"Jo" wrote in message
Hi, I'd like to introduce myself. I've been reading a few gardening
groups and you lot seem to be the friendliest. I'm Jo, and hubby and
I have just moved (well last year) into a new house with a biggish
garden full of every kind of shrub and about 8 trees. We've been
trying to work out which ones to prune and which ones to leave but all
we've found in books so far is that there are some you definitely
don't want to cut back which has left us a bit nervous of touching
anything (and the garden pretty wild).

Any kind advice for a novice?

You are in the same situation one of my neighbours found themselves in when
they moved, and like you they aren't gardeners, well they weren't. :-)
A large mature garden that had basically been left untended and unpruned for
a number of years.
Pruning in nearly all cases should be done when the tree/shrub is dormant in
winter, there are exceptions as in everything gardening but don't worry too
much about that. However I expect you need to get some control now, am I
right?

Is there a nice friendly neighbour with a bit of gardening knowledge that
can guide you through your gaining of control? (check their garden for
unusual plants well grown which will give you some idea they know what they
are doing)

If not, then you will simply have to have a go yourselves. Try to ID the
plants and then prune half down now and when that bit has made some new
growth prune the other half in winter. They have two chances and you
obviously can't leave them as they are, if they die then replace them with
something better. I cut one of my neighbours shrubs to a 2ft stump with a
chain saw and it's sprouting again as I expected, most are quite tough.
If you could set up a little web site with photos of these overgrown plants
we could take a look and advise specifically, it's not difficult with Yahoo
(see below).

--
Regards
Bob

Some photos of my plants at.....