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Overgrown Garden Solutions

brendonwalexanderTr0Lr2EvbrendonwalexanderTr0Lr2Ev Posts: 1
in Problem solving
Hi,

I am new to gardening so please forgive any ignorance, but I have my first garden and I am so excited to learn new things! Eck!

So I bought a house that has a garden, which is currently overgrown.  I need to chop all the brambles, grasses etc down to clear way for any future garden design/landscraping and hopefully a veggie patch.

So I have some questions and if anyone can give me any help and guidance I would be very grateful as not sure where to begin.

1).  What is the best way to hack all the overgrown vegetation?  Are there any useful tools (hand or power) that I should invest in and if so, any recommendations on makes and models etc.  I don't mind spending a little money if it will be an investment for any future garden work.

2).  What is the best/easiest way to dispose of the vegetation?  I am planning to have quite a lot of raised beds in my garden...this might sound crazy, but can you cut it up and bury it in or mix it with the soil in the raised beds rather than have to take it to the tip?

3).  There is a fair amount of slabs/concrete in the garden, which I intend to get rid of...are there any ingenious ideas to use or recycle these in the garden?

Think that is my initial questions...sure there will be many more, especially when I look at veggie patches etc.

Thanks in advance for any help, guidance or advice - very much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Brendon.

Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    Hi Brendon - welcome to the forum and the wonderful world of gardening!

    I had a wild area at the end of my garden about 10m sq. Full of brambles/nettles/ivy etc. that I needed to clear so I could have a greenhouse and veg beds.
    Ideally the 'best' and most eco-friendly way of clearing it is to dig everything out and ensure there are no bits of root left that may re-sprout.
    All well and good if you have the time and energy.
    I didn't
    I used glyphosate 360 (it's a much more powerful version of Roundup).
    I sprayed 3 times with about 2-3 weeks between each spraying.
    After the 2nd spray, everything but the ivy was dead, but the ivy needed a 3rd spray.
    If you take this route, it must be done while the plants are still growing well.
    Glyphosate is absorbed only through the leaves and breaks down on contact with the soil.
    Also be aware that any plant that gets spray on it will die - so use on a calm day and with care and don't use a fine mist from your sprayer, adjust so there are tiny droplets to minimize drift.

    As you can see I burned all of the dead material.

    Before-


    After-


    Finished :)

    If you dig it all out, you should take it to the tip.
    Chopping it up and digging it in - you're just creating lots of cuttings and many will re-sprout, so you'll end up with more weeds than when you started!

    Paving slabs can be cleaned and re-laid

    Good luck with your project.


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I'd echo exactly what @Pete.8 says - and did. You'll be there for evermore trying to clear that by hand. The other alternative is to strim everything, and wait for new growth to appear for spraying, but at this time of year, that might be difficult - it'll depend where you live and the climate as to how rapidly you get enough growth for it to be effective. 
    Disposal is tricky if you don't want , or have the facility, to burn the material. Trips to the tip can be a pain if you're not nearby, so you might have to make use of your council bin for a month or two! Some councils offer a collection for a fee, so that might be worth trying - although I think that's usually household rubbish. Chuck an old sofa in with it and you might be ok  ;)
    The slabs are useful for paths if you want veg beds, or just generally, but you can also break them up and use them, stacked, to create raised beds. I remember someone on the forum a few years ago doing that.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Hello and congratulations on your new garden. My best advice is to go slowly - you probably want to rush out and do everything, but take a breath and plan. I'm not a great one for chemicals so in our wild area we strimmed down growth to about a foot in height, so we could see what was there and then dug it out with spade, fork, pick-axe and sweat and blood. Very satisfying.
     During your tea breaks, you can start to think about the conditions you have, the type of soil, aspect, light and the most productive and efficient layout for your garden. It is worth getting it right the first time so think about how you want to use your space, how you want it to look, how you will access all the areas you create.
    Getting rid of rubbish is a problem and you will have to dispose of roots and perennial weeds. That might mean bagging it up for the dump, paying for removal or getting a skip. You could also start your compost heap, chopping up and mixing anything that won't regrow.
    Most of all, enjoy these days and get to know your space. Starting a garden is an adventure.
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    Welcome to the forum.srconf garden we had 150 foot plus, we couldn't even walk down it for 6 weeks,we found pottery car parts including a bonnet,huge brambles, collapsed trellis,a pond.we cleared the lot by hand,dug out,then hired a rotavator. We used secateurs.where we are now we had 100feet of brambles coming from neighbours garden, some had stems 5inches in diameter,they had smashed the fence.my husband dug them out,said it was the only way to be sure. 
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    My hubby says get yourself a decent strimmer,metal
     We've got a Bosch shredder,copes with quite big branches
    Really we need pictures of your garden. If you do go the chemical route, yes,council tip. Basic set of tools,spade,fork,hoe,sythe,rakeY ou can hire a big boy strimmer.Add to tools,smaller ones for planting, depending on your needs for the garden, kids, washing line, shed, green house seating,veg
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    edited August 2021
    Having had to tackle a fairly large 'wild' area in a previous garden, I'd not have been able to do anything else if I'd had to dig it all out - certainly wouldn't have been able to fit in going to work and looking after a family  :D  
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited August 2021
    Make sure you identify and keep anything worthwhile.  Take at least a year over this.  Better two.

