Totally new to gardening

nellie07

Hi guys,

Im trying to sort out my back garden which is 10 x 10 and just grass at the moment, I have some lovely flowers and plants bought which are still in their original pots outside the patio door! What I need help with is, how do I know what plants will grow again next year, how do I guage if it looks lovely now will it look totally crap in winter and completely bare, I need a happy medium of nice plants flowers that look good all year round. Oh and by the way I bought a fuschia tree last year and kept it in the tub (I had intended planting it) and it looks dead this year, Im presuming seeing as there are no budding leaves on it - its gone?

thanks in advance

monke

yeah it sounds dead im afraid. garden centers are a good place to get info on what plants will look well and trive in your climate. A perennial comes back every year so they are abetter choice of plants.

The Sweeper

nellie07, plants for sale in garden centres have an inforamtion tag attached to them.

The tag will have information about the plant and the conditions it likes. It may also have informaton about how big the plant gets, how much sun it likes, whether it likes wet conditions, moist but free-draining conditions or dry conditions, so on.

Watch your garden over a few days of sunshine to see what areas get the most sun and what areas are in shade. Plant accordingly - a full sun plant will not thrive in a permanently shady corner.

Re the fuschia, scratch the stem of the plant with your nail near its centre - if you reveal a green or moist interior, the plant is still alive. If it's dry as a bone, hard and brown, the plant is dead.

Re gauging winter v. summer plants, there is a place for both in any garden. It's always a good idea to make your screening plants evergreen - and lots of plants are evergreen. Again it will be on the garden centre label if the plants are deciduous or evergreen (it's a good assumption that if it doesn't say 'evergreen' on it, it's deciduous).

If you want a low maintenance garden, beware plants that will need to be cut back every year - it's a daunting prospect if you haven't done it before, but it's very important. Plants that benefit from being cut back (roses and lavander, for instance) can get very 'woody' if allowed to grow year to year with no pruning. Lots of plants bear flowers only on new growth - so after two years of not being pruned, you'll find you have a plant with a brown, woody centre, sprawling everywhere with flowers only on the new growth on the perimeter of the plant.

As monke says, a perennial is a plant that lasts for two or more years. An annual is a plant that dies back every year - but some annuals reseed readily themselves and they can be a nice part of a flowerbed, popping up in places every year. (Nasturtiums are a good plant for that - they self-seed very readily and make marvellous ground cover as a result.)

Figure out the effect you want - e.g. minimalist with a manicured lawn, or lots of screening plants with a central open area, or secret garden style planned jungle, or evergreen with no flowers, or lush in summer but bare in winter, or lots of flowers and lots of colour. If you pick something and describe it to us, we could help with plants.

Myself, based on the climate I am in, I'm heading for a garden as follows:

Lots of colour but lots of drought tolerance, contrasting foliage colours, a secret-garden effect with a lot of foliage because grass dies out so I need lots of planting beds, a mixture of perennials and annuals, with most of the perennials around the edge of my garden, screening plants with a LOT of colour so evergreen climbers with dramatic flowers are good, and I don't want to weed a lot so I want a design that I can mulch heavily without damaging the plants.

Given that design spec, I know what to buy and plant, what will work and what won't.

robobobo

if your near county wicklow why not call into the national garden exhibition center for a few ideas, theres loads of show gardens there i regullary pop down for some inspiration
http://www.gardenexhibition.ie/

bmaxi

I'll give the same advice I always do , go to your local library and get a good book. Don't give up on the fuchsia just yet, fuchsias die back in winter and providing it's a frost hardy variety, will sprout again from underground. Scrape, with your thumbnail, a little piece of bark from near the base of the plant, if what you uncover is green, the plant is alive. If it's alive then cut it down to ground level, plants in containers are dependent on you for all sustenance so don't forget to feed and water it.

Sonnenblumen

There are some newer dwarf varieties of Fuchsia, growing 12" tall and effectively evergreen. In smaller urban gardens, I would always recommend that you get the planting structure right so as to have a good framework all year round, so a bias towards evergreen shrubs.

Accent colour may be provided by seasonal flower (herbaceous/perennial, even annuals/bedding but personally bulbs are much more effective method and less labour intensive). Be careful with self seeders, great if it is the effect you seek, but apotential nightmare to control otherwise.

nellie07

thanks for all your replies!