Taming your unruly garden

I recently spokeabout my garden’s upheaval when we first moved in, and here are some tips if you’ve got an unruly garden that you’d like to see a little tidier:

Plan ahead. Have a look at the surfaces in your garden: do you have any flower beds? Is there a lot of patio or concrete? Once you know the layout and composition, you can start thinking about what you’ll be planting once it’s cleared. At the same time as doing this, see if there are any existing plants beneath the chaos that you would like to keep.

Suit up. There is nothing that can slow you down quite like getting thorns stuck in your hands or ankles. I went into my garden thinking myself quite the fashionista, in my ankle grazers and t-shirt, only to retreat back into the house after five minutes because my ankles had (you guessed it) taken quite a battering. Be practical and wear long trousers and gardening gloves – it may sound obvious, but pricks can easily be underestimated.

Tool up. Double-check you have everything you’ll need before you start. This’ll allow you to spend your time weeding/digging/clearing, and not searching for the secateurs that ‘you know you saw last week’, while calling out all manner of blasphemous and ‘blue’ words. You don’t need to be made up like Schwarzenegger, either. I cleared our garden with nothing more than a good pair of gardening gloves, secateurs and a small hand shovel. Just be careful when dealing with the larger of garden nuisances. This is great because it means not having to spend a fortune on unnecessary equipment.

Think in stages. Clear the weeds. Prepare the soil. Plant your lovelies. This way, you’ll know exactly where you are in the rejuvenation process and will be able to get it done much faster – you can power through each part, as opposed to taking time to swap between duties every so often.

Look! Remember to stop every so often and have a look at what you’ve done so far. It can be an incredible motivator and you’ll be surprised at how much you can get done within a short period of time.

Think green. It can be tempting to get rid of weeds by spraying weed killer all over the shop, but do resist. Their use can be harmful to the other critters that call your garden home. Pull them up from the roots and mulch flower beds to hold back comebacks.

And finally the practicalities… When cutting down brambles and thorns, if you cut them into sections (working from the tip to the root) it’ll mean they’re much easier to sweep or rake up.