Time is on your side as a new gardener

You know more than you ever wanted to about interest rates, but very little about your inherited planting. Julia Atkinson-dunn has some tips on tackling that wide open space.

My gut feeling is that most first-home buyers are probably not experienced gardeners. As a renter, the prospect of ploughing time and money into an outdoor space that will eventually be left very often outweighs the benefits of getting into growing.

Understandably, it’s far more appealing to build a home with decor pieces that can be packed up and taken.

So on arriving at a fresh property where investment into the ground holds some new personal value, the potential can be overwhelming.

A first-time homeowner knows more than they care to about interest rates, and very little about the seasonal behaviour of their inherited planting.

I bought my first home with a garden just five years ago. Here are some tips I have pulled together in hindsight.

Arm yourself with the basics

Before you spiral with intimidation or do something rash, take amoment to arm yourself with some basic information. To aid any future decision-making, you need an understanding of what is planted in your new yard, so that you can take sensible and cost-saving action.

By grasping how perennial, annual, evergreen and deciduous plants work, you can stocktake what you have and decide what will stay or go.

For example, many perennials can be dug up and moved, but the annual flowering plants you see will die away on their own.

Take stock

The urge to ‘‘clear the section’’ on arrival is a common one, particularly for new homeowners with little growing experience. What you perceive to be a messy mass might simply be a lovely garden that needs a light tidy up.

Remember, plants cost money, and trees take years to mature, so before you impulsively dig and chuck, you need to understand the benefits of what you are throwing out.

Not to mention, if you remove a plant, something else will definitely pop up in its place, and it will be of the weedy variety.

Take the time to research and learn about what is already there before deciding what moves to make. By identifying the plants that thrive in your new space, you will be given clues as to what others you could add with success.

Lure in a garden-minded friend or neighbour with the promise of coffee and cake and get them to walk your borders, putting names to those foreign plants for you.

Be patient and document

Perhaps the best advice I was ever given was to wait awhole year before making any major changes to a new garden. Depending on the season you arrive in, the planting will not be fully revealed.

A deciduous tree in winter hasn’t yet demonstrated its valuable shade in summer, or its autumn colour.

Moving into a house in summer will give you a chance to see many summer flowering perennials, but you have no idea of the location of any spring bulbs that may be hiding below the soil.

I speak from experience when I say you might arrive with amillion ideas but don’t yet have an understanding of the shady spots or lack of shelter that will affect your plans.

By all means, weed away, mulch your beds, cut back spent flowers and photograph to remind yourself how the garden behaves in each season.

Better yet, by holding back you will get a firm grasp on how you actually use the existing space and gain ideas through this experience for future changes.

Considerations when planting

The urge to ‘‘clear the section’’ on arrival is a common one but what you perceive to be a messy mass might simply be a lovely garden that needs a light tidy up.

Once you feel you have a clear understanding of your micro-environment, you might start making some changes and additions. When choosing trees, research their mature size, and be sure to plant with enough space in mind.

Make sure you know where utilities are buried before you start digging, and think about the planting distance from fences or gutters if that’s relevant.

You might have moved into a new house where a developer has created some basic beds. These tend to be too narrow to create nice layered garden planting, so perhaps you want to extend these before you start. Remember, gardens don’t have to be laid out with straight lines.

While gardening might have previously held little interest, take your time to discover if this might be for you before Googling ‘‘lowmaintenance planting’’.

There is no such thing as green space that doesn’t need to be touched or monitored, so why not plant in away that engages you with the roll of the seasons and offers you the pleasure of picking for your home, growing for your dinner and getting your hands in the earth every now and then?

Julia Atkinson-dunn is the writer and creative behind Studio Home. @studiohomegardening, studiohome.co.nz.