The Ultimate Guide to Caring for a New Garden

Once your garden has been designed and installed the role of the designer is over, but for the garden owner this is the start of the process of maintaining and caring for your garden.

It is almost always the case that clients who have had their garden designed have asked at some stage for their garden to be relatively low maintenance. That does not however mean that there is no maintenance and understanding what needs to be done is crucial for success.

Caring for the garden, and the time this will take, is affected greatly by the size of the space (more space means more maintenance), as well as by the scope of the changes that the client and designer have implemented, and the client’s ambitions for how they wanted their garden to develop.

This guide is therefore intended as an essential reference for those who have just had their garden designed - running through the basic plant care tasks for the first year after it has been built and planted. Future guides may touch on more advanced gardening advice but, whilst the internet abounds in gardening advice, there is precious little regarding caring for your new garden for people new to gardening.

IMMEDIATE CARE FOR YOUR NEW GARDEN

As the first question people ask is “how do we care for our new plants” we have therefore developed a number of helpful guides to answer this - and the links to these are given below

.

First we need to address immediate care on hand over of the garden from the landscaper…and preeminent here is how to water.

New plants will rely on you for their survival so how and when to water are crucial. We have provided more information on “The Beginner’s Guide to How and When to Water” in a longer piece of advice but essentially you need to water every day for the first few weeks, then every other day, and then when plants start to show any signs of stress (though wilting). You also need to water deeply, so that the soil is damp below ground rather than simply sprinkling water onto the surface…

Similarly caring for a new lawn requires a little more than simply mowing it occasionally. You have to let it establish and grow - both top-growth and roots need to develop - and so it needs special care for the first few months. How to do this is set out in our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Caring for a New Lawn” but boils down to keeping it watered and mowing it correctly…

Once your garden is establishing and thriving other questions of care may arise. We have provided therefore additional guidance regarding growing healthy plants (in our “The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Plant Growth”) as well as the basics of pruning and trimming (in our “The Beginner’s Guide to Pruning & Trimming”).These are relatively general guides though which explain how and why tasks are undertaken alongside a few key tasks for most gardens. We have also produced a similar high-level gardening calendar of tasks for our clients and this can be found at “The Expert Guide: A Calendar Of Gardening Tasks”.

EXTRA HELP AND ADVICE

However every garden we design is different and each uses a different selection of plants - carefully selected to match our clients’ tastes, as well as the soil, light and water unique to each site. We have therefore teamed up with a specialist provider to offer new clients whose gardens we design 12 months of plant advice, tailored for each plant in your garden, and with a monthly calendar of any specific tasks that may be needed, that is sent directly to your inbox. This service can then be extended if required for a small annual charge for as long as is needed - ensuring that you can build your knowledge and confidence in your own garden from a solid base.

Understanding how to care for your garden ensures that you protect your investment in your outdoor space and come to fully realise the joy of spending time in the garden.

Finally we will, as noted above, be extending our guides and advice over time to help answer common questions and issues that may arise. If you are unsure of something please let us know and we’ll assess whether a further guide would be helpful…and our first advice piece to help our old clients is our “The Beginner’s Guide to Seeds and Plant Division - making your garden go further” - which explains how to deal with gaps in the planting through planting additional seeds, or through propagating new plants by division.

Happy gardening!