I moved into a house that had landscaped gardens and therefore didnt need any maintenance. However, I've been there for 3 years now and the bushes are getting untidy and need trimming. I have absolutely no idea when it comes to plants and usually kill every plant I lay my hands on. Can you give me some tips on tidying my garden up to its original lovely landscaped condition.
Answer
If you've lived there for 3 years and are just thinking about getting started, there will be a lot to do! Please get a book about pruning, or look up the shrubs you have on Google, as otherwise you may make some mistakes about which ones you can prune in spring and which you need to leave until later (these are mainly the ones which flower early in the year, like forsythia or ribes, because pruning now would cut off the flower buds which have been forming for the past year.) When you know which ones you can do now, give them a good prune (usually it's best to get in low down and remove the oldest branches at the base, which will encourage new graceful arching growth, rather than to nibble away at the tips which will just make the branch go bushy at the end.) When you've cleared a bit of space round the bushes, get in there with a garden fork and dig over the ground, initially about 6 inches deep. Just lever up the soil halfway, do this in several places until you have a little patch loosened, and then get down to ground level and loosen out the weeds, with care for the roots of any plants you want to keep, using a small hand fork. At this time of year what you are digging up will be rubbish, not suitable for the compost heap, especially if it contains the running roots of any perennial weeds such as ground elder or bindweed. If you come to a patch where these are a problem you may need to go deeper in order to clear them. Bag it all up and take it to the green bin at the recycling centre, or have a bonfire. It will look lovely when you've got the ground clean and newly-dug and well worth the hard work, but it does take quite a while to do it properly. Then you can think about whether any of the plants need dividing and replanting because they've got too big for where they are living or are now woody in the centre. If there are any spaces, the really fun bit can happen, like my trip to the garden centre yesterday when I came back with a trayful of lovely new plants to put in today - this kind of retail therapy beats the High Street any day! Most plants are very good -tempered if you choose hardy ones which are suitable for your soil and the situation where you intend to plant them. Have confidence in your own ideas and enjoy your garden, which sounds lovely. You can always ask more questions, or look things up, and like all gardeners you'll enjoy learning on the job!
