Gardening (novice level)

[Mostyn6]

Good Morning fellow posters.

Some of you may know that I moved last year, and after 15 years in a first floor flat, I now have some outdoor space. Sadly, my back garden is concrete slab and stone, with decorative weeds poking through the slabs (recently killed).

I do not own the property, so won't be spending cash on landscaping, even though I'd like to!

I do however like the idea of sunbathing and/or relaxing in the garden over the summer and being able to see and hear the bumble bees around me.

I have bought a few garden boxes, and intend visiting some garden centres over the weekend to get soil and plants, and flower seeds to put into these garden boxes. However, I'm a total dummy when it comes to gardening. My experience of gardening is limited to mowing the lawn, trimming hedges and picking up stinking Dog-Gibson. I have never purposely grown anything.

Knowing there are some knowledgeable and cultured posters here, and some of you are retired, any serious guidance?

I also expect some puns from Boycie and Mucker as a bare minimum.

[maxjam]

The easiest route would be to get yourself down to a good garden center and buy some nice potted plants - choose a variety of heights, colours and spreads etc to add a bit of interest.  It can get quite pricey though if you're looking for instant impact.

You can get plants that do better in the shade/sun so think about where you're going to put them before you go and over the summer you will need to water them once/twice a day otherwise they will die pretty quickly.

[Dimmu]

First things first. Get some herbs for cooking and mojitoes!

 

[Boycie]

41 minutes ago, Dimmu said:

First things first. Get some herbs for cooking and mojitoes!

 

@Mostyn6 do you have access to the attic?

[TimRam]

Insects like lavender if you want to attract some and they are quite hardy plants. You can also get 'dwarf' Buddleja which do the same and are easy to grow. A bird table with feeders would also be good.

Edited April 1, 2022 by TimRam

[RoyMac5]

There's plenty of websites to get advice on via Google. Or books/magazines with advice at at all levels.

Grow what you like to eat/see, but try and check the difficulty level before buying - often there's a hint on the label/tag. But just as easy is to keep in mind (if you know that is) where the plant you're attempting to grow actually originates from ie chillies on the whole like hot/warm weather with decent sunshine.

Food plants that are relatively easy and can be grown in growbags or biggish pots are: tomatoes, courgettes, climbing beans, peas, potatoes.

Lots of plants get killed with kindness as much as neglect ie don't overwater plants their roots will rot. So stick your finger in the soil to see if it's dry below the top surface before giving more water. Especially true for plants like geraniums, if you fancy the Mediterranean look. 

If you like 'hanging basket/bedding' type plants bare in mind most aren't hardy (cold weather tolerant) because of where they originate - no I don't mean the garden centre! - so it's still to early to be planting things like that out, even if you see them for sale.

Round our way Morrisons do a good selection of 'bedding plants' and some veggies, in modules at a cheap price. Think they start to get them in around Easter time.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by RoyMac5

[Miggins]

That's great, @Mostyn6!  How large is this area? Which direction does it face? Sun or shade? This makes a big difference to what you can grow. Hope that we can all help out once we know.

[Tyler Durden]

Get yourself lots of silver foil to deck the loft out in followed by lots of hot air blowers. Before turning on, run a bypass linkage around your electricity meter to the loft. 

Go online and purchase best quality seeds, plant then 4 months later voila.

[Mostyn6]

8 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

Get yourself lots of silver foil to deck the loft out in followed by lots of hot air blowers. Before turning on, run a bypass linkage around your electricity meter to the loft. 

Go online and purchase best quality seeds, plant then 4 months later voila.

Lived with a bloke who did that about twenty years ago. Hated the smell. He went on holiday and expected me to spray the plants! I did , but he got paranoid whenever a helicopter flew over ? never grew any again. 

[DerbysLane]

Also, any ideas on what style you would like?  Cottage garden, jungle, Mediterranean, veg, cut flowers etc?

It's easy to spend a fortune at garden centres.  Don't buy anything that is in flower now, you are wasting your money.  It's also too early for bedding plants.  You don't need slug pellets, ant killer, wind chimes or any of the other junk that they try to sell you as essential.  If you can't decide and feel intimidated then walk out the shop, rather than spending your money on some tacky rubbish.

B&M often have very reasonably priced plants depending on the time of year.  Lidl is good for veg and flower seeds (very cheap).  Wilko also good for seeds/bulbs and those perennial plants in plastic bags can be alright (but it's getting a bit late for them now).  Morrisons used to do good plants, not sure if that is still the case (I moved away).

Yogurt pots, mushroom trays, etc all make decent containers for growing on seeds.  No need to buy massive seed trays.  If you want sweet peas, then loo rolls are the thing to grow them on in.

Large containers are where your money is going to go.  Plain (non glazed) terracotta is the best but pricey.  You could make some pallette wood containers if you have a supply of those.  Any old metal containers look brill too.

[DerbysLane]

You could post some pictures of what you want/like, its fun (well it is for me) identifying plants.

[Mostyn6]

32 minutes ago, DerbysLane said:

You could post some pictures of what you want/like, its fun (well it is for me) identifying plants.

honestly, i have no preference to anything and i'll only be starting off with plastic trays etc.

[dog]

Tomatoes in pots would be good to start considering at this time of year. Herbs, as mentioned, would be good. Can you post a couple of photos to show how the light falls?

