On 07/02/2013 16:02, echinosum wrote:
Staceyxxx;977870 Wrote:

Any ideas what i can do with these??
There are so many different things you can do i think the first thing to
do is go and get a book for some ideas.

Also buy a good general book (the cheap ones are rarely good) on how to
do gardening like the RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening, and, as you flick
through it, try to distinguish between things that sound like hard work
you don't want to do, and things that sound like more what you want to
do.

Find out what the bushes and trees that are already in your garden, and
remember that it can take many years to get a plant to maturity, and
moving well-established plants is often not possible, so consider
carefully before you rip them out. Even if it is something you
currently think you hate, a bit of pruning and maintenance might turn it
into a very useful and attractive shrub. Nevertheless, there were quite
a lot of plants in the neglected garden I took over that I nevertheless
decided to remove, including quite a few of the trees.

One thing in gardening is "improving the ground". I have horribly stony
soil - if I sift the soil about 25%-30% of it is pebbles. Easy-grow
hard-to-kill plants will grow despite it. However to make a vegetable
patch, and to plant things that prefer soil to pebbles, I have had to
sift tons of pebbles out of the garden, and do much repeated addition of
compost to the soil to improve it. This is very hard work. If you are
lucky you have nice soil already, but if you don't then bear in mind
that growing just what you want and making it look like the Chelsea
Flower Show, and/or for food cultivation, will require a lot of work in
soil improvement.


The book is a good idea, but instead of buying one borrow several from
your local library, then when you find one that you don't want to give
back then buy a copy, that way you'll get a lot more ideas.