Description

The New Garden Starter Kit is a £69 self-study course of seven printable checklists and video-led lessons from BBC Garden Rescue’s Lee Burkhill, built for anyone with an existing or inherited garden who wants to work out what’s worth keeping before they spend a penny on it. An inherited, overgrown garden is exactly the starting point this kit is built for!

The New Garden Starter Kit

For the garden you’ve already got, not the one you’re starting from scratch.

If you’ve just moved house and inherited a garden full of shrubs, borders and a lawn you didn’t choose, or you’ve lived somewhere for years and finally decided this is the year you get to grips with it, you’ll know the particular anxiety this course is built to solve. Not knowing whether to rip something out or work with it. Not wanting to waste money finding out the hard way. Standing in your own garden feeling like a visitor in it.

This isn’t a design course for a blank canvas, and it isn’t a template pack you browse and download. It’s the thinking I actually bring to a new client’s inherited garden, turned into seven working checklists and lessons you complete yourself, in order, finishing with an honest audit of what you’ve got and a simple plan for what comes next.

What’s inside

• The Site Assessment, working out aspect, sun, shade, drainage and soil before you plant a single thing
• The Reuse Audit, the lesson that saves the most money, catalogue what’s worth keeping before anything gets pulled out
• The Budget Priority, where to spend first, where to wait, and how to sequence spending across a season
• The Seasonal Planting Checklist, one reference per season you’ll return to for years
• The Tool Essentials, the handful of tools worth owning before anything else
• Common Beginner Mistakes, the patterns I see again and again, framed so you can check yourself before you repeat them
• The Simple Garden Plan, where everything becomes an actual sketch for your own space

Each lesson pairs a short video lesson with a printable, fillable checklist PDF, so you’re working through your own garden as you go rather than just reading about someone else’s.

Who this is for

Anyone with a garden they didn’t design themselves, whether that’s a new house, a garden you’ve never tackled, or one that’s simply got away from you over the years. No design training, no plant knowledge and no experience required, just a willingness to look properly before you act.

You’ll need a laptop, tablet or phone to work through it; your progress is saved, and the Seasonal Planting lesson in particular is built to be revisited across the whole year rather than read once.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need any gardening experience to start?

No. This is built for complete beginners standing in front of an established garden, not for people who already know what they’re doing.

How is this different from the Weekend Garden Makeover Crash Course?

The Crash Course is for a blank canvas, a new build plot with nothing in it yet. This kit is the opposite starting point, an existing garden with things already growing in it that you need to assess before you design anything.

How long does it take to work through?

You can move through it at your own pace across as many sessions as you like, and several lessons, particularly the seasonal one, are designed to be used across a full year rather than finished in one sitting.

Can I use this before booking a full design consultation?

Yes, this is exactly the groundwork my Garden Design for Beginners course and full design consultations build on, so nothing you do here goes to waste if you decide to go further.

Lee Burkhill, The Garden Ninja, is your Tutor

This Weekend Garden Makeover course is taught by me, Lee Burkhill, from BBC 1’s Garden Rescue. I’m an award-winning garden designer and gardening TV presenter. Once you log in to the course, you can work your way through the course materials with video guides from me to guide and teach you along the way.

Want to Go Further?

If a weekend crash course isn’t quite enough and you want the complete twenty-hour training, my Garden Design for Beginners course covers the full process from site assessment through to a finished, buildable design for £199. Or if you’d rather see finished designs and planting plans before committing to learning the process yourself, Garden Design Examples for Small Gardens walks through 30 real templates for £29.

Want all three? The Garden Design Courses Bundle covers everything at a reduced combined price.