Advice Needed on Taming our Jungle

FrostieUK

Hi All,

We have a small (16mx12m/50ftx40ft) hillside garden at our property we bought a few years back. As we've been focusing on internal renovations we've not had chance to tackle the garden up until this point. When we initially moved into the property it was already very overgrown, having been neglected for ~5 years, but now we have the opportunity to tidy it up.

Our longer term plan is to sow grass seed to create a low maintenance garden, something along the lines of creeping red fescue due to the garden being somewhat shaded, hillside and having quite clayey soil. However before we can do anything we need to tackle the proverbial jungle.

We know there are a lot of weeds (including some very well establish buddleia ), but underneath them are some very nice plants and fruit trees - Apple Trees, Pear Trees, Fuchsias, Hydrangeas, Grape Vines to name but a few.

My father has lent me his petrol brush cutter and my current thoughts are to take the weight off the top and burn the trimmings - I'm then between either a) taking it back further and laying 100gsm weed fabric for 6 months to kill everything off that we don't want alive or b) dousing the garden with glysophate, trying to avoid the plants we think are worth keeping.

I appreciate we aren't going to have results overnight, but equally I don't want to spend a lot of time doing something which will just result in the jungle growing back year on year.

Thanks in advance for you help!

Frostie

silverwhistle

One of the experienced gardeners may be along soon, but have you considered getting a garden shredder instead of burning, with all that concomitant smoke? I've got my eye on one in Screwfix, but other suppliers available. That would give you a nice supply of mulch for surpressing those weeds. As you clear you'll probably change your mind as you go along!

-taff

Are you going to terrace any of it? Will any areas lend themselves to terracing? If you are and they do, as above, make your terraced areas, lay down fabric use the mulch to suppress weeds for now. Dig out arond each tree/bush you want to keep and lay mulch down to suppress weeds.

Cn't advise on lawn sowing stuff but maybe chamomile would also be an option.

If you're intending just to lay paths into it, then grow something that can choke out weeds, like ornamental grasses. heather or something else.

DiggerUK

I've always worked renewal projects such as yours the same way. I'm not a full time landscaper, never been my career either, just do odd jobs around area occasionally.

Given what you describe I'd advise the following.
Leave  the fruit trees alone, I'm making it sound like the Con Air "don't touch the bunny" scene. When you can, do a short course at one of the colleges on winter and summer pruning. Enjoyable day out and they will make you realise that the fruit  trees will probably outlast you.

Find out what shrubs you have and give them a fairly drastic prune, leave them for a whole year and decide which ones you want to keep, which ones are going.

Give the rest a going over with the brush cutter and lawn mower and see what grows back. Like the shrubs see what is there to be kept or dumped.

Over the next year get to know this 'new garden'. Visit gardens and let your imagination go wild. Next year just make it up as you go along, then you will become quite mad and make lots of nutters your friends..._

RAS

Just be aware that if you heavily prune bushes, they may not flower next year, so don't ditch them just because of that. 
One possibility might be leaving one smallish branch unpruned on plants that you haven't identified, so you can identify it.

KxMx

Buddleia look amazing when flowering and are so good for butterflies and other insects. 

-taff

Yeah, and they seed everywere and are incredibly invasive.