First time garden-owner - help needed!

Green_hopeful

Don’t use bleach or salt in the garden. If you get a hoe or an old knife you can just cut back the weeds in the paving. Mulch is good for getting rid of little weeds. You can google no dig gardening. He uses cardboard but for the little weeds you have some bark laid between the plants will kill many and make the others easier to pull up. Good luck. Once you get started it won’t take too much effort. 

NoisyGiraffe

twopenny said:

That wall and coping is really attractive. You could make a lovely garden against it quite easily and cheaply and get less weeds if you buy plants that cover the soil rather than those you have which leave so much space.

It looks to me as though the previous owner planted the beds with pansies and Gladioli from the supermarket. A good splash of colour quickly, probably for sale.

At this time of year it's not so easy to pick and choose but even though it's north facing you could probably plant lavenders by the wall, Hurcheras in front which come in different leaf colours from dark red to lime green and flower in summer and have some pansies in the pockets in front in between which will give year round colour, good for bees and some scent. The bonus is there would be hardly room for weeds.

They are available from supermarkets April onwards if you want really cheap or you can get them year round from a garden centre.

The Hucheras (look at the colours online) are in Morrisons right now (£3-5 for a decent size), you've got the pansies so that's a saving. I just bought some bulbs from a small village food store for £1 and the same ones are in the garden centre for £3.

In spring of course you would have a lot more choice. There's also an option to have box balls and such If we get car boots and road side plant sales next year that's a good place to find stuff though the supermarkets are the cheapest and decent size plants.

If you buy a cheap garden long handled fork you should be able to rake over the soil between your existing plants with the prongs and save you and your nails a lot of time.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LONG-HANDLED-43cm-Cushion-Grip-Garden-FORK-Hand-Tool-/163516135621

The slabs look a bit close together to get the weeds out but you could try one of these from your local hardware shop

https://unibos.co.uk/garden-patio-weed-weeding-knife-tool-weeder-moss-remover-slab-grove-paving-pk100.html

And clean up the slabs with some of the cheap bleach in a watering can and a stiff brush will make all the difference unless you have a pressure washer. I did mine in my new place and it was worth the effort for the difference it made.

Thanks for such a detailed reply! I'll definitely be following your tips as soon as I can. I've had a look at the plants you've suggested and they're really lovely and I'm keen to have a bit of variety going forward. At the moment though if really filling all 4 beds is the best way forward I'll need the cheapest option (I'm not always so tight haha, I just had to pay out for a new boiler/rads so funds are pretty low at the moment!)

I've seen that b&q have winter pansies/violas on offer at the moment 4 packs of 9 plants for £11. I know it might look a bit boring to play it safe, but if it does the job for a few months then I'd be ok with that. How many do you think I would need to fill it out properly? Would 72 be enough?

Also, the pansies that are already there will have been planted earlier this year. Are they likely to die off as it gets colder and then leave me with bare patches? Should I fill in around them with winter pansies as much as possible?

NoisyGiraffe

goldfinches said:

I would ask around among friends/family/neighbours/colleagues for anything that will give you reliable ground cover from now until next spring explaining that you're going to have a blitz and are then hoping to pack things in so tightly that no weed can get a foothold.
Hopefully, other people you know will give you lots of self seeded this and that, that they don't want, to tide you over until you have had a chance to get yourself a bit more settled and you've had time to see how the sun falls and plan how you want to use the front garden eventually. And then you just cram them in really close and dust on loads of bone meal, give them a good water and hope they take well enough to keep going through winter.
The other thing you could do is to again have a one day blitz and then sow something very thickly to again take you through to late spring, mint maybe or winter greens or leaves or some wildflower mix or wallflowers or something that will get away in the next fortnight or so.
There's a college garden near here that used a wildflower seed mix on a bed they usually plant up with bedding and they sowed it so thickly that it was absolutely impossible for anything else to get a toehold. It has been a stunning success and is much admired by many locals.
Do any of those pansies/violas have seed pods and can you collect and scatter those around too? 
Whatever you decide, enjoy your new house and garden and do what works for you, happy grubbing in the soil, goldfinches.

Thanks for this! I have 2 neighbours with lovely, full gardens so I'll have a chat with them and see if they have anything. 

I quite like the idea of wildflower seeds, I've seen some pictures of people doing this for their whole front garden and it looks lovely. I had a look around and most seem to say full sun so I'm not sure if it would work on the side that's closest to the house. Would they flower at this time of year if I got them out quickly? Sorry if they're silly questions! 

