Hey folks,
I have no gardening experience and looking to improve the garden that was planted by the previous owners. I am unsure how to maintain these plants and what is best for them, as well i don't know what is intended to grow and what might be a weed out of control.
I have linked an album of photos I have taken of various plants. A lot of them seem to be growing out of what looked like previously dead stems or growing over them. I am just not sure if I should be getting rid of the dried out old stems or if i am supposed to leave them as the new plant might need it, it also looks like it depends on the plant.
I tried tugging out the dead stems from some of them but there was a lot of resistance so i stopped for fear up uprooting the whole plant. Maybe I should trim those stems instead?
I am going into this blind so pardon my ignorance about it all.
Take your time and wait. Know that learning to garden is a matter of trial and error. I like the iNaturalist app to identify plants (and animals and insects and...) so that should help you figure out what's what. A lot of young or early plants are hard to identify, but you'll pretty quickly learn to recognize your frequent invaders. As for the dead twigs, I like to leave them until late spring so I know if I should expect something else to come up, then either leave them if they're little or cut them back if they're an eye sore. Some plants that are supposed to die back may not if the winter is mild enough, and some plants that aren't supposed to die back might if the winter is severe enough. Some plants will also die back in a particularly harsh summer.
All of that go say take your time. Even the worst "mistakes" are easily fixable.