A garden is a very important part of any home that is lucky enough to have one. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small front garden, a huge back garden or even that stairwell used as an indoor garden, they all have the ability to give a natural and very pleasant touch to any space.
However, not everyone has the patience or time to take care of these spaces properly, and it is not uncommon to come across gardens that saw better times. Whether it’s because you’ve just moved and you have a lot of work ahead of you, or because you’ve decided to give that area you abandoned a second chance, if you want to know how to fix an abandoned garden, this is your GreenEcology article, because here you will find various ideas and tips.
You may also be interested in: Zen garden: what it is and how to do it
If you are faced with the task of recovering a garden that has been totally abandoned, follow these tips:
- The first and most important thing you should do is weed the weeds, that is: remove all weeds and remains of plant matter, such as fallen leaves and branches. Everything that is not going to be part of the new garden must be removed. This will require different tools depending on the configuration of the garden terrain and its size, but tools such as rakes, hoes or a lawn mower can be quite necessary. Once all the weeds have been cut, you should remove all the weeds from the root to delay their reappearance as much as possible. In this other article we explain how to remove weeds from lawns.
- It will be necessary to remove the soil to oxygenate it and leave it loose, thus improving its drainage capacity. You can also take the opportunity to enrich the soil if it was impoverished, providing it with organic fertilizer. We always recommend using an organic fertilizer such as worm humus, which provides many benefits to the soil. Compost and bokashi are also good options. In these other posts you can learn How to make worm castings and What it is and how to make bokashi or bocashi compost.
- Once you are clear about how you are going to distribute the new spaces, the key will be the jewel in the crown of all gardens: flowers. Think about where you are going to plant them and, if you have enough space, distribute the trees as well. The rest of the garden will adapt to these bases.
- Artificial light is also very important, especially if the sun sets early in your garden. Spotlights, automatic lighting systems and even torches, if you are looking for a chill-out touch. The important thing is that you like it.
- Last but not least, if the surface area is large or you are not going to be able to water regularly yourself, you may want to install an irrigation system or sprinklers.
How to decorate a garden – ornament ideas
The possibilities of decorating a garden are as wide as those of any other part of your home. From the resource of taking out old furniture or rustic tools that are no longer worth it to the elaborate paths with tiles, stones, etc., anything goes. There are a few little tricks that never fail, and can help you bring a touch of originality or life to your garden:
- One of them is to use pallets or pallets as a base for vertical gardens. Old industrial pallets are a fairly easy resource to get, which in many cases you can order for free at construction sites or warehouse areas, although you can also buy new ones if you prefer. With a little work you can turn them into vertical gardens with a unique touch that will give a lot of life to any wall. Here we explain how to make vertical gardens.
- You can also use the pallets to make outdoor furniture to place in your new garden and create a relaxation area.
- In addition, you can place plants in hanging pots or birdhouses in some of the trees or structures that you add to the garden, for example in a pergola or lattice if you place one.
- On the other hand, you can also create spaces by delimiting planters with planks or drawers, thus forming different levels in the same space, with which you can highlight plants that would otherwise go unnoticed.
- Another possibility is to create original pots with reused or recycled objects, but always making sure that they have good drainage. In this craft guide you can learn how to make recycled pots.
How to Fix a Small Garden
If you are considering how to decorate a small garden, the possibilities are also very wide, even if the space is small. Apart from following several of the tips we have offered for large or medium-sized gardens in the previous sections, we are going to comment on some more focused on small spaces.
A very useful trick is to use the corners. If you fill them with soil forming a small hill or slope, they will offer you a slope in which you can plant different plants, giving life and visibility to plants that would otherwise be “hidden” in the corner.
If you want to decorate a garden with stones, you can use both medium-sized stones to place them forming separations between spaces, and to form a small Zen garden covering an area of the land. The latter, in fact, are very successful in small spaces, and are particularly grateful.
Finally, we recommend these other articles on more Small Garden Ideas and Small Garden Design Tips.
If you want to read similar articles to Fixing a garden, how to do it?, we recommend that you visit our Garden Care category.
