[emma]

Hi Guys,

I would like to introduce myself to the site and the other fellow gardeners. I have decided to join the forum because I am lucky enough to have a tiny garden, and in the summer I decided to tidy it up - before I knew it, I was getting so enthusiastic about the garden and different plants / flowers I found l liked. I hope to build a garden I will be proud of, hopefully with your help!!

Looking forward to hearing all your stories.

Emma

(Co Dublin)

[dinahdabble]

Hi Emma, and welcome. I've had lots of good advise from this site. What people are taking about is often seasonaly topical, and I find the advise they give to one another applies to my garden too. I've found they're all very friendly and good humoured here - even in weather like this, when we are all stuck indoors watching the rain, twiddling our thumbs and getting frustrated How big is your garden, and what is it like? Are you interested especialy in decorative foliage, flowers, herbs, fruit or veg, or all these?

[emma]

Hi Dinahdabble, thanks for your re-assurance. I really appreciate it. I completely agree with you that thing in the later season become so frustrating but I am doing my best to still care for my garden in the Winter. Have no idea how things will pan out but will keep you guys posted. When I see you question about how big the garden is and what it is like to be honest I am a little embarressed. I live in a new build apartment and have been lucky enough th buy on the ground floor which has a back garden - not ideal but still pretty great by my standards. Anyway, have a very immature garden - I have only started taking care if it since the summer and because it is a new build - the soli is pretty crap. I must take a few photos so you can see what I mean - let me know what your garden is like?? thanks Emma!!

[Sive]

Welcome Emma. Regardless of whether you have a balcony or 10 acres to garden, it is still exciting, and I hope you enjoy being on this site.

[cooler]

Hello there emma. No need to be embarrassed. You have a new garden and that's a great thing.

[dinahdabble]

Are there any fences, or walls where you could put a trellis for climbing plants? Don't dispare if there arn't there are pleanty of things you can do with lower growing plants in pots and planters. A small, raised bed is much easier to make than you might think if the soil is too poor to work with, and you can mix in lots of compost and grit for draninage. It's easier choosing plants that will florish if you're lucky enough to have a sunny, south or west facing garden area, but there are many lovely plants you can put in, in North or East facing gardens, even if they get very little sun. I built a little garden - of all places - behind the Garage, because there are some plants that prefer such usualy forgotten places. It is surrounded by the building and high banks covered in trees, only getting a strip of light once a day toward the evening, but it is really lovely and sheltered and flourishing. If, on the other hand, the garden is very windy, either because of the position of nearby tall buildings or because of lack of fencing, don't worry either There are all sorts of protective measures you can take against the worst of the winds and weather. I look forward to hearing what challenges you have to work with!

[emma]

Yeah, the garden has a fence (its about 1 & 1/2 meters high). So there are four "walls" that I can allow plants to grow up. I had bought sweet pies in the summer time and I had hoped that they would grow up the fencing but they never really took off. I planted them from seeds but I think that I planted them a little late in the summer and they never really got a chance to take off.

I would like to have the entire surround covered and was thinking of gladiolus as they grow quiet high but not sure how long they last. Any suggestions or ideas would be great if you have them!

[emma]

Sorry dinahdabble, never really said anything about the garden. Its a basic square - I was thinking of raising certain sections of the garden just for a bit of variety and to take the blandness out of the garden but was unsure of how much work would be involved.

At the moment I just have a few beds, which I think are pretty boring. Also the majority of plants are in pots and just sitting on the ground tiles. Because of the way the garden is laid out, there is a back gate and there is a two foot wide path down to the gate, so it really does limit you to what you can do in the garden. I was thinking of taking up the path but I do think that this would be a really big job. For the moment I am just going to work with what I have got. I was also thinking of getting sleepers to act as the surround for the raised beds.

[dinahdabble]

Sleepers sound fine, but you can also make nice looking raised beds very cheaply out of scafolding planks. They retire these fairly regularly to satisfy safety regulations, and often become available from skips on building sites. You are best washing them down with a stiff broom or brush to get the worst of the cement and dust off, but you really can leave them fairly rough and rugged, painting them with as thick a coat as possible of whatever colour you like (mine are mostly pink!) gives a rather nice effect on the rough textured wood. It also prevents splintering, and they last for ages. The frame takes up less space than one made out of railway sleepers and they are easier to handle and cut. You might find that the scafolders, builders (or timber recyclers) you get them from will sort out some appropriate lengths if you explain what they are for. Nails are good enough for hammering them together if you use fence posts for support in each corner. You may find it easier to drill holes and use screws, in which case a small bed will not even need posts to hold it together. For bigger beds, or if the bed is to be more than one plank's width high, planks fixed to fence posts with coach-boults (a large, non-tapering screw with a nut on the end) are really strong, and can be taken apart easily if they need re-locating.

[dinahdabble]

Also, if you want to break up the linier aspect of the path but don't want to lift it yet, you might consider putting your raised beds on the path. You could have the path leading to the first bed, then put a narrower path arrond the outside of the raised bed, on both sides, before having it re-join the old path, and if you have room, put another raised bed in after that. You can then plant up the rest of the space with shrubs or flowers. You can get raised bed liners from online gardening stores if you are worried about the soil running out over the path. You would have to plan the right size for your beds to fit the liners, so you may prefer to make your own out of well-punctured coal sacks (that is what I do if I am putting any kind of improvised planter without it's own bottom down onto our brick paving. It seems to work very well).

[emma]

You have some great ideas - really like the idea of the pink scafolding plank. Do you have any pictures of it - if you do I would love to see them.

Also, really like the idea of covering the path down to the gate, will wait until after the Christmas before I decide to do anything with it. Thanks for all the helpful hints!!

[dinahdabble]

I really must get a digital camera sorted out. I would love to show you (everyone else too) what I've been doing in the garden. I will do so as soon as I get my head around this modern technology thing I'm still trying to figure out how to use the mobile phone - not that I tend to need the mobile phone, thank goodness.