Ideas for garden

[scoobydooby]

After years of unsuccessfully trying to maintain a lawn, we have now given up and put stones down instead. It's great for us as we both work full time and aren't real gardeners anyway. However, I'd still like to do something to make the space look nice. My 15 year old daughter is keen to take on the responsibility of the 'garden' but I've no idea what to do. The right and the end of the garden is enclosed by 6 foot fencing whereas the left is a brick wall (belonging to a neighbour's garage). I intend to paint the fence panels but beyond that I'm stuck for ideas! Can anyone give me any help?

[Lindylou]

I don't have a garden at all. Just a concrete 'yard'. I've used a lot of pots of various sizes and filled them with a mixture of various shrubs and perennials. Also use a lot of summer bedding plants, petunias, pergoliums, lobelias, impatiens, etc etc. So long as you keep them well watered (I also use a liquid fertiliser, such as miracle grow) they should do very well. My little 'garden' looks very attractive and, with a small table and a couple of chairs, is very pleasant to sit in. When its warm and sunny that is..

[welshlibranr]

Hi scoobydoo
You can do lots of things, I have a garden which is surrounded by walls and high fences, and have planted clematis along them to soften them, they look great in Spring and Summer, covered in flowers and leaves, and then I just cut them back in Autumn, and they just spring up again the following year, so easy, you do need to feed and water them, but it's well worth it, I also have some pots of flowers and shrubs, it's a very relaxing place when the sun shines, which hopefully it will soon!!

[scoobydooby]

Some great ideas here - thank you both. Can I plant clematis in anything other than the ground itself then? Do they need much depth? Apologies for my ignorance - I did say I wasn't a gardener.

[welshlibranr]

Hi again scoobydoo,
You can plant clematis in tubs,I do and they thrive, if you find some quite large deep ones and then you need some supports for them, you can just put some trellis on the fences and walls, and support the plants with some garden twine/wire, once they get going they will cover the trellis and flower wonderfully, as long as you feed and water them they'll be great all Summer, then just cut them back to about 6 - 8 inches when the leaves go brown and start to die off, they'll come back better than ever next Spring! ......welsh

[amonty1144]

I don't know how much space you have but a japanese style garden always looks nice, this site should give you some ideas.

http://www.myjapanesegarden.com/