Practical tips for starting a new garden
Extract from Gardeners' World Practical Gardening Handbook by Toby Buckland
Taking on a new garden, or a new area within an established garden, is an exciting adventure. It takes some detective work, to see what the soil is like and to work out what will grow and where. The fun really starts when you get stuck in and begin to pull the garden together.
From small acorns, great trees grow – it’s funny how one small change can have the domino effect of leading to more. So don’t be afraid to just get started, even if it’s random or you start in the least obvious place. It’s far worse to be paralyzed by the enormity of the task ahead of you, so start slowly nibbling away at the project and you will be amazed at how quickly an alien garden can start to look as if it belongs to you.
Starting a new garden
Once you have found a patch of garden to transform, start spying on your neighbours. A look over next-door’s fence or around the neighbourhood will give you a good idea of the kind of plants you
will be able to grow. Take pictures of the plants you like and get them identified and ordered at your local nursery or garden centre. Starting a new garden is a process to be relished, and also one that
should be approached according to the situation.
Old and neglected gardens
Begin by hacking back the grass to see what comes to light – often it is old gems like long-lived peonies and hidden gooseberry bushes. Once the grass is cut, it won’t get in your way when you are pruning trees and collecting rubbish. Keep the grass out of the compost though, as it will be full of weeds. Take it to your local council green-waste collection point or stack and cover it loosely with plastic, and burn it when it dries out. Take care when you are pruning not to chop out more than is necessary. I’ve been to gardens where the owners have ripped out established trees and shrubs, only to replant similar replacements. Think before you cut back and rip out, and think about what your new views will look like. An over-pruned garden is rarely a private one!
Change of use gardens
This often happens when children arrive or leave home. Crown lifting is a good way of making more lawn space for kids to play around on. And when the kids have grown up and left home, lawn lifting will restore the size of your borders.
Moving house
Approach a new garden with care. If you take on major landscaping projects in winter you could dig up and kill dormant plants. Try to start work in a small area and wait to see what appears in the rest of the garden. This way you can make the most of the floral ‘buried treasure’. You can move plants when the leaves come up, either to new flowerbeds or into a temporary nursery bed (a border where they can be left to look after themselves) until you can identify what they are. If you bring plants with you from your old garden it may be necessary to move them out of season, in which case move them straight into a nursery bed until you have time to replant them.
Seasonal jobs
When taming a wilderness, or simply controlling growth, it is often not possible to do all the work at once. Some jobs are best tackled seasonally…
Spring
Prepare the soil for planting in early spring. Trim back the remains of all herbaceous plants and grasses that are not actively growing. Rake over the soil to remove unwanted stems and ‘tickle’ the earth with a fork to remove footprints and any compacted areas. Spread mulch over the soil to create a neat finish ready for planting, or to feed existing plants. In late spring cut back tender plants that have been damaged by winter cold, leaving just the fresh new shoots to develop through the summer.
Summer
Hoeing is a brilliant fast way to get rid of annual weeds quickly – do it on a hot dry day and once hoed, the heat of the sunshine will finish the weeds off. Give vegetable crops at least two thorough weeds as they fill out their rows and establish. In a new garden, create plenty of space around plants to give you room to weed around them. Textbooks might tell you that planting close smothers weeds, but this is only true in established gardens where weed seedlings struggle to out-grow their long established neighbours. Prune branches that are blocking paths while the trees are in leaf, and in late summer cut back any gloomy shrubs that may be clogging the borders. Trim overly long and neglected grass – ideally mow only half the height of the grass at one time, reducing the cutting height of the blades over a few weeks to create a lawn. Even if the grass looks bare to start with it should green-up before autumn and winter.
Autumn
This is the time for major pruning work and digging up perennial weeds, such as bindweed and ground elder. If you can, dig them out with their roots, but if you can’t at least your newly created borders will look spic and span for the winter and will be ready for coving with weed-killing mulch. Rake up, collect and compost fallen leaves. Mow around apple trees and pick up all windfall apples, otherwise they can sit on the soil and spread diseases, such as brown-rot, back onto next years developing crop.
Winter
Lift areas of lawn and dig new borders, adding lots of compost or manure to improve the soil. Trim up and shape lawns, especially around young trees, allowing for at least 50cm (2ft) of soil around the base of each tree so that the grass doesn’t compete with the tree for water and nutrients. Cut back all but the best-looking herbaceous plants and compost those you get rid of.
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