Garden help

Soot2006

What a glorious garden! Where is South?

Invest in a good cordless lawnmower to make life easy.  Start mowing regularly until the grass is tamed. Is the garden covered in ground elder/brambles? I can see leaves but can't work out what it is on the photo. 

Join a gardening Facebook Group and be prepared to receive one million ideas ...

 I am on my second large garden, both I started from blank. The first one I was a bit cautious and ended up with a lot of things around the edges + some trees and beds dotted about.  This one, I've gone all out, visiting formal gardens for inspiration, etc, and it's way more "fun". But entirely low maintenance and I always keep a large bit of lawn/moss/creeping thyme for my dog agility set up. Fruit trees and bushes, bulbs, flowers, wildflowers - the sky is the limit.

I get a lot off Facebook marketplace as people give away so many plants, garden furniture, pots, etc. My garden looks very expensive, contents-wise but is mostly grown from cutting and free/cheap things

I haven't answered your question but. I will leave you with two questions:

1) which window do you look out the most and what would you like to see from it? (colour, big screening plants and no neighbours, etc)

2) what do you want to use the garden for?  Tanning on a hammock between the trees? Running around in circles like a madperson?  Pottering around deadline flowers at 6am because it cures your depression (that's my category!!!).

Bendy_House

I'm with Ashe, although I haven't checked out the Google results yet.
But this is the furthest away part of your garden? Your closest section is presumably neat lawn, or could be made so?
In which case, have 2 distinct areas, one the decorative/sit-out lawn near the house (and patio?), and the other a lovely 'secret' garden, lots of shrubs and bushes, and with gravel or woodchip areas to walk down, to find seating under that larger tree. What's nicer than sitting under a shady tree at the height of summer?
Begging for a summer-house, too, or a sheltering gazebo, all designed to blend in with the planting.
Can't you hear folks saying, "Nice lawn! Oh, what's down there...?"

FreeBear

Soot2006 said: Invest in a good cordless lawnmower to make life easy.  Start mowing regularly until the grass is tamed. Is the garden covered in ground elder/brambles? I can see leaves but can't work out what it is on the photo.

There is very little in the way of grass in that "lawn" at present. Much of it is weeds with rubble & building waste thrown in - None of that will do a lawn mower any good. I'd go over it with a rotavator a couple of times after picking out the bulk of the rubble. If there are any little helpers (a.k.a. children) in the household, get them to follow the rotavator and pick up the lumps of rock & brick that gets churned up. Once the land is clear of weeds & debris, chuck some seed down - If you are wanting a lawn, the ground should be leveled & rollered to compact it a bit before the grass goes down.

swampduck

That's some garden - I'm really envious!!
But practically speaking a garden that size could put the frighteners on you as in that there is a lot of work to do. But that said - I'd get a skip and remove as much rubble and stuff as you can, then focus on an area close to the house and work on that first. As someone mentioned earlier where is south? As this will have some bearing on where you may want a seating area or barbecue for example.
If you work on a smaller area first then it may not be so daunting when you think about the rest and what you think you may like to have in your outside space. In other words - How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!!! 
If you have kids or grandkids you may want a play area, or consider stepping some areas of the garden to take out the slopes and building some walls to hold back the soil while creating seating and little niches to enjoy while the sun moves around. Take into account whether or not you are a gardener and will enjoy pottering or if you want the easy life and would rather enjoy life sitting in the garden as opposed to working in it!! We are not all  budding Monty Dons even if we aspire to it!!
Do keep us updated - I'd love to see your progress and ideas in action!!!

Section62

swampduck said:

But that said - I'd get a skip and remove as much rubble and stuff as you can....

I'd keep the rubble (in a neat pile) until I'd decided what to do with the garden.  No point paying for a skip to take away rubble, then pay over the odds to import material when some hardcore is needed.

I'd also avoid buying a nice new cordless mower to tackle the rough stuff.  It will be wrecked in no time. The OP's garden is more than large enough to justify a petrol mower (ideally with steel deck).

swampduck

Section62 said:

swampduck said:

But that said - I'd get a skip and remove as much rubble and stuff as you can....

I'd keep the rubble (in a neat pile) until I'd decided what to do with the garden.  No point paying for a skip to take away rubble, then pay over the odds to import material when some hardcore is needed.

I'd also avoid buying a nice new cordless mower to tackle the rough stuff.  It will be wrecked in no time. The OP's garden is more than large enough to justify a petrol mower (ideally with steel deck).

Good point!!

Bendy_House

Ashe's terracing wasn't what I had in mind - now I've checked the link - but more filling the area with large bushes/small trees through which leads a meandering path, ending at a private chilling area around the large tree. It could even be accessed via an arbor, separating the 'formal' garden from the 'secret' one.
Once planted, and a gravel or woodchip path, it should be low maintenance, only requiring snipping, but little ground work. 
It could also be quite dreamy :-)

lky2k23

Any tips on a lawnmower for the space. I'd rather electric chordless, but given the size do I have to go petrol? 

ka7e

Turn it into a wild-life friendly garden - clear the grass and sow wildflower mix. It only needs mowing once or twice a year and should self-seed each year.  Make piles of rubble/stones and wood separately as wild-life habitats.It would be labour-intensive to start with, but then could give you a few years breathing space until you decided on it's future use.

Ebe_Scrooge

lky2k23 said:

Any tips on a lawnmower for the space. I'd rather electric chordless, but given the size do I have to go petrol? 

You don't "have" to go for petrol.  But for a larger garden, personally I think petrol is a lot more convenient.  No running out of charge mid-way through the job, no trailing long extension leads around the place.  A petrol mower will be a lot more powerful (which is a bonus if the lawn is very uneven, or if you want to mow it less often, meaning the grass will be longer when you come to cut it).  It's likely to last longer than an electric one, and they're a lot simpler to repair if something does go wrong.

Downsides - heavier, noisier, more expensive.  For me personally, I'd never use anything except a petrol one, but it's personal choice - like I say, there are pros and cons to both options.