I live in France and online gives you more variety but the plants are usually much smaller and often poor quality. You are lucky in the UK to get such good service.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
I've spent the last few years watching GW and every few minutes saying "Oh, I used to have that in my old garden. I must grow it again!" but I don't know if it's my age, my excitement or being too busy to know whether I'm coming or going - I now can't remember a thing! What I probably need to do is calm down and go for a walk around my old garden in my head, making notes. Then I'll do the looking through books and magazines thing.
I don't have a cold frame (yet) either, Verdun, but I do have polythene and bits of wood. I'll see what I can cobble together. However, run of the mill or new varieties are all wonderful to me .
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
PS it's not exactly a 'blank canvas' in that there was a good garden before, which had got very out of hand and wasn't really 'me' (which is one of the reasons it got so out of hand). It's a more or less complete redesign job, but there are a number of trees (as many as it can take) and shrubs I've retained. It's the flower, and eventually veg, beds I'm most concerned with... and then there's a pond to create (maybe not this year).
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
Create your master plan, allow for seasonal variety but allow yourself some flexibility that will allow your garden to grow as you become more used to the garden and what it gives you.
Also concentrate on one area at a time. I know its tempting to have the instant garden but given the financial costs and time costs it is easier to start work on your "most return" projects and also your long term planting. I started out with a blank canvas and after 11 years I am still adding to the "masterpiece".
Good luck with your venture and have fun doing it.
1. Get yourself a notebook and get jotting! Types of plants you like the look of, ones you see in books, on TV. Write them down before you can forget. I have to confess that due to my memory issues I take photographs of the plant, the plant label, and the care instructions. My phone has quite the old collection of photographs.
2. Do you know what soil type you have? Or where is damp / dry / acid / alkaline / the general might affect picky plants type of thing. That always helps focus your mind as to what you can have.
3. There's nothing wrong with a bit of bare soil, I do like tidy beds with plenty of soil between the flowers especially when you put all the effort into keeping them tidy
4. Do you have a theme for the garden? I.e. country garden. Or areas that need to have a certain criteria? I.e. hiding the neighbours monster of a garage that lunges through your eyesight like a fat naked man on the beach.
5. No matter how well you plan it, no matter how many hours you stare and stare at your garden. You WILL end up moving one plant at least three times. My poor daffodils seem to get their bulbs dug up after every season to be moved somewhere else and I'm still not sure their current location is any good.
Clarington there's no theme as such, but I do have a picture in my mind's eye... I have set up a fairly formal structure which I'm very happy with, but the idea is to soften the edges and have pretty full, and fulsome, flower borders. The style we inherited here was trees, lawn and shrubs, and I love flowers! I want and need it to be a sanctuary, so privacy is important but I'm going to have to be quite clever with that as it's a North-facing, long, thin town garden that already has quite a few trees at the boundaries (kept for privacy more than anything) - I can't add much more height as it'll throw too much shade. But the structure, I hope, will provide nooks and crannies to hide in once there is some plant height.
Gosh, I went on a bit there.
Verdun (or anyone else with an opinion to share!), would the cloches on the Offers page be worth getting to protect those herbaceous perennials? I cant tell what size they are.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
Posts
I live in France and online gives you more variety but the plants are usually much smaller and often poor quality. You are lucky in the UK to get such good service.
I've spent the last few years watching GW and every few minutes saying "Oh, I used to have that in my old garden. I must grow it again!" but I don't know if it's my age, my excitement or being too busy to know whether I'm coming or going - I now can't remember a thing! What I probably need to do is calm down and go for a walk around my old garden in my head, making notes. Then I'll do the looking through books and magazines thing.
I don't have a cold frame (yet) either, Verdun, but I do have polythene and bits of wood. I'll see what I can cobble together. However, run of the mill or new varieties are all wonderful to me
.
PS it's not exactly a 'blank canvas' in that there was a good garden before, which had got very out of hand and wasn't really 'me' (which is one of the reasons it got so out of hand). It's a more or less complete redesign job, but there are a number of trees (as many as it can take) and shrubs I've retained. It's the flower, and eventually veg, beds I'm most concerned with... and then there's a pond to create (maybe not this year).
One bite at a time.
Create your master plan, allow for seasonal variety but allow yourself some flexibility that will allow your garden to grow as you become more used to the garden and what it gives you.
Also concentrate on one area at a time. I know its tempting to have the instant garden but given the financial costs and time costs it is easier to start work on your "most return" projects and also your long term planting. I started out with a blank canvas and after 11 years I am still adding to the "masterpiece".
Good luck with your venture and have fun doing it.
1. Get yourself a notebook and get jotting! Types of plants you like the look of, ones you see in books, on TV. Write them down before you can forget. I have to confess that due to my memory issues I take photographs of the plant, the plant label, and the care instructions. My phone has quite the old collection of photographs.
2. Do you know what soil type you have? Or where is damp / dry / acid / alkaline / the general might affect picky plants type of thing. That always helps focus your mind as to what you can have.
3. There's nothing wrong with a bit of bare soil, I do like tidy beds with plenty of soil between the flowers especially when you put all the effort into keeping them tidy
4. Do you have a theme for the garden? I.e. country garden. Or areas that need to have a certain criteria? I.e. hiding the neighbours monster of a garage that lunges through your eyesight like a fat naked man on the beach.
5. No matter how well you plan it, no matter how many hours you stare and stare at your garden. You WILL end up moving one plant at least three times. My poor daffodils seem to get their bulbs dug up after every season to be moved somewhere else and I'm still not sure their current location is any good.
Thank you ian.
Clarington there's no theme as such, but I do have a picture in my mind's eye... I have set up a fairly formal structure which I'm very happy with, but the idea is to soften the edges and have pretty full, and fulsome, flower borders. The style we inherited here was trees, lawn and shrubs, and I love flowers! I want and need it to be a sanctuary, so privacy is important but I'm going to have to be quite clever with that as it's a North-facing, long, thin town garden that already has quite a few trees at the boundaries (kept for privacy more than anything) - I can't add much more height as it'll throw too much shade. But the structure, I hope, will provide nooks and crannies to hide in once there is some plant height.
Gosh, I went on a bit there.
Verdun (or anyone else with an opinion to share!), would the cloches on the Offers page be worth getting to protect those herbaceous perennials? I cant tell what size they are.
Okay, I thought that would be the case but just wondered!
That offers page is very dangerous.
I do! Very.