How do i make my garden look good and not depressing / boring please? I am clueless!

Hi everyone!

So this is a picture of my garden from hanging out of the window. I would really appreciate some help on everything from how to lay it out , what features to put in it , what kind of plant pots, fence paint colors and plants etc please.

The garden is north facing , budget wise would be nice to do it with £200 but happy to spend more if it equals a lot better garden

My garden and landscaping knowledge is 0 so though it would be a good idea to get some expert help

Look forward to peoples replies and ideas

 

Greeny lifts the mood . What are you looking for landscaping ideas or plants ? What under the pebbles as well . Lots of roses / others will happy cover your shed and seat swing . Pot are ideal and big the better is my opinion but they come at a price but barrels are ideal at around £20-25 from B&M etc

 

Thanks for getting back to me!

Pebbles are at least a foot deep, it then goes to a anti weed mat.

Do you think maybe paint the shed and fences green?

Looking for both landscaping and plant ideas :-)

 

Hello @HoleInOne welcome to the forum. I think it's more what do you like? Colours, do you want grass, plants, a water feature, seating etc, get yourself a rough idea and I think you'll find you will be given loads of advice to help you achieve it.

 

Hi Mazambo!

Thanks for the welcome

I was wondering if to make a putting / chipping green with some colorful plants about. Not sure if that is possible though without spending a few thousand on it?

 

@HoleInOne I would go with lots of pots and troughs, these you could put a variety of plants in, annuals, bulbs, climbers and roses etc. These will give you colour and break up the fence panels and the shed. You could put trellis in front of the shed and grow climbers up that.
A water feature would work well and you can get small solar powered ones.
The current lock down might stop you doing much, but you can look around and get ideas for when the garden centres reopen.

 

I use Photoshop, and post the images here, but don't tell anyone

Is there any earth under the gravel, or is it all hard surfaces?

If you have soil then Exotic is a style that has somethings going for it.

Mostly very fast growing, lush, plants. Lots of architectural shapes in the various leaves, and as such there isn't a "two week flowering window and then ... nothing", which some plants (Bulbs, Shrubs) are inclined to. Downside: some of the plants will be tender and need some means of looking after in Winter. It will look TERRIBLE in Winter (but that would be true of most solutions - unless you can ring the changes with e.g. Bulbs)

If you want colour all summer long then its basically Bedding plants / Annuals / Coleus and tubers like Begonias

Or vegetables? There's a YouTube channel on growing Veg in Flower Buckets (which you can get cheap, or for free, from your local Supermarket and you would be upcycling an otherwise one-time-use plastic :( ) - Home Grown Veg YouTube

Vertical Garden on the fences perhaps?



Or you could have something geometric and potentially low maintenance. I think they are much easier to have "look good" for a week at the Chelsea Flower Show than 365 days a year ... (Astroturf almost certainly a better choice than real grass ...)



Possibly some lighting so that it has value at night too (that's probably next year's £200 budget, so that this year's can be for Plants )

 

What about going for a duck-egg blue for the shed and swing, like in the second photo here? It would complement the path and gravel but lift the mood a little and provide some balance to the colour as they are opposite. I have some green fencing but it's not good if you decide to grow lots of plants, not enough contrast with the foliage. Would be cooling if you mainly use your garden in Spring/Summer, too! You could have some large blue glazed terracotta pots where your current ones are and another by the shed, like the one in the same photo but larger (as Perki said, the larger the better but make sure they will fit into the corner) and plain for a cleaner, tidier look.

Re-vamp your shed - a really short & easy guide - The Middle-Sized Garden

Nick

 

I would definitely agree re the shed/fence painting, though for the fence at least I would be inclined to go for something darker or even black - it provides a really good backdrop for greenery from the plants, and as the plants fill out merges gently into the shades. A brighter colour for the shed could then be a more striking focus.

It sounds like getting back to bare soil would be a huge effort, so like the others have said I would be inclined to concentrate on filling the space with pots of lots of different sizes - there was an excellent feature on last week's Gardeners World about a woman whose entire garden was pots, definitely worth looking for on iplayer, and Alexander Hoyle did a bunch of stuff about his pot garden online last year too.

If veg growing catches your fancy then that's still an option with containers too - I've grown tomatos, cucumber, carrots, parsnips, celeriac, red cabbage and broccoli in pots to varying degrees of success, along with cut-and-come-again salads, strawberries, herbs etc.

In terms of what non-edible plants to go for, if you're north facing I'm assuming it's quite a shadey space? Hostas, fuscia and ferns would be my immediate go-to, all of which can look great in containers of various sizes.

 

Welcome to the forum @HoleInOne ! I agree with the consensus that containers are the way to go. If you place something in the wrong spot, you can simply pick it up and move it.

I assume your budget, which is a good start, is limited due to having to buy lots of rounds at the club for too many holes in one

 

Shoot me down for a silly idea but if you wanted a putting green, ....... four bits of wood, 2 long, 2 short. Wedged into the gravel. A nice layer of sand and top it off with Astro turf! Trim the hole and jobs a good one

 

One thing to beware of before embarking on a garden comprising hundred of pots ... watering! For some therapeutic, for others a chore ... and for the rest of us a MASSIVE chore! Upside is that, whilst watering, you get close to each plant and are more likely to spot anything amiss, ad fix it in good time, compared to just admiring the garden from afar. But if it were me I'd be installing an irrigation system for a mega-pot-garden (NO YOU LOT ... NOT the type that needs LED lights ... )

 

x

 

Getting back to soil would defiantly be a massive back breaking effort.

Never thought about going darker on the fences. In my mind i always thought painting it a light brown colour would help brighten the garden up, but your plan to go darker sounds very intriguing! Is the fence on the left hand side the shade of dark brown you are thinning to or even darker? Maybe forest oak in Cuprinol 5 year version?

Any colour ideas for the bench and shed which look good?


Fuscias look amazing! Any other flowers like that which are bright and colourful and do well in North facing garden? I get a lot of sun in the top 1/4 of the garden near the swing bench.

I will check out the bbc iplayer recommendation for some plant pot inspiration .

 

I had no idea you could get a irrigation system for plant pots! Sometimes i do struggle with time so this might be a good way forward i will have a research