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Overgrown garden - please help
ChrisMorris
Posts: 2
Hello
My wife and I have recently moved house with our little old baby.
My experience of gardening is nill and our back garden is massively overgrown (see pics)
Along each side there are concrete flower beds that have been covered by some sort of tarpaulin (?) At the back there is also a flower bed marked out in concrete.
There appears to be a lot of bind weed and very tall grass - shall I buy a petrol skimmer to trim back the grass then mow it? Does the grass then need seeding? Or should I dig it all up and remove the weed roots?
Your help is greatly appreciated!! I'll post more photos when I get home too
0
Posts
What would you like to do with the garden?
Are you hoping to make some beds / grow veg and develop some green fingers or are you just looking for a 'green space' to sit & chill with a glass of something cool?
For now I'd be tempted to strim the grass back to see exactly what's there (if you're only planning to do this once it might be cheaper to hire than buy) and keep looking out for anything that's growing that you might want to keep.
Once it's strimmed you can mow it a couple of times to see if you can make a lawn of the grass.
If it's all too rough, dig it out (weedkill and rotovate) and turf or seed in the autumn, making beds where you want them.
As far as your beds go, have a think about what you want to grow, flowers or veggies etc, leave the plastic on til you are ready to use the beds or they will be full of weeds too
I would also reccomend starting by the house, so you can have somewhere to sit asap
First thing that I would do is cut the grass to see what the land is like and if there are any problem areas. I would then take stock of what plants are worth keeping and those to remove.
You will find that once you have got the lawn back under control, the whole place will look MUCH better. Strim it down to about 4 -6 inches, rake it up, and then put a mower on it on its highest setting to start getting it back to lawn height. Do it gradually, and your mower won't clog up too badly, and do it while it it dry, it will be so much easier! It will look awful at first, really brown, but it will recover once it rains. keep posting pictures, we love a new garden project!
Ooh yes! We do love new garden projects. Good luck with it and I agree; get the lawn under control and then the whole area will look much larger. The you can figure out what shape you want your garden to have. Regard it as a 1,2 or 3 year project, before you achieve your goals.
My next door neighbours had a similar problem when they moved in and just kept cutting the grass until it looked like a lawn and then turn their efforts to simple borders Two years later great progress. So take your time and the advise given here. I have to great results..