just moved to a new house with a nice garden, what do i do? no experience!

[Anonymous]

we just moved to a house and the previous owners kept an awesome yard with all sorts of shrubs, plants and flowers along the house perimeter. i don't even know where to begin to maintain this so that these plants continue to live and are not overtaken by weeds. any tips for ongoing maintenance are appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Get in touch with the old owners and ask what everything is so you can find out how to take care of it. They will probably appreciate knowing that you want to take care of the garden they planted.

Water deeply (set out a tin can where you're using a sprinkler until there's an inch of water in it) once a week when you haven't gotten much rain from now until the end of September.

Pull weeds by hand often.

Don't plant anything else until you've lived there through the spring so you can see where bulbs come up.

Keep 2-3 inches of mulch in the garden beds. It really doesn't matter when you mulch.

Roses and a few other bushes need to be cut back once a year (roses in February or early March) to keep them flowering--when and how you prune depends on the plant.

[Anonymous]

10:33 has great advice.

(I am not 10:33.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get in touch with the old owners and ask what everything is so you can find out how to take care of it. They will probably appreciate knowing that you want to take care of the garden they planted.

Water deeply (set out a tin can where you're using a sprinkler until there's an inch of water in it) once a week when you haven't gotten much rain from now until the end of September.

Pull weeds by hand often.

Don't plant anything else until you've lived there through the spring so you can see where bulbs come up.

Keep 2-3 inches of mulch in the garden beds. It really doesn't matter when you mulch.

Roses and a few other bushes need to be cut back once a year (roses in February or early March) to keep them flowering--when and how you prune depends on the plant.

Bolded is important. There also might be perennials that bloom at different times of the year, so you'll want to go through four seasons to see what pops up when. Congratulations on your instant garden. Agree with PP that previous owners will probably love knowing it's still going to be cared for.

[Anonymous]

Take pictures of the plants and ask at a local master gardener free plant clinic what the plants are if you can't get a hold of the previous owners.

[Anonymous]

Where are you, OP? One thing you could do is have a friend who gardens come over and look at everything, tell you what it is, identify weeds, etc. There are also garden coaches who will help you. One of the bloggers on Gardenrant.com is a garden coach based out of Greenbelt.