I am starting a brand new garden from scratch

Re - digging out rock and compacted soil - beware your hips and knees! I have done mine in from gardening on rocky clay soil and it's not funny!!

Unless you are a dedicated gardener, may I suggest planting in large boxes and tubs so you don't need to bend down so far to weed?

We are none of us getting any younger, said she (struggling with too large a garden).

Given the climate emergency, would you consider rewilding your garden into an ‘ark’ in which nature and wildlife can recover and flourish? There is a network of arks all over the world now. This website might inspire you -
wearetheark.org, as might Mary Reynold’s wonderful book The Garden Awakening.

I’d plan the whole thing out on paper. Measure and draw a scale plan of the garden. Take lots of photocopies then sketch out different ideas lawn flower beds veg patch pond wildflower area. If it looks right on paper it will work in reality. Don’t rush, sketch lots as you get inspired and use the time to investigate your soil. Lots of builders bury rubbish and cover it with a thin layer of imported ‘top soil ‘
Once you’re soil is ok add horse manure before planting anything unless you want only wildflowers.

I am veering towards the bark paths, I will be able to manage building them, once I have edges in place. Yes re the worms, my hotbin on my allotment is full of them, I am sure they will start coming back this summer, if they don`t then I will buy some earthworms, the hotbin worms are different. I have not a huge area of ground to deal with, won`t have room for a pond or well rounded shrubs or climbers and already have sorted a side area for some veggies. I am thinking of gabbions to make raised beds. I can buy the basic wire cages and fill them with whatever colour and type of stone I like, the spaces will also be homes to insects. I am holding fire at the moment, watching the buds start to burst on my new roses in the front. I saw dark pink roses in rusted corten steel containers at chelsea, lovely colour contrast. I could fit 2 roses into each container, now there is an idea

I a loving chelsea, beautiful gardens and ideas this year

Is there any woodland nearby? I had a similar garden, years ago, and dug in lots of leaf mould collected from under the trees. It rejuvenated the soil in no time.

Be careful of bark....cats are fond of using it!

My front garden has very poor sandy soil but twenty five years ago I planted flowering shrubs and ground cover plants. It is paved with beds round the edges and a couple of beds in the middle. It is now full of colour and never needs weeding. I have never watered or fertilized it . Just needs a lot of pruning to keep shrubs from getting too big.

I moved into a 2008 built house two years ago. The garden is tiny, 25 ft by 15 ft, though south facing. There's a bit of paving for a patio and the previous owners just dumped a load of blue shingle over everything else.

I didn't do anything until this year when I decided life was too short to get rid of the shingle, and instead just went for everything in pots. Nothing was expensive, so I won't cry if it dies, but so far I have honeysuckle, a couple of clematis, several trees - pear, acer, gingko biloba, three little conifers, some bamboos, a kumquat, two gooseberry bushes, a rhubarb plant, tomatoes, a passion flower, a mock orange, buddleia, wisteria, wegeia ... all in containers. I even have a raised pond in a large wooden box. It's been great fun and the garden looks really quite funky - partly helped along by the large metal flamingos and colourful geckos dotted in amongst the foliage, as well as some cheap and cheerful solar lighting. Very kitsch but I like it.

I have had a couple oh new build gardens over 50 odd years. Last one 10 years ago. Unfortunately the design had had to really take into consideration that where I am very few want more than some area for a patio and space for kids to play in so I have kept to the basics with wide borders with lovely perennials, shrubs and 5 small trees. That way if I do decid to move thr garden won't put of potential buyers with garden being too much maintenance. A lot of hard work has gone into it, clearing/preparing ground. I too had impacted ground (builder's machinery trundling over) and no worms. I brought some up from my allotment and the area I deposited them in has always had much freer soil even though there is now a good population of worms in the whole garden. Good Luck and Enjoy.

I used to have over 40 salt glazed pots, they had been bought over a long time and were lovely but I do admit that the watering became too hard, it was a very sunny south facing sunken garden sun-trap. I stored over 1500l of water in nice water butts but I still had to climb wooden steps with the cans. I started to give pots away when I first decided that I needed to accomodate getting older. I had lilac trees and crabapples in large pots, left them behind when I moved but that was their home

