Seriously overgrown garden!

TabulaRasa_2

Hiya, newbie so be gentle

DH and I moved in March to very nice bungalow with looooads of outdoor space. Unfortunately it's been horribly maintained. We cleared one side of it and have had veg growing, but completely doing over the front garden took priority as we needed car space. Plus it looked so bad up front it was depressing to drive up to

Tried to tackle the other side of the back last week and it's just a nightmare. Overgrown weeds (waist height), blackberries, ivy and some thorny bush thing I've never seen before. Plus my God the insects; we got eaten alive. We quickly came to the conclusion we couldn't systematically uproot everything like we did the other side. It's too big and nasty. It's been neglected for years.

I am thinking we drown it in weedkiller when the last fruit ripens on the other side - don't want to risk killing my pumpkins :cool: Then in spring go in and clear it. DH is paranoid though as we have two cats and would really rather not use chemicals. Any other options? I keep thinking I wish I could burn it all

When it's done I still have no idea what we want to do with it. I just know as it is, it's gotta go, but bit of a newbie at this so not sure what best options are.

Eenymeeny

First, get some gloves and protective clothes on and harvest the blackberries. They'll freeze if you aren't ready to deal with them just now. (This is MSE after all!)
Don't let it overwhelm you, there might be some hidden treasures that you want to save. Bulbs etc might have been planted in that jungle. Do you have any gardening knowledge? If you can identify what plants are there would be a help in deciding what you want to keep or eradicate.
At this time of year I would use a hedge trimmer to bring as much as possible down to about 1 metre high, rake out the 'trimmings' and plan a bonfire!
You'll then be able to see what is worth saving and what you want to dig out, (it'll be easier over winter when the roots are dormant and the leaves are off!)
Once you get new leaves on in Spring you might find that you have some treasures. It's worth trying to identify some shrubs first, as Spring flowering shrubs should be cut just after flowering and it would be a shame to miss those.
I'm sure that someone will be along with more expert knowledge but just wanted to say that's what I did with my jungle 6 years ago and it's looking decent now and to wish you lots of enjoyment in your garden.:) (Mine was just a tunnel to the shed at the bottom of the garden so take heart!)

moneyistooshorttomention

This is where I confess to taking one look and then hiring a man with a mini-digger and telling him to remove the lot. It only takes a couple of hours or so - and job done. I've just found the odd leftover bit of root of something since growing up through the soil that I managed to remove myself (despite being a woman of little strength) and one tough one they should have spotted (which I had them back to get out).

I just wasn't going to go through it all carefully and see if anything was worth keeping - and all available evidence was that previous owner was mean/old-fashioned/skimped on things - so it seemed most unlikely anyway...

dreaming

Why not burn it then? Not with a bonfire but you can hire flame guns for a weekend (or longer) to burn off the top growth so nasty chemicals. It won't kill off the roots but then as stuff starts to grow again you can try to identify it and have the option of saving or discarding it accordingly when the growth is small enough to manage. It also helps you to see the area which has been overgrown and give you some time to plan things. Even if you decide just to dig the whole lot out getting rid of the top growth quite quickly means the job will be much easier. But I do agree that you should pick he blackberries or any other fruits.

Waterlily24

We had exactly the same problem when we moved here, brambles etc all round the house, when we first looked at the house we had to ask a neighbour if we could go through his land to look at the rest of it. Our garden is very wide but not very long. There was a large part to the side of the house (about 200ft) that was long grass - longer than waist high. Our neighbour is an agricultural engineer and he offered to cut the grass to a manageable length foc which was great. The rest hubby did himself by cutting it down low and then digging it up, I was the clearer upper lol. It took a long time but the garden looks lovely now and we get lots of compliments on it especially from people who knew what it was like before. To be honest we didn't bother with what was underneath it, the only things that were saved were two pink roses that were quite near the door and a wisteria that wasn't growing up anything lol. There was a small orchard to the other side of the bungalow and that was just long grass but not as long as the other side.


Good luck with yours.

phoebe1989seb

A few years back at a previous house we cleared a 65' x 35' (which was considered quite large as it was in a city) completely walled garden by hand, as we needed to save our money for the rest of the project which involved restoring a Victorian house back from four flats to a family home. When we viewed the property it was actually impossible - or should that be impassible, lol? - to get into the garden as the brambles were shoulder-height :eek:

It was a slow process as we literally started at the point nearest the house - where our first find was an old corrugated metal shed almost completely hidden from view - working our way to the end. It took several weeks, working on it in our spare time and by the time we'd finished we had a huge pile of dock weed and brambles, a circular metal/plastic garden table with seating attached like spokes of a wheel that was totally submerged even though it was found standing on end!, several tree stumps, a rusty bicycle, some broken drainage pipework and hundreds of Victorian rope edging tiles.

