the best ways to restore a struggling garden

October 20, 2023

 If you have a garden in your home, it is probably one of the most important parts of the home, and certainly something that you will be keen to take care of as best as you can. In order to make sure of that, there are a few things that you might want to bear in mind. From time to time, a garden can get to a point where it is actually quite struggling to be healthy and vibrant, and when this is the case it's something you will need to work through.

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In this post, we are going to take you through some of the very best ways in which you can hope to restore a struggling garden. All of the following are well worth trying out if you want to give your garden a new lease on life.


First, Be Patient

Before you do anything, it’s important to appreciate that it can take a long time to work through your garden and get it to its former glory. Depending on how neglected it is, in fact, it might take a season or even a whole year. So you need to try and exercise some patience if you are going to have a much better chance of restoring your garden.


As long as you go into the project being as patient as possible, that is going to help you a great deal, and you should find that you are much more likely to actually see it through to the end. So this is a subtle but important point, and one that you should very much try to consider.


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Make A Plan

As with all projects of this kind, it’s usually quite useful if you can make a plan that you are able to follow along with. Having at least a rough idea of what you're going to try and achieve should help you a lot, because it is going to mean that you are much more likely to know where you’re heading and how you hope to get there.


This plan can be drawn up in whatever way you like, of course, but one good way is to start with the worst-affected areas of your garden and work from there. Then you should find that you are able to get through it much more easily and with a lot less fuss, which is of course a hugely important part of all of this.


Make Room

Usually, when you have a garden that has seen better days, one of the main issues is that it doesn’t have the same amount of room that it used to. That makes it harder to actually grow healthy plants, get the light that they need, and much else besides. And it also means that you will struggle to get a good perspective on your garden overall and what you want to do about it.


So an early thing that you should aim to do is to make some space in your garden. The more space you have to work with, the better. That might mean being a little gung ho and cutting back a few things, which could well be worth your while if so. However you do it, if you can make some room in your garden, you are effectively just going to have a much easier time of it, and it’s something you’ll be really glad for.

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Bring In The Light

In fact, creating some opportunities for light is something that you should definitely focus on if you are going to try and make your garden healthy again. Clearly, light is important to your garden at all times, and it’s something you should definitely make sure you are focusing on. How can you actually make sure that your garden has more light, however? As it happens, it might be easier and simpler than you think.


The first thing is to take a look at any larger perennials you might have, such as trees and big bushes and so on. These might well be blocking the light for the rest of the plants, resulting in a much less happy garden overall. You might therefore want to bring in a tree removal service to cut down one or two, or simply prune some of the perennials a little.


There are other ways to bring in the light, too. Sometimes all you need to do is to rearrange the garden and how it is laid out. That is often good enough to ensure that you are quickly going to have a lot more light in your garden.

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Choose What To Keep

Now you need to think about which plants you are going to keep and which you can get rid of. Remember, a weed is any plant that you don’t want, so if you find any of those, you can simply dig them out and start again. And because you're trying to turn around a neglected garden, it’s definitely wise to try and get rid of quite a few plants here.


You might well have an idea of the overall look you want the garden to have, in which case this is something to think about here. All in all, you need to make sure that you are thinking about which plants to keep and that you make that decision firmly, because this is going to affect the final garden considerably. It’s something you should definitely take your time over.


Give The Lawn Some Love

The lawn is usually a very important part of the garden. If the lawn is healthy, that is going to mean that the garden as a whole looks healthy, and you are probably going to be much happier with it on the whole. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to consider giving the lawn some love, which you can do in a number of important and fairly straightforward ways.


First of all, take a look at whether the lawn is going to need a trim. Cutting it back is good for it, and will also highlight where any problem areas are, so that you can then see where you need to work on it. From there, you can then think about whether it is patchy and needs some extra seeding, which is often a really powerful way of making it look like new - because much of it will literally be completely new this way.

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After you have done that, take a look at whether it might need some fertilizer. Usually this is going to give it a much better chance of looking great, and before you know it you might find that you have a much more beautiful lawn on the whole. Finally, consider laying turf if it is completely done and needs replacing altogether. That can be a quick and efficient way of making it look like new, and that is something that is really worth your while too.


Those are just some of the main things you can think about doing if you want to restore a struggling garden. As long as you have done at least some of those, you should find that it leads to a much more beautiful garden in no time, so that is something that you should definitely bear in mind here.


*contributed post*


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