What to do!! - Page 2

yvonne parsons2 wrote (see)

... after spending 23 years in military accomodation ...

Gardening is quite unlike life in the military.

In your garden you can do whatever you like, and no-one will tell you off.

A garden is also a matter of personal choice. Some people do like tidy gardens, with everything under control. Others prefer a style that is wild and free (a cottage garden).

So your own personality comes into it - reflecting the type of person you are, or would like to be.

pavery026 wrote (see)

Hi I have the same dilemma as what to do with my lawn, its a rectangle with a straight flower border either side, all the comments have been extremely helpful and I love the ideas of curves. LeadFarmer your garden is just wow what a difference.

Thanks pavery026. Whilst it might look completely different this is only because I removed all the plants I didnt want, and then reshaped the lawn edges to create deeper borders to plant into.

Large lawn areas with thin borders around the edge dont really work in my opinion. At the very least I would make your borders as deep as possible, or how about having a circular shaped lawn in the middle, surrounded completely with planting? Or perhaps a figure of 8 shaped lawn? Could you post a photo of your garden so we can see what might work? 

Here's a before and after photo of the garden of my previous house. Again it had straight thin borders and looked bland...

 I created a figure of 8 shaped lawn that created deeper borders for planting...

here is my garden would be very grateful for any ideas on what to do with the lawn. As you can see I keep widening the border out for more plants, but wonder if there could be something more interesting. Right hand side of the path is the veg patch, and at the bottom I will be removing the bushes but leaving the conifers up with tops chopped off, putting a new fence up and replanting. Excuse the weeds in the gravel waiting for it to stop raining when im not at work to remove them. Hope the picture looks ok had a bit of difficulty adding it, till I realised I had to make it smaller.

Thanks

Heres a simple way of creating borders for planting. Excuse my poor artistic skills, I dont really have any editing software! ..

 Is the gravel area a patio? Could some of this area be turned over to planting by extending the garden into this area?

Go with the flow, work with nature, look at other gardens in your area to see what you like and what grows well (you could also use this as an 'excuse' to talk to neighbours and swap cuttings and seeds,) don't be in too much of a hurry, remember why you wanted a garden in the first place and enjoy the journey.

yvonne parsons2 wrote (see)

I really love the look you have created but my garden is only fenced by chain fencing. Id love to create what you have done

Why don't you grow some climbers (cheap clematis from Lidl or poundland, or Morning Glory) on some of the chainlink to soften it up a bit and give you a quick background?

Warm the hose pipe up in warm water first, to make it plyable. Or use a line of sand instead. Thats what I did.