Hi, thanks for the replies - they made me feel better, i really was imagining some herculean ground force style task! I saved your replies to refer to later.

I moved to South Woodford, London, my garden in north facing so I think this causes problems cos it doesn;t get much sun. As for the previous owners - they had 3 dogs, 3 children and 3 cats, and didn't take care of anything much in or out of the house - I don't think they touched the garden except to mow the patchy lawn bit!

I don't really know what kind of soil I have - it doesn;t drain well I know that much! Its dry....sorry not much info there!

So I think I will start with the flowerbed/border. I don;t think the soil is very good, as we moved in last september and there wasn't anything very nice growing in the borders! We have just had out driveway done, and the soil that was dug out has been deposited in a heap in our garden - we're told that this soil is the best kind of soil and to use it on our garden. Shall I dig out like a foot of the old soil in the borders are replace it with this soil? I think that would go a long way towards getting started..?