A catalogue of trial, error and advice

YBR

wort said:

Re the buddleia it will need pruning hard each year to keep under control, e.g. down to a foot or two tall.

This.
Budleia is not a native plant and is a total thug in the garden, plus it readily self-seeds. It takes alot of keeping under control.
The butterflies love it anyway.

ArbitraryRandom

Please find below the promised picture (proving I do in fact have a garden, and a before pic) This is the roughly 5x10 area we cleared last weekend. I make no claims to being a photographer, but hopefully you can see the buddleia and a random rose bush that was lost within the thorns.

The buddleia has two main stems/groupings at the moment, one on the boundary and another about 3m into the garden. I'll probably take a chain saw to the second set at some point, but can probably leave the one further back for now. The growth is mainly starting at 2m (due to the brambles suppressing growth at lower levels) so if I can keep that until a shed is in place then pruning probably won't be that much of an issue. 

I've also been playing around with my proposed layout, given the more accurate garden measurements (pending the hedges being trimmed back and final decisions actually being made at some vague point down the line. Further comments welcome. 

ArbitraryRandom

I'm trying to work out an 'order of works' and I wonder if you could help with some what to do and when to do type suggestions? 

I'm thinking, if the hedges are waiting until August/September (which is what seems to be recommended online), then the first job is cleaning out some of the dense grass and dead material, both from the neglected lawn and the newly cleared area? Any reason to wait to get started on that or is it a pick a patch and do whenever I've got a few hours free? 

There's also a lot of junk (inc broken glass from I think an old greenhouse). I'm hoping that will just rake out as I'm clearing the rest? I'm not looking for vegetable beds or going to be digging around in the soil regularly, so it's just what's on the surface that's causing me concern. 

-taff

You can do your chedule of works whenever [according to me] but work out what areas you need to access and when to do them. I f you need to lay stuff down at the back of the garden no point in making the front a potential quagmire for example. And remember that while you clear, things will still grow so don't be disheartened if you clear one area, start on another and look back and see it's grown again..It will be easier to control the more you control it. And I would rehtink your pathway. People don't take a meandering route to anywhere unless it's physically impossible to not do it. You'll end up walking in straighter shorter lines anyway.

ArbitraryRandom

Thanks. It's really more representative of a path at this point - I'll probably wait until the compost bin and shed are actually in place then see where I walk (which is easy enough with long grass). 

twopenny

Has the makings of a lovely garden. 
As I can testify it's darned hard work but when you get to the point of sitting out in the sun with a drink and a book (or whaever) it's really worth it.

Remember to do that as you go. Sit back in it on occasion. You'd be surprised what you notice that you have done right or you want to change as you relax and observe.
Also it's always good to pause and pat yourself on the back occasionally.

Traipsing over soft turf can't be helped at this stage. It may make an uneven lawn to start with but that's the last thing to put right.

If the shed is viewed from the house make it a feature. Small trees, plants etc.

Planting in autumn is the best time and a  dressing of bonemeal to help the roots.

Paths - decide on fancy paving which could be slippery or basic which is an eady walk.
Sunk below grass level just a you can mow over.

Don't set the mower too low. To get it to grow well a higher cutting through the summer and it should thicken up nicely excluding moss and weeds.

ArbitraryRandom

I'm doing a lot of reading at the moment around meadow gardens - looks like the key thing is stripping out most of the grass and thatch in autumn and seeding things like yellow rattle to keep it suppressed. 

I'm saying autumn - Yesterday I found a group/tangle/number of slow worms and my plan now is to start with the compost heap so I have a safe place to put any I find away from the local cat population. 

twopenny

Oooo slow worms! They must like it there.
Yes a great time to start the heap. Did that when I started this garden. Put turf in too as I made beds and got some great compost first year.

A meadow, that takes some learning because few people do it so advice is sparce.

theoretica

I think the shed base, shed and patio are likely to want to be fairly early on in your works - as they may well make a mess around them.

Also your compost tucked neatly behind the shed and tree - remember you will need to dig it out every now and then and likely to want more access for that than when putting stuff into it.

ArbitraryRandom

I think for the next couple of months I'm going to not be doing much. I'll strim it in the next week or two and rake off the cuttings into my heap, then focus on just clearing the rest of the junk (there's chunks of what look like carpet under where the brambles were, and a fair bit of broken glass etc).

There's an old concrete slab off to one side that probably had a small shed on at one point, so breaking that up will probably be a big enough job to get me through to September, when I can hack the hedges back and see what I'm actually working with in terms of space. 

For budgeting purposes, anyone have any ballpark costs to build a concrete shed base about 3x6m? I'm in the NW not too far from Chester.