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Walled Garden Renovation
john.curran
Posts: 2
Hi. We've acquired a former gardens cottage with a walled garden and are looking for advice on clearance.
There is a lot of long couch grass, doc plants, thistles, etc, etc. It's approx 50m x 50m.
Do we simply start by spraying the area with Glypohsate, then plough in, followed by rotovating and rolling...?
We've old rose restraints and what looks like edge of pathways but after many years of neglect and grazing by horses it's hard to see what is actually there.
We've managed to clear a small area where ducks were kept so there was no grass but tonnes of thistles and have planted some veg and soft fruit but the rest of the area is knee high with grass, nettles, etc.
Any advice greatly received.
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I'm sure that many will have very different approaches to this from manually digging it over by hand inch by inch and weeding all those unwanted plants out by hand to those who would blast the lot with Glypohsate, wait a few weeks then plough in, followed by rotovating.
There's a balance to be had and it depends on how much free time you have I think too.
50m X 50m is a large space to get sorted. I was in exactly your situation 4 and bit years ago and although very reluctant, in the end I decided to blast the lot with Glypohsate and then a second time 6 weeks later.
I now have a very nice garden and I feel that on balance it was the right thing to do at the time.
But I won't be using Glypohsate in this garden again though if I can possibly avoid it for as long as I can keep on top of it and keep it well maintained hereon.
I think that Glypohsate should never be used as regular way of sorting out on going problems but rather a one off solution to an overwhelming start only to get a garden under control and started.
After using it and waiting (Be patient because people just expect it to work over night, it doesn't) use it and don't expect to do much with the space this year. In addition to ploughing in afterwards I would plough in as much horse manure as you can get your hands on at the same time. I wouldn't consider planting it up until next spring but I would keep it well weeded and repeat applications of horse manure this year until your blue in the face to get an excellent start next spring.
I'm sure there'll be those who will disagree.
How long have you lived there? If you glyphosphate the whole thing you will kill everything - are you certain there are no plants in there that are worth keeping?
I would follow Chrissie's advice and think about what area you can realistically 'do' in one season. If you use glyphosphate now you may find it has limited effect because it works better on new soft growth. So I suggest you strim a workable section - keep the strimmer fairly high, at least 4 inches off the ground to do as little wildlife damage as possible - and look carefully at what's there while you do it. If there's nothing of merit, wait a week or so for the plants to begin to regrow and then hit them with the weedkiller. If there are good plants then you either need to sheet mulch around them or lift them, pot them up and store them somewhere until you can plant them out again. While you wait for the weedkiller to work, repeat the light strim to the rest of the garden. If there's nothing worth keeping in there at all, then sheet mulch as much as you can, peg it down firmly and go back to this year's working area....
Clear off the dead stuff, wait again for signs of regrowth, hit it again. Only when very little regrows should you rotovate it. If you rotovate weeds like bindweed while it's still alive you just get a lot more bindweed evenly spread out (every little bit of live root will shoot). By the autumn you should have a clean area to begin planting.
The rest you can gradually uncover, a workable chunk at a time, tackle any survivor weeds and then plant up. You will need to be patient.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I'm with cottage compost. I took on a field of Italian rye grass. i was told in passing I should spray it all off before ploughing reseeding etc but didn't take this in board. It's a really tough fight keeping on top of it. I can clear a bed, dig it over , rotovate it and if I'm not clearing it constantly within a year you wouldn't have a clue that it had been cleared. It's like a lawn within a year.
i'd spray the lot now. Cut and burn it when it dies down, plough or rotovate it, wait for the seeds in the ground to germinate and spray it again. No dig isn't really feasible on this size patch unless you can get 250m3 of compost to cover the area 4inches deep. Once you've done this you could cover with manure which will bring more weeds in but nothing more then the usual or cover with membrane until you are ready to instigate your plans that you've spent all winter designing. If I did this again - spraying everything off would be the first thing I did. It may not be wildlife friendly and you may kill off some lovely plants but for this size garden unless you have a team of volunteers you will regret not doing it. Spent 7 hours on saturday trying to clear some of my veg garden and have hardly planted anything yet!
Thanks everyone for your advice.
The plan is to strim the grass, etc, clear the cutting and then spray as regrowth starts. Repeat/follow up spray and then cultivate the area.
I'll get back for more advice once we have a blank canvas...!