Most people who are just starting out or have moved into a new garden feel pressured to do the whole garden at one time. I persuade most of my clients to stagger any design and build they’re embarking on. This is great advice for beginner gardeners, too, and I would suggest they concentrate on getting the area around the house finished first. Not only will this give you an area that you can enjoy relatively quickly, but it also means you can pace yourself and budget for the entire garden.

One of the biggest problems newcomers to gardening find is maintenance – and unless you’ve seriously caught the gardening bug, the last thing you want to do is spend all of your down time looking after a garden. Plan ahead and think about covering every centimetre of your soil with plants. The moment you clear soil or expose it, weeds will move in, so choose ground cover plants and place them in-between larger shrubs, to keep the soil covered, and there’ll be far less weeding to do. Also, don’t be afraid to plant quick-growing annuals, these will suppress any unwanted weed growth too, while you wait for your perennials and shrubs to reach the desired size.

Plants take time to grow and whether you have grown from seed or cuttings, a garden full of tiny new plants can be demoralising at the best of times – choose plants which grow fast and that will give you a great show in your first season. Try clump forming perennials such as asters and grasses and when you’re in the garden centre, keep an eye out for plants that can easily be split to make several plants for the price of one.

Native plants offer a fail safe answer to many new gardeners. Native plants have adapted over the years to most climatic and soil changes and are therefore plants that are easy to look after. Shrubs such as hazel or trees such as birch will give you fast instant structure. Native plants are generally much cheaper than their hybrid alternatives so keep a look out in the garden centre.

Vegetables can be extremely rewarding to the first-time gardener and also offer you a chance to understand how plants grow and what they need to survive – once you’ve forgotten to water your tomatoes and felt the disappointment that ensues, you’re much less likely to forget again! Picking and eating your own produce also helps you bond with your garden and there is nothing quite so relaxing as returning home from a hard day’s work to water the vegetables and harvest a crop.

Garden centres are a great source of knowledge with most having help desks. It is really helpful to use this knowledge, asking staff for help with certain plants and also to clarify if the plant you are buying is right for you.

The great thing about gardening is that it is addictive and gardeners are nice people – sharing cuttings and seeds you’ve gathered from your garden with your neighbours and friends will encourage a profitable return! If you grow from seed, you always end up with more plants than you need, and plants in the garden soon need dividing, so you’ll have plenty of material to share.