[Laighleis]

Well I must be growing up as I am now discussing gardens, about to start mine - it' s a pile of weeds and stone right now. Built a house over a year ago so garden needs to be sorted. I do not know where to start so hoping to gather loads of info here.

Anna

[Foxylock]

Is gardening seen as growing up or escapism ? You're in the right place for info, welcome and best of luck

[dinahdabble]

Welcome! The first advise I'd give for starting a garden is basic and rather obviouse, but having made umpteen mistakes in several house-moves myself... Well, basicaly, if you have a garden full of stones and weeds, rejoice! Some people (in despiration at the task ahead I suppose, or so it seems with the benefit of hindsight) tryed to get rid of everything, leaving a nice flat, clear patch of soil ready for the designing and planting to begin. This was a big mistake. :oops:

So, instead, this is the method I now follow when starting a garden:
1) Dig up the perenial weeds, roughly chop and pile them up, even if there is no proper compost heap yet. Throw in vegitable waist, dead leaves etc. mix it up and cover it with an old sack or carpet. The weeds die off and compost, and I'm one step ahead when I construct a proper compost heap later- the heart of every good garden! The annual weeds, I leave, to hoe, dig in or to compost later. They seem to keep the perenial weeds out quite well, and are easy to remove when it comes to cultivating time.
2) Brushwood too, I find can be useful, since it can either be left as it is or be bunddled up to provide temporary wind shelter for young plants. This is especially important if you are going to have to wait for the spring to start putting up perminant fences etc.
3) The stones come in very useful. You can't really tell how good the drainage will be until the garden has begun to be landscaped, and it may need at least one ditch filled with stone as a soak-away. They obviously don't have to be nice looking stones to be worth keeping for drainage. I seperate and stack up the nicer ones ready to decorate the visiable face of any terracing, rockeries and walls I may want.

I strongly recomend itemising and organising [i]all[/i] the raw materials already in the garden. I now find this bit a very exciting and inspiring process - thank goodness. :D