[DerbysLane]

If you have reasonable sunshine then a couple of courgette plants will keep you well supplied throughout the summer.  Cut and come again lettuce is great, can be grown in something like a window box.  Runner beans can be grown in a large pot, give height and are attractive too.  Cucumbers and pumpkins can also be grown up something.  All these can be grown from seed.

Cosmos, calendula, antirrhinum (snap dragons), sweet peas, nicotiana, Verbena bonarriensis, nasturtiums, sunflowers are examples of flowers (mostly annuals) than can be grown from seed.  

Plants to buy would be something like strawberries, herbs (lavender, origanum, bay,  rosemary, various mints), pelegoniums (geraniums), osteospermum, bergonia, busy lizzie, foxgloves, Clematis viticella.

The above is standard stuff, but it won't give you much to look at in winter.  For that you need trees, shrubs and perennials (which can still all be grown in pots).  A lot of blokes seem to get obsessional about certain plants or a theme e.g. they turn their garden into a bit of Japan or jungle etc.  That can look great and it simplifies the choice of plants too.  For a small space it actually looks bigger if you go for big plants which is counter intuitive.   

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by DerbysLane

[Mucker1884]

10 hours ago, Mostyn6 said:

Good Morning fellow posters.

Some of you may know that I moved last year, and after 15 years in a first floor flat, I now have some outdoor space. Sadly, my back garden is concrete slab and stone, with decorative weeds poking through the slabs (recently killed).

I do not own the property, so won't be spending cash on landscaping, even though I'd like to!

I do however like the idea of sunbathing and/or relaxing in the garden over the summer and being able to see and hear the bumble bees around me.

I have bought a few garden boxes, and intend visiting some garden centres over the weekend to get soil and plants, and flower seeds to put into these garden boxes. However, I'm a total dummy when it comes to gardening. My experience of gardening is limited to mowing the lawn, trimming hedges and picking up stinking Dog-Gibson. I have never purposely grown anything.

Knowing there are some knowledgeable and cultured posters here, and some of you are retired, any serious guidance?

I also expect some puns from Boycie and Mucker as a bare minimum.

 

I was delighted to get an honourable mention... then realisation set in, that I patently can't perform under such pressure!  My pun-o-scope went completely blank!  I feel such a let down.  A failure, in fact!

#punless!  

?
 

[Rev]

1 hour ago, Mucker1884 said:

 

I was delighted to get an honourable mention... then realisation set in, that I patently can't perform under such pressure!  My pun-o-scope went completely blank!  I feel such a let down.  A failure, in fact!

#punless!  

?
 

I'm surprised and disappointed in equal measures! 

Surely their was some pun seeded in your mind from the OP?

Not that I'm throwing shade at you, obviously.

[uttoxram75]

12 hours ago, Mostyn6 said:

Good Morning fellow posters.

Some of you may know that I moved last year, and after 15 years in a first floor flat, I now have some outdoor space. Sadly, my back garden is concrete slab and stone, with decorative weeds poking through the slabs (recently killed).

I do not own the property, so won't be spending cash on landscaping, even though I'd like to!

I do however like the idea of sunbathing and/or relaxing in the garden over the summer and being able to see and hear the bumble bees around me.

I have bought a few garden boxes, and intend visiting some garden centres over the weekend to get soil and plants, and flower seeds to put into these garden boxes. However, I'm a total dummy when it comes to gardening. My experience of gardening is limited to mowing the lawn, trimming hedges and picking up stinking Dog-Gibson. I have never purposely grown anything.

Knowing there are some knowledgeable and cultured posters here, and some of you are retired, any serious guidance?

I also expect some puns from Boycie and Mucker as a bare minimum.

If someone dumps a sofa in your garden be sure to post it in the "litter" thread!

[DerbysLane]

If the budget will stretch, then something like this https://www.moleonline.com/galvanised-cattle-water-trough-1061467 makes an excellent planter (with holes drilled) or small pond.  The beauty of a large planter is you can treat it more like a normal border, it can have a higher soil content (as opposed to compost) and consequently you can be less obsessional about watering.  If you move back into a flat this will have a resale value.  Junk/reclaim places have this sort of stuff.  You could make some wooden planters out of a quality wood like larch for half the price (I've used these https://www.ruby-group.co.uk/ before as they do free delivery).  Line the inside with the compost bags to extend the life of the wood.

Before you do anything give the slabs a good clean, that makes everything instantly better.  

Ask around people you think are into gardening.  I'm always chucking good plants on the compost heap, but I would gladly give them to somebody.  One of the joys of gardening is sharing plants.  People always grow too many tomato plants for example.

If you only want a few veg plants then it can be worth buying plug plants instead of growing from seed.  Don't pay silly money though, think what you pay for the veg in the supermarket.

[Mostyn6]

@DerbysLane has truly found his post here ??

[Eddie]

Given the carnage I saw at Tesco yesterday, I'd suggest growing a few vegetables. Tomatoes grow really well along a sunny wall, either in 30cm pots, long planters or even growbags. It's the right time for onion sets too - they only need 10 or 15 cm of soil as they root very shallow (they're basically bulbs). Herbs grow well in pots - parsley, mint, oregano, chives etc are a breeze - and mint smells lovely.

As @DerbysLane said, a nice big planter is great - an old enamel bath would work just as well as a horse trough. If you can get one with 'feet', then it can be free-standing, otherwise you will need to construct some means of support. 

Example - from the place we go on holiday each year in Mevagissey. Theirs is a water feature with goldfish (hence the overhanging foliage to keep the cormorants and herons out).