You have just mortgaged your life and bought a house — with garden. Or you are paying rent on a house, and a garden comes with it … Or you have had a garden for years but “garden” is a bit of an exaggeration, as it’s mostly weeds, lawn that has to be mowed and a few hardy shrubs left by a previous tenant. You have no idea what they are … but you do know they’re ugly.

Where do you start?

Do not panic:

Once you have the right plants gardens mostly grow themselves. After all, the bush grows without us interfering. You don’t even have to spend lots of money — the best and most hardy gardens are usually grown from cuttings and spare bulbs dug from someone else’s garden, ie, free.

Take a long walk around the neighbourhood and look at gardens:

Decide which ones you love and which ones you hate… then forget about the ones you love that have two eager gardeners in large hats weeding the flowerbeds. Their gardens get a lot more work that you probably want to give yours.

Come home, have a cup of tea, and work out what you’d like your garden to look like:

Flowering shrubs and a million birds and mulch? Neat shrubs and paving, with architecturally interesting shrubs like you’d find in a garden designer’s handbook? A wilderness of fruit trees with a vegie garden? A heck of a lot of roses? A bit of everything?

Plan your garden:

Take a pen and paper and make a drawing of your garden. Work out where — if anywhere — you’d like the paving, big shrubs, tall trees, some colour to see when you drive up and something gorgeous outside the kitchen and living room windows.

Go to a few open gardens in your neighbourhood and take a note of what looks good and flourishes in your area:

Most garden problems come from trying to grow the wrong plants — the sort of “one plant suits all gardens” that you’ll find in some garden centres.When in doubt, don’t just buy what looks good in the garden centre — ask. Garden centres may have many plants that will only survive in your area with lots of cosseting, but they’ll also have lots of expertise. Before you start mooching down the aisles and fall in love with a blooming great shrub, show one of the garden centre people the plan of your garden, and ask what they’d advise.The conversation could go a bit like this:

“Hi, I’m new to gardening. I’m looking for a shrub that grows about two metres high, that will have pink/white/blue flowers and doesn’t need pruning or lots of water.”Or you might say: “I really want a flowerbed with lots of colour. What do you advise? I’d like flowers that I just have to plant once and then mostly forget about. Oh, and what sort of mulch and slow release fertiliser do you recommend, too?”

When in doubt, don’t just buy what looks good in the garden centre — ask. Garden centres may have many plants that will only survive in your area with lots of cosseting, but they’ll also have lots of expertise. Before you start mooching down the aisles and fall in love with a blooming great shrub, show one of the garden centre people the plan of your garden, and ask what they’d advise.

The conversation could go a bit like this:

“Hi, I’m new to gardening. I’m looking for a shrub that grows about two metres high, that will have pink/white/blue flowers and doesn’t need pruning or lots of water.”

Or you might say: “I really want a flowerbed with lots of colour. What do you advise? I’d like flowers that I just have to plant once and then mostly forget about. Oh, and what sort of mulch and slow release fertiliser do you recommend, too?”

If you are renting you need to make a decision: Will you stay there long enough to make it worthwhile planting out the garden? This may well be “yes” in hot climates, where gardens grow fast and you’ll have a stunning garden in a year or two. You may also love the idea of planting a garden for other people too. (I hope the people who live in the houses I once rented are still enjoying the trees I planted.)

But if you plan to move soon you can have a potted garden — even great big pots fit in a removalist’s van. In hot, dry times you can even “plant” the pots of annual flowers that you plan to remove in a few months time. “Planting” pots keeps the roots cooler or warmer and moister, but there is the danger the roots will soon spread out from the pot, so only do this as a short-term project.

Ask for cuttings:

Think of anyone you know who has a garden — a friend at work, your mum, your gran. Ask them if you can have some cuttings. (If they’ve gardened for long enough, they’ll know what a cutting is.) If your best friend just happened to be renting a place with a good garden but doesn’t know anything about gardening either, head to the library and look at a gardening book with a section on “cuttings” or “propagation”.

It’s easy to take cuttings or divide plants — and you will be amazed how fast and easily hardy plants (the best ones for your area) will grow. Just try not to plant any that will turn into weeds, that is, ones that grow too easily. Hint: If anyone says, “Oh, you’re welcome to it. I can’t get rid of the stuff!” this means that — in your area at least — it’s a weed.

But most of all — have confidence and have fun. That is the great gardener’s secret. We don’t do it to have gardens to be admired. We don’t do it for the exercise either, or to reduce our waistlines or our blood pressure, though that happens too.

We garden because it is one of the great fulfilments in the world.

How can I possibly afford to buy all the plants I want?

Buy seeds and tiny plants — they’re cheaper — and wait for them to grow. Or join a local gardening club and help someone in exchange for cuttings — it’s a great way to learn from experienced gardeners.

Treat yourself to one packet of seed a week, one small plant a month and one great gorgeous treat — like a big pot or shrub — for your birthday.

How can I chop down a dead tree?

Don’t. Get a professional to do it (look up the Yellow Pages).

Better still, ask around and find someone who is happy with the job they had done and use the same operator. There are some careless and (garden) ignorant cowboys out there. Conversely there are some real artists with a chainsaw — make sure the one you hire does what you want done.

