New Garden - ideas

[anitalynn]

i have recently moved to my house and would like to advise what plants to purchase.
i love gardening but my life style doesn;t allow me muc time. i am a complete beginner in the garden. i really would like some fast growing plants. Climbers with flowers and ground cover plants. any advise on good plants for garden pots.

[Clanad]

Assuming some similarity between the U.K and here in the U.S., it's a little late to be planting anything and expect it toflower or produce this year. I would think about planting bulbs for next spring though. Draw out a diagram of what you'd like your garden to look like and being with some tulips, tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. It's early yet, since they should be planted untilSeptember or so, but you can look around for varieties you might like. A nice clematis can still be planted as well as some small bushes. One of my favorites is a dwarf burning bush (Euonymus alatus compacta). Other flowering bushes such as Mock Orange are nice for the spring time color and scent.
You haven't mentioned if you like to garden vegetables, but if you do, you could still get in a goodly crop of carrots, radishes and several varieties of lettuce... they do well until first frost. Best of luck! Remember, a day without gardening is a day without a sore back!

[Thunderbird+]

I agree, small trees and shrubs with ground cover plants can look good and are low maintenance, plus this will help the environment by soaking up some of the heavy rain we're getting of late, as apposed to slabbing or decking which will just run off and add to the flooding.

Add plenty of mulch around shrubs, this will help to keep the weeds down and lessen the need for watering.

I find pot's useful in the summer for adding a bit of colour to the garden in between the flowering of shrubs, things like : Begonias, impatiens geraniums are easy care but yes,it is getting rather late in the season but you can sometimes get some good bargains. Good Luck. Tbird+

[Neil.b]

I hope I'm OK for mentioning an interactive plant database that I've made called Complete Gardens plant selector 7 pruning guide CD-ROM
I was a cameraman on the David Attenborough private life of plants and realised how little I knew about gardening so I've done the photography and paid for the authoring and programing. Th idea of the Cd-ROM is to help people find plants to suit their garden conditions by selecting any colour, soil type, aspect height ,month and name. The CD finds and dispalys the best plants to suit your needs.
I hope it's OK that I mention my site where you can get further info www.complete-gardens.co.uk.
If you don't like using computers or CD-ROMs then there is a really good book called right plant right place.
Good luck
Neil