    Use a powerful rotary mower, starting at highest setting, to get your lawn under control.  Things will start to look better immediately.

    I bought a house with a large garden from a rose-lover.  Untouched for his last 10 years.  I bought a good strong set of loppers and went through the borders a yard a day.  Some died, some came back.  After 10 years only Rambling Rector remains.

    Woody stuff may need a good shredder, but lighter stuff can be run over with your mower and composted.  It was a bonfire a day for several months.  No neighbours complained, though I was careful about wind direction.

    Old slabs and concete will come in useful as hardcore maybe.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • parrotfeather*parrotfeather* Posts: 188
    It is much more environmentally friendly (though hard work) to cut down and dig out the brambles.  If you have pernicious perennial weeds like bindweed you may choose the chemical route but you can usually get most stuff out by careful and repeated digging.  If there are large roots and stumps I recommend a cheap mattock, which makes short work of them and is also useful for planting later in hard or stony ground.  We used to burn woody waste material but not these days; it is better to shred it (hire a big shredder as the small garden ones can't cope with this sort of job) and it will provide a useful soil conditioner if fully composted, though you need space and time for the heaps  to rot down to do this.  Otherwise your Council may offer a large garden waste bin which is emptied regularly and saves driving to the tip. 

    A word of warning: when you dig be careful to take out and dispose of the roots of weeds such as ground elder, bindweed and mare's tail as much as you can.  We made the beginners' error of rotavating without first digging up the roots and the chopped up roots all grew into more weeds.  They will not die in a compost heap either.  

    Other useful tools to think about: a good pair of loppers, some heavy leather gauntlets, a strong spade (stainless steel ones can bend if overtaxed), a strong fork, a rake for gathering debris and levelling the ground later and a tough rotary mower which will sort out your grass but also serve as a shredder, as mentioned above. You can actually manage weeds in grassy areas by regular mowing and if you don't have time to tackle all of a big area at once you can cover some of it with landscape fabric or even weighted-down cardboard to kill the weeds in the meantime.  Some people even leave landscape fabric down and plant through it although I find that the weeds just come through at the edges of the planting holes so that would not be my preference.  If you decide to shred the woody waste from your clearance and there is enough, you can even use that to cover the ground in a thick layer and let it rot down.  I tried this...you do need a very thick layer though...and it killed the growth underneath and rotted down nicely eventually.

    We still have a large pile of old slabs...they might come in useful but not so far!

    Much depends on the size of the plot you are tackling but if it is manageable the exercise is great and the satisfaction afterwards even better. I hope that you are able to achieve all you want to and that this is the beginning of an enjoyable and fulfilling gardening experience for you.


  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    We really need @brendonwalexanderTr0Lr2Ev to come back and let us know what size the plot is.
    While it's all very worthy to suggest doing it by hand, it really comes down to a couple of  things - how much time he has to spend, and the size of the area. 10 or 20 sq m is one thing, 100 sq m is entirely different  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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