What to edge paths with? To contain the gravel or bark. It has to be easy enough for me to lay and to curve, I really want to do this myself, being 4`11 I have always known how to roll and wiggle heavy things and depend a lot of my fantastic 2 wheeled barrow, my yeti car boot is purposefully flat so I just pull and turn bags into the barrow. I can shift gravel, even a dumpy bag full, with my barrow but containing the path contents is key and the paths will give me the garden structure. I am waiting for 80 more draining concrete slabs to be laid, the extra will lie east to west and enable me to access much more sun and have somewhere for a rotary airer. The trapezium left will have slabs south and east facing. Some of the trapezium will be north facing and some west facing, some will get sun for most of the day

I have given up on the gabion idea, too rectangular. I am going to rely on plants to give the garden some height. I am aiming for lushness and bee friendliness, maybe bark circles around each apple tree, also buckwheat hulls, which makes soil nice and easy to hoe. I will have room for standard raised beds on the veg side but that is a much easier concept

What an exciting time for you planning the layout and planting.
Many years ago when we were early in our marriage we bought a new build and had no idea of gardening.
The landscape dropped away in the back garden so we bought tons of top soil to terrace the land. I did lots of research on planting.
I remember buying stone to built a dry stone wall, planted up and the following year it looked wonderful with the plants growing down the wall.
We bought a small cherry blossom tree for the front garden, the display over the years was so lovely.
Many years later we noticed the then owners had cut down our beautiful tree it made me very sad to see.
Enjoy your new garden.

Don’t ask me.....if I plant it....it dies! My mum said I had a ‘black thumb’ ...which I think she’s considered to be the opposite of ‘green fingers’ . Still I did manage NOT to kill a coupla Red Robins ...a Forsythia, which I wish I could kill...! Still managing to keep alive a privet hedge...all my pots ‘fail’... and since last years hot season my lawn has turned turtle on me. Oh well....least I keep trying.

May I add that I moved into a new build about six years ago with a lawn at the back. I dug out borders and while I intend to change things with the passage of time I regret not being more adventurous.

I drove to my allotment this morning, the half that I kept and full of fruits and I got myself thinking. Do I want to do this drive in my eighties and it has to be no, I want to pop out of my back door and pick my fruit in my dressing gown, so duly mentally armed, I have ordered some gooseberries, which I will prune to standards like I have now and ordered a couple of ben conan blackcurrants. The apple trees are already ordered. Now I can see height emerging and in proportion to the size of the patch

I have tall blueberries on the patio, in large pots, the gooseberries will stand in a row behind them and the blackcurrants behind the gooseberries. All I need to do is to get that patch dug and humus added, ready for the winter planting. I like working in defined areas and the berry area is now defined. I`ll get the measuring and staking out done next week, always like to make sure that plants get the individual space they need. I have some beautiful tall iron rusted stakes, perfect for the gooseberries and will add a bit of rust to match the 2 corten planters

Has anyone ever grown figs and is it a fruit worth growing in one of those planters?

I was thinking of pea gravel for this path/barrier but a good quality bark is very much cheaper so that is what I will use. I am prepping today and have ordered a flexible edge that looks a bit like cobbles but is made from recycled rubber tyres, it is a dull brown. I have weed fabric and have ordered staples but have the do-it bug so have laid the fabric and put water in cans on top for now. I am just about to go out to check levels because I want 5cm depth of bark and the rubber edges are 8cm deep. I will likely need a good 6cm to be above the bark and have ordered special pegs to hold the edges down. Bark is £5 where I live, for a 70litre bag. I should have the path ready this week. I think it will look nice and may well provide the path construction for the rest of my plot. The one I am making is not really to be used as a path but will butt up to the bare exposed patio edge

I agree with finnochio, excellent advice.

I have done it, whoopee, I have my design and drawn it. Imagine a rosette shape with 2 flowing strands coming from the circle, the centre of the circle is my crabapple tree, the curvy strands are bark paths with the recycled rubber edges. The paths swoop and curve, one encloses fruit bushes with the likes of hellebores and echinaceas, the other encloses yet another rose garden. There is masses of scope below the apple trees for the companion bee-friendly plants that I want, plus daffodils violas and crocuses and chives

I need to hint to the builder that he could do with starting the patio slab laying, this makes a very large right angled patio, facing south down one side and the other is east facing. The bark paths will curve from the patio sides, up to the crabapple and will join together in a big round path all around that tree, leaving soil around the tree itself, to fill with small daffodils, cyclamen and the like. The rose area will be bang in the sunniest spot and near the south facing patio, close enough to get the scent.

