How to Start a New Garden

Do you want to start a new garden? Follow these simple steps to begin a new garden bed from start to finish.

We spent 23 years in my former home. And I installed several garden beds for different reasons. From flower gardening to growing vegetables or hiding equipment, I spent several years growing my gardens.

To give you an idea just how much I did, here are a few new gardens that I created and why:

• the front border is an everblooming cottage-style perennial garden that attracts pollinators
• rose hedge at the base of the deck garden to hide space below the deck
• vegetable garden
• woodland garden
• backyard border that conceals the septic bed drop-off
• well garden that conceals the equipment
• added more space for perennial divisions

For many years, my gardens focused on easy-care, low-maintenance plants that did not require a lot of attention from me.

I followed a low-maintenance approach because I was raising three active kids and our lives were very busy running from activity to activity seven days a week.

The time was not there to tend to anything that required a lot of work. But now that they are older, I have more time to spare and want to try some new plants in a cut flower garden.

I am interested in growing David Austin Roses, more dahlias, and other cutting flowers so I can bring them indoors to use in floral arrangements.

With this new purpose in mind, we added an additional garden to an existing bed in the front yard to accommodate them.

Wait until you see how easy it is to start a new garden.

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What You Should Do Before Starting a New Garden

Before starting a new garden, there are a few things to consider so you get the most out of it and grow plants with success.

What Do You Want to Grow?

The first thing to consider is the type of garden you want to grow. We need to understand what we want to grow, so we know the type of sunlight it needs.

Are you interested in growing a woodland garden? Do you want to grow a vegetable garden? Do you want to add a relaxing zen garden?

Or maybe you want to grow beautiful flowers to design a cottage garden.

Whatever type of garden you wish to grow, it’s important to evaluate whether our yard can actually grow it.

What I mean is, we may want to grow something, but the atmosphere of our property might not be conducive to growing it.

For example, if I have a heavily shaded yard, it will be challenging to grow a vegetable garden with a lack of sunlight.

I may be able to alter those conditions by cutting back tree branches, etc. but these are things we need to consider before starting a new bed.

Choose a Location

Once we decide what we want to grow, we need to determine where to put the garden. Find the best spot in the yard that will provide the proper light conditions.

If you are not sure how much sun a particular area receives, spend a day watching and charting it.

Start in the morning, check it hourly, and note whether it receives, sun, partial sun, shade, etc.

It is also a good idea to take a soil test before planting in an area so you know how to amend the soil. I realize that sounds like an unnecessary step, but knowledge is power.

Knowing your soil conditions is tremendously helpful before planting. Why?

Because the soil matters.

For example, some plants will not grow well in highly alkaline soil.

You could give them all the right conditions and because they don’t love alkaline soil, they will not thrive and potentially die.

So it’s better to know that your soil is higher in alkaline before you plant acidic-loving plants like azaleas or rhododendrons there.

Because if you skip this part, you will leave thinking you can’t grow stuff.

And while it’s true you can start a new bed without ever doing this step, save yourself time, money, and stress by doing the soil test.

Soil test kits are available through your local garden extension, as well as local nurseries and big box stores.

Determine the Size and Shape

Similar to choosing the right location, it’s important to determine the new bed’s size and shape.

Consider the overall size and amount of plants you wish to include and start there.

To preplan your garden design, measure the area (LxW) to determine your square footage. Then look at what you want to grow to determine how much you can fit in your new garden space.

How to Start a New Garden

While starting a new garden is pretty easy to do, it is very tiring because it is a lot of labor to remove the grass.

But it can be done in a day or less depending on the size of the bed you make.

Supplies to Start a New Garden

If you’ve been gardening for a while, you probably have most of the supplies needed to start a new garden.

But in general, here’s what you need to remove grass and start a new bed.

• pitchfork
• spade shovel
• wheelbarrow
• mulch
• garden soil
• compost
• humus
• plants
• garden hose or extension cord

Directions to Start a New Garden

Once you have all of your supplies ready to go, it’s time to start digging out the grass. Here’s how start a new garden bed.

• Choose the location.
• Layout the new bed with a hose or long extension cord.
• Use the spade shovel to follow the outline of the new bed. Slice through the grass roots and dig out the grass until the outline is complete.
• Remove all grass with wheelbarrow and replant or dispose. We replant what we can in other areas of the yard that are struggling to grow lawn.
• If satisfied with the size and shape of the new bed, dig out the rest of the grass using the spade shovel, pitchfork or both.
• Pitch or turn the soil over to aerate and loosen it up. It will be easier to dig and plant after.

• Lay out your plants. Be sure to read the tags on the plants purchased. Understand the overall size and work in odd numbered groupings. Space plants apart according to the plant tags. The new bed may look sparse the first year or two but will fill in over time.
• Using a shovel, dig a hole 2x the size of the root ball.
• Remove plant from the plastic nursery pot, fan out the roots with your fingers to encourage them to grow outside the root ball.

• Add some fresh garden soil and amendments to the hole before planting. Note about soil: There are many brands of garden soil out there. I usually look for brands that have soil amendments like compost and hummus already mixed in – it’s just easier that way.
• Set the new plant in the hole.
• Backfill the hole with fresh garden soil, amendments and existing soil.
• Top the bed off with fresh mulch. It’s best to wait to mulch after planting the new bed. In my case, I don’t have any of the new plants yet and had a huge pile of mulch to spread. Therefore, I mulched my new garden first, but it can be done either way.

My New Garden

I’m so happy I started this new garden.

Because I wanted to test the waters with a new cut flower garden, I added several dahlia varieties and roses just to get my feet wet.

But I also did not love the original shape of the existing bed so adding on to it helped create a more aesthetically pleasing design.

This garden addition is 3 years old now and is still doing great! Here are some of the blooms I planted.

The roses totally have my heart. I bought them all bare root after starting this garden section and they bloomed the first season!

In addition to growing roses here, I also tucked in a few dahlia varieties. It’s amazing how beautifully unique these flowers are.

And the more you cut the more flowers you have.

Gah! I’m in love. I have to grow more!

After the first season of growing these dahlias here, I created a much larger cut flower garden outside of the shed in the backyard.

Why?

So I could grow a lot more flowers!!!

Want an Easier Way to Start a Garden?

If you want to start a garden without breaking your back and digging out all the grass, you’ve got to try this method!

There are a few ways to do it depending on what you want to do. But check out this post to see how to start a new garden without the work!

More About Starting a New Garden

Have you started a new garden before? Do you have any tips to share? I would love to know more in the comments below.

And don’t miss joining my Gardening DIY and Decorating Community on Facebook for more chatter. And follow along there and on Instagram as well. There are behind-the-scenes daily things that I share on Instagram that don’t make it to the blog. Would love to see you there too!

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