u/Exciting-Bluejay3210

Hi all! Please can you type me? I thought I was a cool summer (just based on my own looking in the mirror) but then I feel like in pictures some cool summer colors make me look really washed out, and I think I look quite good in brilliant white (but never black which is why I thought I'm probably not a winter).
NMIP

Glasses still on because I'm blind as a bat and I couldn't see the screen to take the photos if I took them off sorry!

Also double sorry if it's too many photos, I just went for a range! 😂

We bought a house earlier in the year and, having never had a garden, have been very much leaving it to its own devices (as you can see 🙈).

I'm loving the biodiversity we have (lots of slugs, snails, spiders, butterflies and bumble bees having the time of their lives, but it does feel like what we're growing (mostly a lot of local weeds thanks to the birds) is taking over a bit.

We love the biodiversity, but would prefer the plants be a little more to our taste (herbs like rosemary and lavender, taller shrubs and bushes for privacy etc). We've agreed to wait to do any work pulling things out on it til after the summer just because right now we literally can't see the woods for the trees, we don't know what is there intentionally by the last owner and what has just sprouted up, but will we absolutely destroy the biodiversity if we start digging things up?

It definitely wouldn't be an all at once job (I am neither rich enough nor have the patience), but I'd like to avoid absolutely decimating whatever ecosystem is hanging out here in the name of personal preference. Also my cats love to eat the long grass because they're weird.

For reference it's a south facing garden in West Yorkshire so often damp and very sunny 😅

Any advice on either plants or just how to go about protecting what we have while we try and build something new is greatly appreciated🙏