overgrown garden HELP PLEASE
ellen egan
Posts: 1
Hi,
needing some help and advice on tidying up my overgrown garden, completely new to gardening, do not even know what tools i need to tackle it, would like to tame all the bushes and keep some of the blackberry bushes so i can have blackberrys from them and also would like to bring the lawn back to life, my
target is to get the garden pristine buy mid june for a bbq but have no idea where to start, please help 
thanks
Ellen ( pics below)
0
Posts
Id say some lopers spaid and bin bags
Welcome to the world of gardening. Whilst your garden is quite overgrown it looks like there's lots of promise beneath the brambles and other weeds. The first thing I would say is that there's a lot of work to do and the aim of having a pristine garden by mid July might be a bit too ambitious. I'm all for setting targets but would not be too disheartened if it takes a bit longer to accomplish. Take you time as little and often is better than charging in and hurting your back.
With regard to tools, I would suggest you buy the basics and not the most expensive tools to start with. You'll need a Spade and fork for digging, trowel and hand fork for weeding, secateurs for pruning and I would suggest some loppers for cutting back the brambles. I would advise you to get some good quality leather gloves before you tackle the brambles as your hands will be cut to shreds otherwise.
Other tools for later on would be a hoe for wedding, a rake for levelling soil, a watering can and possibly a wheel barrow.
The first thing I would do is clear the brambles. A bit of hard work in this area will make a real difference to the way the garden looks. I would then slowly tackle the rest of the weeds and make sure that you have a tidy space for the BBQ rather than a pristine garden. I like the idea of a gardening party. Friends are often happy to help.
Good luck!
I can see a Lonicera pileata in there, low growing, evergreen, small leaves. Nothing special but worth keeping til you've got something else going., unless you're doing a clear-fell.
Might be worth doing some close-ups of any shrubs and posting them to see what they are and how best to deal with them in the short and long term
In the sticks near Peterborough
Oh I do love a new garden or project to get stuck into. Have had a great day off today. Got up early and weeded the borders in the back garden. Then tidied up the edges. Weeded the patio which I sprayed with weed killer last week. Then took the wife to Wisley and smelt my first rose of the year. Lovely Gooseberry Cheesecake in the café! Came back and weeded the front garden. Neighbour spotted me and asked me to cut back some branches of a tree overhanging his drive so got the step ladder and loopers out and did that for him. Finished with a beer! A great day off in the garden. Will sleep well tonight.
Edd. great advice from yourself.
Hello!
I agree with others, there's a lot of work to be done - enlist some help!! I would suggest tho only to design a garden that you'd be happy to maintain after the BBQ! If you are not a natural gardener, yet want to make the place more cheerful for entertaining, I'd personally just tidy up, pull out the weeds, dig it over and then perhaps just get yourself a few pots and fill with flowers (places like wilco's sell cheap terracotta pots) Apart from the sheer amount of work, it can get expensive very quickly when designing a garden from scratch, especially in a rush, it would be a shame to do all that & pay lots just to lose interest later.
Best of luck with it all!
Yes, take your time, and I agree about putting things in pots for the time being, and not rushing towards your short deadline. One thing all good gardeners know is that the cost of plants is mainly to do with how much time and effort has gone into potting them on, watering, transporting to garden centres etc. When you see a large plant for £50, it is quite possible to see a smaller version of the same plant for £2.99. The excessive cost is because someone has nursed that plant for two or three years to get it to that size, and you are paying for the fact that you will have instant impact when you put it in the ground. If you can commit to doing that nursing yourself, you should look out for cheap plants that you like now, and keep them watered and potted on, and then in a couple of years when you are clearer about what you want to do/put and where, you will have plants that are more like the £50 one, not the £2.99 one. But you do need to work out how they would survive if you went on holiday for two weeks in August if that is part of your lifestyle - who would be available to water/babysit them?