All that remained growing was a giant holly tree and a couple of rose bushes. We didn't resort to using any weed killer at all.

The next few months were spent laying out the beds - using those reclaimed rope edgers - turfing and planting. This was 1998 and we bought lots of cheap plants in Woolies We also took full advantage of the reduced sections of several plant nurseries. Within two years you'd have thought the garden had been established for years and we were very pleased we'd chosen to tackle the garden alongside the rest of the project rather than leaving it till last (the actual house took about five years to finish, not including the new roof we had done in year nine) :T

If we were doing this now I'd be hiring a mini digger rather than getting on my hands and knees

I_have_spoken

YOu can hire a brushcutter

TabulaRasa_2

So many great ideas here, thank you!

I don't think there is much worth saving - there wasn't on the side we have cleared. We back onto a woodland area which is poorly maintained and I've a feeling what we have is just a continuation of that. I don't think anyone has ever done anything with it From our brief scout, it's mostly nettles and patches of grass.

My gardening knowledge is next to nothing outside of growing veg and fruit, which I'm pretty good with.

I do like the digger idea to give us a blank starting point. Can we operate that ourselves with hire or is it best to hire someone to do it for us?

I forgot to mention the back fence, which is covered in sprawl from the woodland. Ivy and some branches too; it's so dense and thick too. I'm thinking some sort of saw for that? We did a hedge trimmer on the good side but it's far more dense on this side.

And can you believe I hadn't even thought of using the blackberries?! I just saw them as a problem and didn't even think they might be useful :rotfl:

Thanks so much for the inspiration too. So good to know others have survived this! I will try and grab some pics too x

Waterlily24

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

A few years back at a previous house we cleared a 65' x 35' (which was considered quite large as it was in a city) completely walled garden by hand, as we needed to save our money for the rest of the project which involved restoring a Victorian house back from four flats to a family home. When we viewed the property it was actually impossible - or should that be impassible, lol? - to get into the garden as the brambles were shoulder-height :eek:

It was a slow process as we literally started at the point nearest the house - where our first find was an old corrugated metal shed almost completely hidden from view - working our way to the end. It took several weeks, working on it in our spare time and by the time we'd finished we had a huge pile of dock weed and brambles, a circular metal/plastic garden table with seating attached like spokes of a wheel that was totally submerged even though it was found standing on end!, several tree stumps, a rusty bicycle, some broken drainage pipework and hundreds of Victorian rope edging tiles.

All that remained growing was a giant holly tree and a couple of rose bushes. We didn't resort to using any weed killer at all.

The next few months were spent laying out the beds - using those reclaimed rope edgers - turfing and planting. This was 1998 and we bought lots of cheap plants in Woolies We also took full advantage of the reduced sections of several plant nurseries. Within two years you'd have thought the garden had been established for years and we were very pleased we'd chosen to tackle the garden alongside the rest of the project rather than leaving it till last (the actual house took about five years to finish, not including the new roof we had done in year nine) :T

If we were doing this now I'd be hiring a mini digger rather than getting on my hands and knees

You sound exactly like us, we couldn't do anything to the house until planning had been passed - that took about two years. So we concentrated on the garden. When planning eventually came through we bought a cheap mobile home and lived in it while most of the work was done. Hubby did most of it himself except the things you need certificates for ie wiring and central heating. He didn't do the brickwork either, that saved a lot of time. All that was left of ours when we started the extension were the walls lol. We moved here 10 years ago.


I reckon the area we had to clear was about 95ft x 70ft the bungalow was in the middle of it and there was also a very large glass greenhouse well past it's sell by date in the middle of the brambles at the back. One good thing we managed to salvage a grapevine, moved it into a new greenhouse and we now get lovely black grapes.

Davesnave

This was part of my garden almost exactly 7 years ago:



I showed it no mercy; fire, chemicals, heavy-duty brushcutter and digger, but not necessarily in that order.

If the space close to the house is limited and you're not planning to demolish any of it, it's probably best to employ an experienced digger person, who'll get the job done much faster. However, unless you want to relocate trees and shrubs, or move large amounts of soil around, a digger is probably overkill.

TheGardener

Take care if you use a digger - they usually remove most of the top soil in the process especially if you have clay or chalk underneath and only about 12 to 18inches of top soil - replacing it can be quite expensive and involve a lot of wheelbarrow work