Expert view: Creating a new garden
Landscape gardener Will Nash offers 10 encouraging tips on where to start when you want to do something new with your outside space.
Will’s tips on starting a garden
• Stand back and see what you’ve got.
If you’ve just moved in, wait and see what comes up before digging over the garden. Give it until late spring – something that looked like dead twigs could be a clematis!
• Watch this space.
Through the seasons keep an eye on your garden’s shady and lighter spots. This will help you decide what kinds of spring, summer or even late summer plants will thrive.
• Improve access.
Put out decking, improve steps etc – it makes gardening seem a doable task.
• Sort the basics.
If you’re just planting it up, get in a few evergreens – a bit of winter interest with berries and rich foliage – and then pick out flowers that suit your own taste after that.
• Buy plants small.
Adult shrubs often don’t take when you plant them. Go for younger, smaller plants and leave lots of space around them so they can grow.
• If there’s any hard landscaping, get an expert.
If you’re making a hole in a wall, what’s behind it? What equipment do you need? Do planting and the lawn yourself, but for structural stuff it really is worth getting someone who knows what he’s doing.
• If you’re getting a landscape gardener in…
It’s your garden so don’t be bamboozled into having something that a designer or a landscape company want to do because it’ll look good in their brochure!
• If you need a gardener…
Ask around for personal recommendations. Personally, I’d usually go for an older gardener, maybe someone who is retired. That way you tend to get the seasoned experience you don’t have yet yourself.
Savvy tip
Don’t presume the garden’s ruined after frost.
Frost can make the best plants stronger, so don’t rip them out and spend money on new plants until you’ve seen what survived winter.
Pass it on – community gardening
If you want more experience or you don’t have your own garden, get involved with a local scheme. Community gardening allows volunteers to improve green spaces near them. www.rhs.org.uk