I will try to take a couple of photographs later and post so you can see the garden.
Our very rough plan is to have a lawn in the first half of the garden and use the second half for growing veg, greenhouse, (and now a 'bug hotel' after stephanieanne mentioned it! ) But it is a huge space, we moved from a house with a courtyard garden, so it is going to be a working progress and our plans may change!
So far we have cleared a significant amount of brambles using a petrol strimmer. After this my husband and I differ in opinion, he wants to get in machinery and play whereas I think maybe we need to just put in lots of hard work digging!
I would like to get this done by spring so we can put seed down in march as Verdun mentioned as I don't think our budget will stretch to turf.
I look forward to discussing it with you all as we go along....
my fear with the " get stuck in with all guns blazing" approach is that, at this time of year, some nasties like ground elder, bindweed , couch grass might be lurking underground,and by digging, you'll just be storing up problems with regrowth from all those chopped up roots later in the season. I'd wait until growth starts but, by all means, start cutting down the brambles as the young growth can either be dug up or treated at a later date.
Digging in this case involves not just breaking up the soil but breaking up each clod with the back of the fork and bending down and removing roots - all and any roots, grass roots, ground elder roots, bindweed roots, nettle roots and bramble roots - to the inexperienced these will be unidentifiable roots but they all need removing and burning or disposing of in a brown wheelie bin.
That's not 'going in with all guns blazing' but proper digging and soil preparation for whatever is coming next. It will not result in 'chopped up roots' as simply turning the soil over with a spade would do, or churning the surface up with a rotavator which, I agree would, in this case be a recipe for disaster.
There is no easy way to do this job properly, but it'll be so much easier to do it now when the soil is soft and nothing is growing!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I think you are right about hard digging Georgina. Heavy machinery often causes a lot of problems.......soil can be over compacted ESP when damp. Digging helps you to see your soil, what may be buried there and slows you down enough to understand your plot. Digging can actually be enjoyable ESP if you take your time.
And much cheaper than gym membership!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Given the amount of rain we've had recently I would not attempt to dig over the ground unless you are on VERY free draining soil. You can certainly set about cutting back the overgrown areas. Just pile it all up and allow it to dry out - it will dry slowly even in poor weather, then have a good bonfire.
Below are some photos of the garden. I have never uploaded photos onto a forum before and For some strange reason they have come out upside down. The first one is view of the whole garden. As you can see we have cleared quite a large section compared to its beginnings. This was brambles as high as the bungalow!
What a fabulous space! And some mature trees to give the garden structure
Don't try to tackle it all at once - work out a rough plan then start on one area and concentrate on that - just keeping the rest of the garden 'controlled' - I start nearest the house and get a nice area around the house and shed sorted, then gradually progress, bit by bit towards the far boundary. It may take you a few years to get it all tamed, if that's what you want - you may prefer to leave some of it semi-wild while the children are young - as long as brambles and nettles are cut back once a year to stop them spreading.
I spent much of my childhood playing in overgrown woodland - my guess is that there'll be dens and camps in amongst those trees before very long
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So exciting. Our patch was totally overgrown as well. The brambles were a big problem but we tackle it in areas. Digging, then digging over what we had done until virtually clear.
I agree with Verdun, get your lawn down it will give you some structure
Keep an eye open all the time , you never know what plant gems may have survived.
Buy some good gardening books to guide you and of course use forums
People have given you some good advice. When we bought our old farmhouse, needing renovation, in Dordogne, there wasn't really a garden, old farmyard that had had some topsoil spread on it, covered with tall grass, brambles and nettles and rough grassed areas. There was so much to do with house and garden, we had 4 children and husband was working, so we called in a landscaping firm to deal with the bits we wanted as lawns. They mowed it all, then rotovated, then raked and flattened and sowed seed. That is not what to do. It meant all the chopped up roots of weeds, couch grass, bindweed, nettles, creeping buttercup were still in the soil, only chopped to make more of them, and some of it I wanted as flower beds. Disaster, I'm still struggling with some of those over 20 years later!
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Posts
Thank you everyone for your input.
I will try to take a couple of photographs later and post so you can see the garden.
Our very rough plan is to have a lawn in the first half of the garden and use the second half for growing veg, greenhouse, (and now a 'bug hotel' after stephanieanne mentioned it!
) But it is a huge space, we moved from a house with a courtyard garden, so it is going to be a working progress and our plans may change!
So far we have cleared a significant amount of brambles using a petrol strimmer. After this my husband and I differ in opinion, he wants to get in machinery and play
whereas I think maybe we need to just put in lots of hard work digging!
I would like to get this done by spring so we can put seed down in march as Verdun mentioned as I don't think our budget will stretch to turf.
I look forward to discussing it with you all as we go along....
Thank you!
Digging in this case involves not just breaking up the soil but breaking up each clod with the back of the fork and bending down and removing roots - all and any roots, grass roots, ground elder roots, bindweed roots, nettle roots and bramble roots - to the inexperienced these will be unidentifiable roots but they all need removing and burning or disposing of in a brown wheelie bin.
That's not 'going in with all guns blazing' but proper digging and soil preparation for whatever is coming next. It will not result in 'chopped up roots' as simply turning the soil over with a spade would do, or churning the surface up with a rotavator which, I agree would, in this case be a recipe for disaster.
There is no easy way to do this job properly, but it'll be so much easier to do it now when the soil is soft and nothing is growing!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
And much cheaper than gym membership!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Given the amount of rain we've had recently I would not attempt to dig over the ground unless you are on VERY free draining soil. You can certainly set about cutting back the overgrown areas. Just pile it all up and allow it to dry out - it will dry slowly even in poor weather, then have a good bonfire.
Below are some photos of the garden. I have never uploaded photos onto a forum before and For some strange reason they have come out upside down. The first one is view of the whole garden. As you can see we have cleared quite a large section compared to its beginnings. This was brambles as high as the bungalow!
Turned it the right way up for you Georgina.
Looks like you have a lot of potential there (and a lot of hard work) but it will all be worth it!
What a fabulous space! And some mature trees to give the garden structure
Don't try to tackle it all at once - work out a rough plan then start on one area and concentrate on that - just keeping the rest of the garden 'controlled' - I start nearest the house and get a nice area around the house and shed sorted, then gradually progress, bit by bit towards the far boundary. It may take you a few years to get it all tamed, if that's what you want - you may prefer to leave some of it semi-wild while the children are young - as long as brambles and nettles are cut back once a year to stop them spreading.
I spent much of my childhood playing in overgrown woodland - my guess is that there'll be dens and camps in amongst those trees before very long
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So exciting. Our patch was totally overgrown as well. The brambles were a big problem but we tackle it in areas. Digging, then digging over what we had done until virtually clear.
I agree with Verdun, get your lawn down it will give you some structure
Keep an eye open all the time , you never know what plant gems may have survived.
Buy some good gardening books to guide you and of course use forums
People have given you some good advice. When we bought our old farmhouse, needing renovation, in Dordogne, there wasn't really a garden, old farmyard that had had some topsoil spread on it, covered with tall grass, brambles and nettles and rough grassed areas. There was so much to do with house and garden, we had 4 children and husband was working, so we called in a landscaping firm to deal with the bits we wanted as lawns. They mowed it all, then rotovated, then raked and flattened and sowed seed. That is not what to do. It meant all the chopped up roots of weeds, couch grass, bindweed, nettles, creeping buttercup were still in the soil, only chopped to make more of them, and some of it I wanted as flower beds. Disaster, I'm still struggling with some of those over 20 years later!