How to make a new garden flourish - and there's a giveaway, too!

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW CLOSED

If you love your gardening books, you may have spotted a gorgeous new release from Becky Searle on how to grow a new garden. You might know Becky from her regular columns in various gardening magazines, or as Sow_much_more over on Instagram. We asked her to share her thoughts on getting started with a new garden - read more below.

And excitingly, we have a copy of her great new book to give away, plus a bundle of our new RHS-endorsed BoronGreen® tools!

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How to make a new garden flourish

All new gardens present their own unique challenges. Whether it’s an overgrown jungle, a barren new build plot or a tired space you want to overhaul. But creating a garden is a joyous and worthwhile endeavour, if you know what you’re doing. By following these few simple tips and tricks, you can create a garden, that will naturally thrive for you and be a safe place for your family and for wildlife.

Start with soil

Healthy soil grows healthy plants, and the great thing is that it’s not too hard to make healthy soil, even if what you’re starting with is less than ideal. Whether you have sandy, chalky, clayey or thin rubbly soil, what most soils are lacking is organic matter. Adding organic matter in the form of either compost or well-rotted manure helps to bolster your soil by feeding the organisms living within it. This helps to improve soil structure and drainage, releasing nutrients to your plants and creating a healthy environment for your plants to live. Simply apply a layer of compost or well-rotted manure to the surface of your beds – no more than seven centimetres – and watch the magic happen. You can repeat this in subsequent years too, to give your plants an extra boost.

Know what you want

Having a clear plan in your head for what you want to achieve in your garden is essential. A well-planned garden will look more coherent and end up being a more useful space for you and your family. Of course, gardens can and should be a constant work in progress, where you add things that you love, and tinker until your heart’s content. But having a plan of the basic outline, style and use of your garden will help you stay on track and create a beautiful space. 

Plan your planting

So many of us fall into the trap of buying something we like from the garden centre and then not knowing where to put it, and when you do find a spot, it sits there looking a bit awkward. Don’t worry, we’ve all done it. By planning your planting you can make great looking beds with much less effort. Try creating a mood board of plants that would be happy in the conditions in your garden. Then select a few plants, with different heights, flowering times, textures, foliage colours and flower shapes. See how they look together. Then work out how many you will need to fill your bed and propagate or buy several of each plant. Having plants repeating through the garden will instantly make it look more natural.

Create an ecosystem

Creating an ecosystem might not be top of your to-do list in your new garden. Patio furniture, yes, barbecue, sure but ecosystem? Why bother? It all comes down to balance. If you want your garden to be somewhere plants thrive, they need to be part of an ecosystem. This means attracting wildlife to your garden. Plants will do this naturally anyway, but we have to be willing to let that happen. The more wildlife we have in our gardens, the more things we have to control the pests in our garden. A proliferation of pests is a sign that the ecosystem in your garden is out of balance, but getting rid of your pests also takes out the food source for other wildlife. Once the predators arrive to eat your pests, you will have a trouble-free garden – and more wonderful wildlife to enjoy. So, try creating habitats, embrace feeding the birds, and try some slug-proof plants in the meantime!

Using these simple tips, you can create a thriving and beautiful garden. If you want to know more, my book Grow a New Garden is a comprehensive guide to starting or restarting a garden, whatever the conditions. It teaches you to understand how your soil works, understand natural pest control, overcome common problems and design a space that thrives. 

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Thanks to Becky for her tips on growing a new garden. Read more in 'Grow a New Garden', available from Bookshop.org.

The giveaway

As well as Becky's lovely new book, we have her 'Seed Collector's Kit' to give away, too. Easy to follow and beautifully presented, this treasure trove is packed with info on how to save and grow seeds, from Artichoke to Zinnia. Who doesn't like growing free plants?!

We’ll pair Becky's prizes with a bundle of tools from our new RHS-endorsed BoronGreen range. The prize consists of digging spade and digging fork, plus trowel and hand fork, together worth £84. The BoronGreen range combines the superior performance of boron steel with sustainable sourcing, using FSC-endorsed timber, and steel that's 80% from recycled sources. We don't think there are any other tools in the UK that can offer this combination.

Together these prizes will kit you out perfectly for the season ahead, so don't miss out - enter below!

GOOD LUCK!

How to enter

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW CLOSED

To win this fantastic prize, simply leave a comment on this blog. Scroll to the bottom of this page to comment (your email address won't be published). You could tell us what you're growing this year, or about what's worked for you when you've had a new garden yourself.

You’ll also need to sign up to our email newsletter to be a winner, so if you're not already a subscriber, fill in your email address in the grey band right at the bottom of this page. It’s easy to unsubscribe at any time if you don’t enjoy our updates.

The small print
New garden prize draw, 2025
This giveaway is open to UK residents over the age of 18 only. No purchase necessary. No cash alternative is available. The winner will be chosen at random and the judges’ decision will be final. One winner will receive: a copy of each of ‘Grow a New Garden’ and 'The Seed Collector's Kit', both by Becky Searle; a BoronGreen digging fork, digging spade, trowel and hand fork. Prize draw opens at 00:01 on 01/05/2025 and closes at 23:59 on 11/05/2025. Winner will be contacted by Burgon & Ball shortly after the closing date. Employees of Burgon & Ball and their family members aren’t eligible to win. One entry per person; entries created by a bot or a service that automatically enters participants are not eligible to win. We draw your attention to our privacy here.