Hi Everyone!
Rainbowfish
Posts: 276
Just wanted to say Hi. I am new to this gardening stuff (or will be) and I am sure I will be coming back for lots of advice in the future 
We are currently buying a new build so will have a completely blank slate and we got to see our first glimpse of what will be a garden at the weekend.
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Hello rainbowfish.
I love a blank slate.
I am sure it will be a weedy slate by the time we move in
hello, how exciting to have a garden to design, i'm sure everyone here will be very helpful
Hi Rainbowfish, Welcome to the forum. I'm a beginner too and have had lots of helpful advice on here.
You might want to find out where the sun comes in your garden and for how long and think about what plants you like the look of.
I'm going to visit some gardens at the weekend to get ideas myself.
Enjoy working on your blank canvas!
Slate!
Hi Rainbowfish, just watch out for any rubble buried under the soil. I'm afraid its a common occurrence. But what a great space.
Welcome!
I had a blank slate too 20+ yrs ago
It's very exciting but also very daunting and can be jolly expensive!
Deciding what you don't want or like is a great place to start
Hard landscaping should be first and unless you have an enormous area, finished before you put in large plants that need moving several years later because you really need the path to go a different way
Always do your research and try not to impulse buy. ..We all do it
well most of us
Take before and after shots, us lot love to see the graft
Good luck
It's not going to be our forever home so other that a few more paving slabs and a shed we probably won't be doing much hard landscaping and will be planting up a lot of containers. I am looking forwards to experimenting with plants. I am very much an informal cottage garden type. Colourschemes etc can come later when I have worked out if I can keep any plants alive. So far it is not looking great. I have some roses in containers outside my flat & they are full of aphids, black beetles and black spot.
I know the soil is quite heavy clay and the garden is south-west facing so will get lots of sun
It should be sheltered as it is completely surrounded by other houses. Before they put the topsoil down it looked very stoney.
Can I leave the soil as it is and just plant in the topsoil or will I need to remove the top soil, dig out some of the stone and replace the topsoil before planting?
I have little pots of 'mixed perennial' seed sprouting on my window sills. It's quite exciting trying to work out what is coming up. I will probably need some help identifying what they are soon but I know atm they are too tiny to tell.
If you built raised beds, you wouldn't need to touch the soil. If this isn't something you are going to do, just dig out the stones as you plant in that area.