Completely new to gardening! What to do with my garden?! (Help and ideas needed)

Hello!

First post here so sorry if it's not in the right place!
I just basically Googled "gardening help forum friendly" and ended up here, so bear with me please

Okay, so, I just bought my first house recently, the first house I have had with garden space (previous rented places only had yard areas which I never bothered with). It's a new-build, and as I didn't opt for any builder-installed garden options on purchase I was left with a large muddy and weedy patch of rubble :(

Well, after sorting some other essentials in the house (flooring, storage!), I've saved up some money and have decided to tackle the garden this summer.

First off, I decided I just want a nice grassy space to be able to lie on in the summer and read a book, and also a patio/decking area for table/chairs/BBQ etc. I'm pretty much sorted with this bit, it's the "extras" that involve actual gardening that have me stumped.

Ok, so, I managed to get a guy to turf the part of the garden that I wanted grass on, and somehow I have managed miraculously to keep it alive and green, and I think it's actually going to be okay

Here's what I have so far:


Not a huge garden, 60 sq m turfed area, and a bit behind the garage 15 sq m. So the plan is: grass on the bit you can see grass on, and around the corner, with the tatty weedy grass and bikes on, eventually that will be a patio or decking or gravel or whatever I save up for in the future:




For now though, my problem is the edges of the grassy area.

In the first picture you can see how the bottom of the fence on the left side of the garden is pretty ugly, and as you can see in this picture below, for whatever reason the turf next to the fence at the back is dead (I think possibly rubbish soil below it - the gardener said that it would be fine but it looked like rubble to me!):



I would like to maybe have a border(?) along the back of the garden... maybe along the side too? I don't want to "narrow" the garden too much by encroaching on the lawn space from the left side too much, but I could definitely dig up a foot or so at the end.

So, long story short:

1. Does anyone have suggestions to mask the ugly base of the fence down the left side without "narrowing" the lawn too much?

2. If I make a border at the far end,
a) Is it literally a case of digging up the area, getting some nice topsoil/something(?) then planting stuff - as I said, complete newbie here!
b) what sort of plants would work well? I'm really NOT a gardener, this is literally my first venture into the world of gardens so ideally something not too high maintenance for a beginning like myself.
c) are there any sort of plants that would grow up the fence to maybe hide the sheds in the garden backing onto mine?


Finally, any other ideas or anything to spice up this little space I have? AS I said above, the bare minimum I "need" is a grassy area to lie on and a patio/whatever area to eat on!

Many thanks to anyone who read through all of this wall of text, and even more thanks to anyone who can answer any of the questions! I can provide more info if needed

~ Ping

 

Hi Ping, Welcome!

I think this product would be perfect, I used it in my garden and it's very easy to use. It will give you crisp clean edges to your lawn and enables you to create a creative shape to your borders rather than boring old straight borders. If you use curves, won't cause that narrow look you want to avoid.

http://www.everedge.co.uk/Scripts/everedge/product.asp?IDProduct=1

Have a look at my thread below for an example of the shapes you can create. If you like this, I'll explain how to install it (very easy!)

 

There are a multitude of plants you can grow to climb, clematis, roses, jasmine, honeysuckle to name 4 easily obtainable, and low maintenance, they will need something to help, as most need some sort of support, can you locate the fence supports on the other side, that will be where you need to attach what you will need. Ivy and virginia creeper will climb by sticking to the fence, first you need to sort out that dead bit, remove all the rubble you can, and replace with some good top soil, then as Yvonne says a nice curving border, lay an hosepipe till you get a shape you like, it needn`t be too large yet, you can increase the depth in years to come.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

 

Oh wow, that looks great, thanks. I like the idea of a wavy border, I hadn't thought of that at all

That's really helpful, thank you I will look into the plants you mentioned.

Thanks! :D

 

Because you want to maximise the grass and to plant screening plants, you might find it a lot easier not having a border at all.

The no border method means any border appears naturally as the plants grow.

Dig a big hole depending on the plant (up to 2 x 2 x 2 ft or more for tree saplings). Stick it near the fence, bearing in mind how wide the plant will grow - anything from a foot, to three foot for trees (a metre), turn over the bottom of the hole with some manure and fill it with a nice soil and compost mix. Add peat if it's a wet place, press down then fill it up till it reaches two inches below the grass surface. If the plant is small build a little hill in the centre of the filled hole slightly higher than your grass surface for it to go in. Stick between 3-4 inches of mulch on top to fill the hole and around the plant (though don't let compost mulch touch the stem). Bark chips, which you can buy from garden centres make good mulch. Water well every fortnight in the summer. The low soil surface helps retain the water.

The advantage of not having a dug border is that you don't have to waste time and money supressing the weeds in the part nothing's growing in or which you haven't planted yet; you maximise the grass area while the plants are still small and this way every plant is given individual attention while it's growing. A high mulch border around the plant (which will soon settle down) means you can easily mow up to the edge of the former hole and not bother with a hoe, and weeds in the mulch can be pulled up by hand.

You can even place bricks around the hole edge to give a perfect finished look. If you want a number of smaller plants close together then you can dig a trench instead of a single hole. If the space between the plants you've put in is too small for the mower, fill in the gap by spraying the grass with a vinegar and water mix, lay newspaper on top to suppress weeds and put at least three inches of mulch on top.

You've still got a number of choices. If you want you can still dig the soil over and create a traditional border with an edge. But if you've got bushes or trees, then after three years or so you can equally just let the grass reclaim the surface and mow up to the plant edge to give a much softer look to the garden.

I'd plant the plants you need to be the largest and tallest first, since they'll need the longest time to grow and will grow better at first without competition. Bushes or ground cover to hide the base of the fence, trees to hide the neighbours. As long as the garden isn't too dry and you water them well in their first year, then willows are excellent fast screening plants. Crack willow you can plant close together as little saplings made from cuttings; they'll shoot up to screen the neighbours and you can trim the top like a hedge. Weeping willow makes a thick screen up high and pussy willow and silver birch grow into not too thick but nicely-shaped trees. You can always keep them cut low or get rid of them when something slower has caught up.

While all this is going on, having no border doesn't mean you can't have flowers: there are bulbs making flowers of all shapes and sizes spring out of the grass which come out at different times of year.