Structures

Supporting structures can make attractive focal points in their own right in the early stages. Choose from ready-made timber or metal versions or make your own temporary supports from bamboo canes. For more sturdy home-made supports, use rustic poles or sawn timber.

Other structures such as trellis panel screens, and trellis tops to boundary fences and walls, are also valuable in the early stages of constructing a garden, adding height and decoration.

Lawns

Once all the potentially lawn-damaging activities are out of the way, the next quick fix is to lay the lawn. After you've prepared the ground, and perhaps brought in topsoil to improve levels, you've only to roll out the turves to create an instant and evergreen carpet to counteract the bricks, paving and other hard landscaping.

Adding the plants

A mature garden is attractive because of the varying heights and depths that it contains. So the first plants to put in are the framework of trees, shrubs and hedging that will eventually provide this mature feel. Or buy one or more mature plants if you can afford them (you're buying growing time here). If you're on a tight budget, go for small, but add plenty of fast-growing annual and perennial plants that will fill gaps at low level, or climb up and over tripods and obelisks to give that all-important height.