Hello all.

I'm new on the forum, so apologies if I'm going over old ground here.

In the next couple of weeks, I'm moving into a new house, and the garden hasn't been touched for a year. Frankly I don't know where to start.

I know a little about gardening, but I'm out of practise. I could really do with some practical advise about how I can bring the garden back into shape, along with a rough time scale of when the actions should be done.

Some details of what I'm getting myself into:

Front garden:
Garden is not especially large. Lawn in the middle, needs a mow. medium sized trees and large shrubs ( none yet identified ) which are badly out of shape. climbing roses are in some of the tree's, very straggly and twiggy.

Soil is very poor. No light seems to get to the bottom of soil itself.


Back garden:
Windswept. Small piece of grass needs a mow and a scarify. borders full of tatty and stragly small perenials, all over grown. A few climbing roses that have grown up the garage wall and now right over the top of the garage and spreading along the roof. Small plastic pond that is 90% full of mud and plants - no fish. Needs completely re-starting from scratch. Hedges ( various species ) don't seem to have been cut for two years. Hugely overgrown. Soil seems much better quality.


I have two main desires:
1) Get the garden into reasonably tidy shape, so it's not annoying me over winter

2) carry out any preperation/planting that's needed so that I can start a spring "campaign" to make it start looking good.

The problem I have is that it's already october, and I might not be in the house until the end of october. I want to make it tidy and neat for the winter, but I *think* it's getting too late in the year, and I'm concerned I'll just kill everything.

I wonder if someone would be able to give a novice some advice on what is practical to do at this time of year without getting into a mess next year.

If some one could also provide some advice on the sorts of plants/bulbs/seeds etc that I should be thinking of getting in at this time of year, so as to get at least some colour in the spring, I'd be eternally greatful.

Many thanks indeed.

Steve