someone with a lot of shrubs in the garden - cut them often and you get thin growth that the hedge trimmer goes through in seconds. Leave them grow too long and you get hard woody stems that take a lot more cutting. We get the hedge trimmer out maybe twice a year. It's not light but you would operate it for perhaps 15-20 minutes for your garden, then another 5-10 minutes oiling it (spray it before and after use) and half an hour raking up and disposing of the cuttings.

We had other means of cutting things back previously but it takes half the time with the Stilh, wish we had invested in it sooner. We have one like this https://www.stihl.co.uk/en/p/hedge-trimmers-long-reach-hedge-trimmers-hle-71-electric-long-reach-hedge-trimmer-1366#125-degrees-1366

The highest maintenance part is the lawn. The mature beds are mainly shrubs I'm guessing and they are very low maintenance.

Do you have any neighbours, family or friends who know gardening? I think you need some advice before taking drastic action. I saw your update about lavendar. It's likely to be much more high maintenace then what you got. They go leggy very quickly. It means they become all wood and no flowers. You need pruning to make them stay bushy and likely you need to replace every 5 years or so. The ground cover you can usually just leave as is and trim around the edges.

Everything grows fast this time of year. Your ground cover plants will likely die back in autumn. Your shrubs just need a yearly prune. Just keep the edges neat and the lawn cut for now and maybe look to see what you actually have and read up and research before changing anything. If you can afford it maybe hire a gardener to help and teach you what is what.

It is a lovely garden as it is.

It's lovely! I've got a mature garden and I'm not a gardener but like someone said up thread I'm finding all sorts growing. Mine needs more work than yours.

Heritage plants are my favourite!

The garden already looks very low maintenance. I wouldn't plant lavender, it will be much higher maintenance than what you have. I'm not sure I understand what the issue is with the ground cover plants growing. It is literally what they are meant to do. If you start pulling them up you will get many more weeds which will definitely be Hugh maintenance.
The garden looks like it has been planned very well by someone that knows what they are doing. I wouldn't be in a hurry to start digging things up, especially if you font know much about gardening. You could end up with the opposite of what you want.