Flower bed - tips please

Velja

Dear MSers,

We bought a house in August (yay!).

I never had a garden before so don't know what to do with a flower bed. There's plants on there, strawberry patch and rhubarb.

What should I do with it? Cut back dead leaves etc and if I want to plant new bulbs which I got from Thompson & Morgan offer, should I dig the old ones up?

Apologies but we really haven't got a clue of how it all works.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

remembermee

How exciting!

We moved into our new house 12 months ago and it was my first house with my first real garden! We have excitedly (my hubby more reluctantly!) got the garden sorted this year!

You can put your bulbs straight into the ground - no need to lift the old ones. You may have some surprises as to what the previous owners put there for bulbs already (or maybe not in the case of our garden!).

Generally speaking what needs to be cut back and tidied in Autumn does depend on what is growing there. My strawberry plants are still with a healthy green leaf so I won't cut them back. However, if they are brown and dry, yes, cut them off - don't dig them up though otherwise you'll get no strawberries next year.

You could also try planting plansies along with the bulbs so that there is some colour over the winter before the bulbs come into flower. Also, from December onwards you'll notice your bulbs beginning to send out green shoots. I find this nice in the dead of winter when everything is dead and it is a sure sign that winter will not last forever!

madjackslam

Firstly, congratulations on your new garden.

It's difficult to be precise without more details, but some general advice might be:

Do you have a friend who is knowledgeable about plants/gardening? Invite them round to have a look. They may well be able to help identify existing plants/shrubs, and provide you with advice about what to do.

Wait. If it looks like there are things planted in the garden, then it can be a good idea to give it a year to see what comes up, whether you like it, and what you want to do with it. Existing bulbs, for example, won't be visible at all at the moment, so in Spring you might get a nice surprise.

Flower bed or productive bed. You say it's a flower bed, but it appears to have food plants in (strawberries and rhubarb). Some people like to mix and match, but could it be productive rather than decorative? If so, the other plants might be fruit that's finished by now, or vegetables? You don't have to keep it that way, but just FYI.

In terms of the bulbs from T&M, you can always move them in a subsequent year, so put them in where you would like them, and if it turns out something's already in, you can change your mind. Or you can put them in pots.

Enjoy!

Velja

Wow, this is amazing. Thank you both so much for your advice.

I don't have any gardening friends

I will plant the T&M bulbs now rather than wait a year to see what comes up. We put an offer on the house in April and have been visiting the house throughout the summer so have an idea what's there.
Exciting!

remembermee

Velja wrote: »

Wow, this is amazing. Thank you both so much for your advice.

I don't have any gardening friends

I will plant the T&M bulbs now rather than wait a year to see what comes up. We put an offer on the house in April and have been visiting the house throughout the summer so have an idea what's there.
Exciting!

Aww well you have us as gardening friends now! I'm quite new to gardening too but I've learnt a lot of stuff pretty quickly We have a small quirky garden which didn't have much in it so I've been planting, planting and planting! And it's really taking off.
Careful not to get things that grow too quickly though (as tempting as it is sometimes) as it'll just create more work in the long run when you need to keep cutting it back!

andrewf75

Gardening is something you get into gradually. As a starting point just go to a garden centre and take loads of time to browse. See what you like and read the labels or ask someone to find out when it can be planted etc. There will be some plants you can plant now, others like bulbs which can be planted now. Then when it comes to spring you can see how its looking and add some more.

firebird082

We had exactly the same last year. It's been a lot of hard work, as ours was quite overgrown. Most important thing - don't do anything too fast! I bought waaay too many cheap perennials as plugs, and I'm still trying to dig enough flowerbeds to plant them in.

Draw out a plan of your garden as it is currently. Mark in stuff that's already there and you want to keep. Think about how you'd like the place to look in 5 years time and start reading up and making plans

Oh, and enjoy! We've thoroughly enjoyed our first foray into gardening, though I have no doubt that we are making mistakes along the way!

sheramber

I would not do anything until you see what grows next year.

You could [lant your bulbs up in pots for this year and then put them into the flower beds next year, once you know whats what.

Plant the bulbs in a multipurpose compost. Once floweirng is finished feed with a liquid fertiliser to feed the bulbs for the folowwing year and then plant them in the garden next autumn.