Anyone you hire should take it down branch by branch so the whole thing doesn’t collapse all over your garden. (You may only want to take the branches off anyway and grow a passionfruit or bougainvillea up the trunk.)

How can I have time to garden?

Set aside half an hour one day a week — it’s amazing what just a regular limited amount of time can do. Better still, make a fortnightly date with a couple of friends to garden at their place or yours. The garden owner provides the cool drinks and blueberry muffins afterwards. You’ll have earned it — and it’ll be great exercise, mentally calming and enormous fun.

You may even end up with a stunner of a garden.

Your say: How did you start your garden? What tips do you have for someone starting a garden? Share with us at [email protected]

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Midwinter is the time for feasts — not just around the table, with friends on long cold winter nights, but in the garden, too..

Summer’s harvests often have to be picked fast, before the fruit fly get into the apricots or the lettuces go to seed. Winter harvests are more gentle, and more generous too. They go on producing for months, while you pick them as needed — if the birds don’t get there first.

If you don’t have any of the winter beauties below, this is the perfect time to plant most of them, so that next year, or in two or three years’ time, you too can pick baskets of winter bounty, and share it with your friends.

The most beautiful winter harvests:

There is nothing as elegant as rich orange persimmons, hanging from a leafless tree. They are almost too lovely to pick. Sadly if you don’t, the birds will soon find them. I tie “bird bags” — calico bags or old stockings — over some of mine, to keep at least some of the fruit for ourselves. I have to admit that daggy calico bags do dampen the elegance a bit.

Persimmons grow in any climate, though they may need a sunny wall in very cold climates, and may not lose their leaves in hotter winters.

Red round pomegranates hang from leafless branches too. I used to battle the birds for them, until I decided to grow five pomegranate trees instead of one. Now there’s enough for all of us — and the birds look beautiful, too, cavorting upside down as they eat the fruit. Pomegranates suit almost any climate, and are wonderfully drought-hardy once they have been growing well for two or three years to get established.

I love the bright orange fruit of cumquats and calamondins — calamondins are like cumquats, but smaller, sourer and hardier in frost and heat. They make great marmalade and cordial, too. Oranges and mandarins also have their own beauty, glowing orange in the deep green leaves. Starved citrus, on the other hand, just look ugly.

If your citrus trees have narrow, yellowish leaves, give the poor things a good feed of old hen manure or other organic fertiliser or citrus food, a good water, plus a good mulch too.

In frost-free areas, tamarilloes can be stunning — dangling from the tree or rather large bush. They also fruit the same year you plant them. Commercial tamarilloes are deep red, but there are dark orange and pale orange and even yellowy orange varieties around too, that seem to be a bit more cold-hardy than the red ones.

Tamarilloes are one of the few fruits that grow in dappled shade — a great plant to fill in awkward spots in the garden. Tamarillo grows quickly from seed, or you can propagate it from a cutting in late winter. The bush tolerates about three degrees of frost. Even if all its leaves disappear, they’ll come back in spring and it will bear a late autumn crop. In mild areas, tamarillo crops all year round.

Peel your tamarilloes before eating. Chop them into fruit salads, use instead of kiwifruit on pavlova — or try a mix of red tamarillo slices and green kiwifruit. Add tamarillo to a salsa of chopped coriander leaves and diced avocado.

The most generous winter harvests:

This might be lemon trees or Tahitian limes: so many fruit you’ll find yourself giving away baskets full and hopefully getting some jars of marmalade in return. Avocadoes give lemons and limes a run for their money, though — a good, well-grown backyard avocado tree can give you hundreds of fruit each winter.

Another over-the-top cropper is kiwifruit. You need a male and female for pollination, and a good sturdy fence or pergola for them to ramble over, or a warm balcony in cold areas. But in return you get masses of fruit … or the birds get masses of fruit, so pick them as soon as you see the first bird pecks, or you may find they vanish before you can get a taste.

The prickliest winter harvest:

Chestnuts take about 10 years to fruit and grow into enormous trees. But if you have space you’ll find they drop their spiky nut vases all through winter, so every day there is a basket full to pick up — carefully, with gloves on. They are great fun for kids, like a backyard treasure hunt tree, where they never know quite how many nuts they’ll find each morning. Chestnuts are traditionally roasted, but they are just as good boiled for about 20 minutes — and it’s much easier!

Winter salads:

I plant masses of red mignonette lettuce in autumn, enough to see us through the winter. Although mignonette and other winter lettuce like cos are frost-resistant, they don’t grow fast (or even much at all) in cold weather. They make lovely salads though, soft-leafed hearts mixed with crisp slices of apple and thinly sliced celery.

Parsley is another wonderful winter salad standby, if you’ve remembered to plant lots in summer to see you through winter. Finely chopped broad-leafed or Italian parsley is wonderful mixed with chopped avocado, celery, apple, peeled tamarillo and a touch of lemon- or lime-based salad dressing.

And then there are garlic chives, and winter sweet broccoli and cauliflower to steam or roast and serve with vinaigrette too, and carrots and beetroots that really are sweeter and have a richer flavour in winter, and superb either raw or grated with salad dressing, served hot or cold.

Australian gardeners are lucky. We have backyard bounty all year long. Midwinter is the perfect time to share it — winter harvests that become midwinter feasts.

Your say: What do you do to your garden in winter? What are your winter gardening tips? Share with us at [email protected]

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