NoisyGiraffe

Green_hopeful said:

Don’t use bleach or salt in the garden. If you get a hoe or an old knife you can just cut back the weeds in the paving. Mulch is good for getting rid of little weeds. You can google no dig gardening. He uses cardboard but for the little weeds you have some bark laid between the plants will kill many and make the others easier to pull up. Good luck. Once you get started it won’t take too much effort. 

I made a start yesterday and have managed to clear the side closest to the house. Took a couple of hours with me carefully trying to get every last bit of weed out! Going to do more today and see if I can get it all finished and then I can focus on maintaining it. Cleaning the slabs might be a job for next weekend!

theoretica

Boiling water is a no-chemical help for small weeds between slabs - not as effective as harder methods, but nice and easy so long as you mind your toes.

goldfinches

NoisyGiraffe said:

Green_hopeful said:

Don’t use bleach or salt in the garden. If you get a hoe or an old knife you can just cut back the weeds in the paving. Mulch is good for getting rid of little weeds. You can google no dig gardening. He uses cardboard but for the little weeds you have some bark laid between the plants will kill many and make the others easier to pull up. Good luck. Once you get started it won’t take too much effort. 

I made a start yesterday and have managed to clear the side closest to the house. Took a couple of hours with me carefully trying to get every last bit of weed out! Going to do more today and see if I can get it all finished and then I can focus on maintaining it. Cleaning the slabs might be a job for next weekend!

Oh, well done for a really good job; now get something over it quick! Otherwise every opportunistic weed for miles around will arrive and start sprouting. 
Re: the wildflower questions. I think you might be okay there in that bed because it gets a good bit of daylight so if you've found a mix you like and can afford why not. You're probably right that they won't flower now until spring but you might get a few depending on how fast they get away and where you are.
I'm wondering about suggesting some greens that grow over winter instead which you could intersperse with the pansies/violas you mentioned above and I had a look at this page https://www.realseeds.co.uk/mustardgreens.html I mean £2.11 for 400 dragon's tongues sounds like a bargain to me and you could eat them too. I don't much fancy the look of the "thing" at the bottom of the page but you might. 
Happy gardening, goldfinches.

NoisyGiraffe

Update! So I've been working hard all week with a couple of hours each evening after work, and I've almost finished the garden. Just one patch left between the gate post and the rose bush on the front wall to weed and fill in with new plants around the existing ones.

Thanks for all the advice on here, its very much appreciated. I spoke to a couple of greenfingered neighbours too who gave me some pointers. I'm incredibly indecisive so to avoid me spending weeks deciding which plants and arrangements I eventually want, I decided to just go for it and get things in there!

I've got Euonymus emerald n gold, Gaultheria big berry, Skimmia rubella, and Hebe tricolour in the 4 corners. There are already roses in the middle of three sides so I've kept them there and added a harts tongue fern in the middle of the side closest to the house which is the most shady spot. I've filled everything else in with (more than I expected!) winter pansies. 

I'm hoping that it'll do well enough over winter and I'll make sure I keep going out to pull weeds to keep on top of them this time. And in the meantime I'll be planning what I want to plant next year so I don't have to rely on quite so many pansies!! The advice seems to be to go for a mix of shrubs, ferns and perennials and then I can leave spots to fill in with bedding plants as I please, which makes sense to me.

And the more time I've spent out there this week, the more I'm starting to doubt how much I want a driveway in the future! 😂

Thanks again everyone!

NoisyGiraffe

Forgot to add these to my post! Cleaning the paving stones is still on my to do list.

NoisyGiraffe

And this one...

DiggerUK

You are finding out that just 'getting stuck in' is the best way to garden. A good 'feed 'n fertiliser' with 'Keep it Simple' works wonders as well.
Pansies give a good colourful show and can be grown all year round. As you work the soil, weeds will become more manageable.
Start adding bulbs and corms in clumps, they will come up every year and are good long term value and little maintenance beyond deadheading and cutting back when done for. There are enough to provide variety nearly all year round.

Long term you could consider checker boarding the slabs to open up more growing space, or even go to pots and tubs.

For now you have the inside to do, make that a priority. On days out go to gardens, garden centres and parks, you'll be surprised at the inspiration you can get. Nosing at other houses gardens is also acceptable. 

Er? not meaning to stress you out, but have you got a back garden as well.....just asking..._