The 2 large rectangular corten steel planters are now thoroughly rusted and I am going to place them at right angles in the patio corner, on the soil, they are big enough for varied plantings but I may yet again plant roses, pink roses with trailing plants around

I have to sit on my hands now, have to wait for the builder who is going to do it for his holiday money, maybe I can at least prep the ground below for him, take the level down so that he can get on and lay the sub base without faff

on the 27th I started to prep the patio base and found out that it needs to be 6" deep. I did a lot of hours on it yesterday and so far another 5 hours this morning. To my horror, the top spit is ok, lumpy stoney soil but below there is the chamber of horrors, a large amount of stone all over but big stones in the second spit down, embedded in nasty stuff coloured beige and it has to be acrylic render which is tough, like damp tight clay. All that compacted down by the big earth movers, a nasty difficult job and utterly boring. I think I am already gatting stronger, not so much aching today, probably because I am varying the muscles and implements. I am grateful for the builders dump, am allowed to use it and also grateful for my 2 pneumatic wheeled wheel barrow

16.2 sq metres and I have done 1/3. Later, when the patio is laid then I am going to tackle each tree and shrub space, one at a time with everything crossed for there not be that awful beige gunk that earthworms are hating

The roses in the front are looking fab but I am watering every day and will be top dressing with more manure based humus next month

If you can find a corner for a compost heap it will repay you over and over. Put all your peelings, tea bags, egg shells, grass cuttings (not straight after weed and feed) leaves etc. But not meat. Ours is not big but provides us with many barrow loads of compost throughout the year and it is full of worms which is good for our sandy soil. I think we are living on a sand dune! I just throw the compost onto the borders and the worms do the rest. DH suffers from compost heap envy. Have you seen Monty's on Gardeners World?

compost is all I use on my allotment, that plus comfrey and I have the best produce. So I am still at it, prepping the foundations of my garden. Just an hour left on the patio base, raking, measuring and leaving it for thr builder. A bit of soil fluffing to be done on the actual garden, covering with horse manure compost and composted bark, then weed fabric and that is it until spring, It will be full of slow worms by next spring

I am looking forward to ordering more roses later in the year, pot roses from David Austin again, for delivery in march/april

Oh I forgot, my apple trees and fruit bushes and standards are arriving in november. So I will make slits in the fabric and get the posts and ties ready for planting. I will have to get the basic structural design sorted in 5 months

ooh, it is almost all systems go, had an e mail yesterday and my 3 fruit trees will be with me first week in september. Crabapple called jelly king, 3-4m tall, apple on M26 howgate wonder and apple on M26 christmas pippin. M26 will grow to 10 -12 feet. Strong stakes and good gentle ties are ordered, I want to prep the spaces by then. 2 low angled stakes to each tree

I will be moving 2 new hydrangea annabelle into the empty back garden, need a shadier spot. Will be liasing with sis when she arrives, she might inspire me more than I am inspiring myself. Once those trees are in they will stay in. All at least 5-6 feet from any fence. I have M26 on my allotment and 5` works well

Next step is the patio addition and maybe at last a post for my rotary airer. Evolution is happening and some height will be appearing. I will be ordering 4 1x1m plastic raised beds only 15cm tall. Had several for 89 years but gave them all to dd but they were all 2 x1m, for veg, leaving some bare areas for beans etc

I have cut my standard hinamaki reds down from standards on the allotment and will let the base shoots grow, will bring one here as birds don`t eat them, very prickly

I am going to make `rooms` in my garden. First one in design stage, on the large patio, outside kitchen. 6 Very large tubs with tall mature blueberry plants already in place. Ordered a tall solar feature to stand on a separate tray which I will fill with grit and will put small planters in there containing a mix of mini ferns and the like. 2 tall planter/trellis structures ordered as I have only one overlooked area, I will sit on the inside of that `room` and will be `hidden. Bistro table and 2 chairs ordered for inside that room and I will put lush planting in pots in there

Outside I have marked spaces for the 3 apple trees, makes a nice wide and shallow triangle. Lots of garden left. Inside the apple trees for bee friends and outside for roses etc

You are lucky, craftyone! this sounds a great challenge.
We used to have a large garden, mostly fruit and veg. I'm no good with flowers.
Now moved house and downsized massively, but with a little space left over I'm planning to put in some herbs.
I'll see what they've got in the garden centre - not sure my favourites would survive here.

Oh Craftyone, what a wonderful diary of your gardening endevours.
I have enjoyed every minute of the planning and dreaming. And I marvel at your stamina.
I used to enjoy gardening on a much smaller scale than you but age and health issues have finally reduced DH and me to pots and plants.
Please could you post some pictures of your garden.
I can't be the only GN longing to see what you have achieved.