Forum home› Garden design
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

New home with a very untidy back garden (no understatement!)

kevndollymoorekevndollymoore Posts: 1
in Garden design
If all goes well we are about to purchase a house with a very unkempt back garden. It is (approx) 60 foot square and falls away from the house by about three feet. It looks to have quite a few well established plants including fuscia, roses, rhubarb, iris as well as a twenty foot tree and a huge bramble patch! I don't know where the original lawned areas are and wondered whether anyone had any advice? Cheers Kev.

Posts

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    The best advice is always to leave a garden alone for a year to see what comes up, how it behaves and then you take photos and notes to remind you what you love/hate/need to prune/feed/and so on and also think about which way the garden faces and how you want to use it - recreation/entertaining/wildlife/cut flowers/play area and how much time you have each week to maintain it.

    In the current heat wave you should limit yourself to clearing obvious brambles, thistles and rubbish as plants will already be stressed.

    Assuming the purchase goes thru, come back with some photos and then we can help more.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    Clear a space near the house then as Obelixx advises, watch and wait to see what you have
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • Valley GardenerValley Gardener Posts: 2,851
    Great advice Obelixx. Some of which I should have followed!!
    The whole truth is an instrument that can only be played by an expert.
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    My friend bought a bungalow which had been vacant for two years, this March. We started by cutting down all the brambles. We tried shredding, but when we broke the shredder had a bonfire to clear as much stuff as we could. Three years growth of clematis got cut down. Then all sorts of things started popping up. Hellebores, agapanthus, epimediums.  Four months on, it looks really good. Not perfect yet, but given the trying conditions we have had , (she is on a water meter ), pretty good. Clear as much of what is obviously weed as you can.  We sprayed the lawn to kill it and start again as it was a bit like Trumps hair. You lifted a big tuft and there was nothing underneath.  Apart from that, the bones of the garden were already there. It was a bit like bringing Sleeping Beauty's castle grounds back to life.
Sign In or Register to comment.