Recommendation for a good gardening magazine or website

Viserion

My husband and I are planning on fixing up our garden and yard this year and if there are certain jobs that need to be done now to prepare for planting or flowering in springtime, we'd like to get a head start now so we are prepared.

We are total newbies to this so my questions will probably seem quite silly, sorry. We are willing to spend a few quid to get the garden into a presentable state but would prefer to do the work ourselves where possible.
We live in the countryside so we have a big garden.

Our yard is a mess. It is a concrete yard and where there are any small gaps in the concrete, grass and weeds have pushed through. My husband has sprayed it twice this year but they just keep coming back. I'm wondering is it a case that it just needs to be done more regularly or is there something we can do to stop the growth entirely?

Our next big project is a patch of grass beside our house which I think probably needs to be rotivated. It is extremely bumpy and the ground is very hard, we can't use a lawnmower on it because i'd say it would get wrecked so my husband bought a very good strimmers and uses it on this grass at least every 2 weeks but it grows back very rapidly. The grass growing here ranges from normal grass to grass that is borderline rushes that you would see in sand dunes on a beach. I tried to go at it witha shovel myself but my back was broke up after it. The kind of rushy grass has massive roots that go very deep.
Is it possible or expensive to rent a rotivator to carry out this kind of work? And is there some sort of treatment i should use when putting down new grass seed to prevent the rushy grass growing back? When would be thebest time of year to rotivate and put down new grass seed? Obviously, as total beginners, we don't want to do all that work now and find that it is the wrong time of year.
We would also like to put down a little garden path in this section of grass and again, we are wondering how best to go about this. Once the ground is rotivated, is it a simple case of putting down whatever type of psth slabs we like and just not sowing grass there or should we be using other materials too?

After that, we don't know where to start with what to do next. We don't know what flowers or shrubbery would work best together and we have no idea what times of the year they should be planted. If anyone could recommend a magazine or a website that contains this information for beginners, I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

The Gardener

Sounds like you have a major job on your hands, my suggestion is to do what you've just done, but maybe just about one particular project at a time, eg. Sorting out your lawn, what shrubs to plant and so on. I've been using the boards for a good few years now, more as a reader than a contributor, and I have to say, as a professional horticulturist, there are some very knowledgable contributors in the gardening section of Boards.ie who will answer your questions better than I probably could. There are a lot of specialist websites/magazines but none that I am aware of that will deal with the myriad of questions that you'll probably have in the next year or two.

redser7

The two sites I use are this one obviously and this one ...
Growfruitandveg.co.uk

This is the forum ...
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/forum.php

It is also a magazine that takes Irish subscriptions. It is by far the best site/forum there is. You will get plenty of expert answers there and fast. Lovely people too.

This site is great too but doesn't have the same amount of traffic.

Sgt Pepper 64

Look out for books\dvd's by Alan titichmarsh. He did a lot of beginner stuff, really easy to follow.
Plus highly recommend the BBC website and mag.

Viserion

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I have registered with The Grapevine so hopefully I'll be able to pick some brains over there too. I'll also look up Alan Titchmarsh, I have heard of him before but it's always been related to finely manicured gardens so I didn't think I was quite at his level yet lol!

redser7

Also check out Dr Hessayon's range of gardening books. He has one on pretty much every topic. Click on the secondhand link in each book title on amazon and often you can get a copy for 1p + delivery. Very popular good reference books. But them in now and have plenty of reading over the winter ...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hessayon+gardening+books&sprefix=Hessayon%2Caps%2C340

Sgt Pepper 64

Viserion wrote: »

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I have registered with The Grapevine so hopefully I'll be able to pick some brains over there too. I'll also look up Alan Titchmarsh, I have heard of him before but it's always been related to finely manicured gardens so I didn't think I was quite at his level yet lol!

His "how to garden" series was on TV plus the book range

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alan-Titchmarsh-How-Garden-Design/dp/1846073979/ref=pd_sim_b_2
You can see sample pages

plus http://www.amazon.co.uk/Starting-Scratch-Renovate-Run-Down-Derelict/dp/B0002B95U8/ref=sr_1_32?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1377631513&sr=1-32&keywords=gardening

tommy2bad

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+be+a+GARDNER+YOUTUBE&oq=how+to+be+a+GARDNER+YOUTUBE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=how+to+be+a+GARDENER+YOUTUBE&spell=1
These are worth watching.

paddy147

Viserion wrote: »

My husband and I are planning on fixing up our garden and yard this year and if there are certain jobs that need to be done now to prepare for planting or flowering in springtime, we'd like to get a head start now so we are prepared.

We are total newbies to this so my questions will probably seem quite silly, sorry. We are willing to spend a few quid to get the garden into a presentable state but would prefer to do the work ourselves where possible.
We live in the countryside so we have a big garden.

Our yard is a mess. It is a concrete yard and where there are any small gaps in the concrete, grass and weeds have pushed through. My husband has sprayed it twice this year but they just keep coming back. I'm wondering is it a case that it just needs to be done more regularly or is there something we can do to stop the growth entirely?

Our next big project is a patch of grass beside our house which I think probably needs to be rotivated. It is extremely bumpy and the ground is very hard, we can't use a lawnmower on it because i'd say it would get wrecked so my husband bought a very good strimmers and uses it on this grass at least every 2 weeks but it grows back very rapidly. The grass growing here ranges from normal grass to grass that is borderline rushes that you would see in sand dunes on a beach. I tried to go at it witha shovel myself but my back was broke up after it. The kind of rushy grass has massive roots that go very deep.
Is it possible or expensive to rent a rotivator to carry out this kind of work? And is there some sort of treatment i should use when putting down new grass seed to prevent the rushy grass growing back? When would be thebest time of year to rotivate and put down new grass seed? Obviously, as total beginners, we don't want to do all that work now and find that it is the wrong time of year.
We would also like to put down a little garden path in this section of grass and again, we are wondering how best to go about this. Once the ground is rotivated, is it a simple case of putting down whatever type of psth slabs we like and just not sowing grass there or should we be using other materials too?

After that, we don't know where to start with what to do next. We don't know what flowers or shrubbery would work best together and we have no idea what times of the year they should be planted. If anyone could recommend a magazine or a website that contains this information for beginners, I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

Aldi sell various DK/RHS gardening books every few months.

Good books and for not alot of euros.....4 euro each.

Very handy to have.


The Alan Titchmarsh range of gardening books are also good and quite usefull too.Easons have his series of gardening books on sale at the moment.:)

Supercell

I find http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/ has a lot of extremely knowlegeable contributors so would recommend bookmarking there too.

RaggyDays

Heres a good book to have a read of
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables-Larkcom/dp/071121963X