Few questions...Advice needed for a gardening newbie! Can anyone help?!?

donner_kebab

Hi there everyone,
I have a rather large back garden at the back of my council house. It has no fence seperating my garden from next doors (Semi-detached house) as it fell down several years ago and the council won't put another one up! Grrrr! Anyway, the garden itself is flat in the middle and then slopped around the outside, kinda like having to climb a small hill to get onto the garden (if I don't use the few steps!). At the very back there are quite a lot of brambles and to the right hand side there are loads of stinging nettles, which at the mo are just very long stick bits up to my waist in height! Basically, I want to have a nice garden and am fed up of every year having a horrible mess to look at when I open my curtains! I am a single mum and I work full time so don't have a lot of time on my hands I also have an awful lot of debt so need to try and sort it out on a budget. Can anyone advise on what I should do about the nettles as imagine it is better to do something now whilst they are stick like, before the summer arrives and they just multiply and get dangerous. Also same with the brambles...I also wondered when do most people start to cut their grass as the last few years, I teneded to always leave it so late, the grass would get to long to cut properly and the grass would just get pushed over as opposed to cut down! I really don't want to go through that again this year and would like to have a nice garden that I could relax in! Any advice at all would be great! I don't have many friends where I live and my family live far away so I need to be able to do this on my own!

tanith

Hi and welcome.. for a start get back on to the council and insist they put up a new fence... unless of course the fence belongs to your neighbour and they own the house in which case it is their responsibility... you could say that its dangerous as you need a safe garden for your children...

As for the brambles and nettles you either have to cut them down or put some weed killer down (not very environmental) but they will start to grow again I am afraid , its a never ending job not something you just do once and they are gone forever.. as for the grass If its really long already you need to beg or borrow a strimmer to cut it short (wear safety goggles when doing this) and then keep mowing at least weekly all through the summer... when you first strim it it will look awful and uneven but if you keep up with regular mowing it will soon turn back into a regular lawn... Its hard work but worth it..

I mow my lawn and weed at least twice a week in the summer so it does take some commitment on your part if you want a nice place to relax and for the kids to play in... maybe if you get to like being out in the sunshine you could turn part of your garden over to veg growing and get the kids to help out...

good luck

hex2

If you are on a really limted budget there are a couple of options. Brambles and nettles are both gits to get rid of (voice of experience). I tried lots of (expensive) weedkiller, which knocked it back a bit but didn't clear the problem. I eventually did the hard graft of digging all the roots out in late spring, before the major growth started (once the children had gone to bed, with a baby monitor). You then need to keep digging the roots out as the weeds re-appear. Mowing as soon as they get a couple of inches up can be vaguely effective but the roots are still there waiting for a chance.

If you can get (from freecycle?) some old carpet or some thick black plastic then you can put it over the brambles and nettles, weigh it down with bricks and wait for a year. Starved of light and water for long enough they will die.

Tell anyone you do know that you want to do something about the garden - most gardeners are very generous and usually grow too much. I would far rather give things away than chuck them on the compost heap.

Be positive - the nettles and brambles are a fairly good sign that you have fertile soil. Best of luck, and if you want support keep posting.

donner_kebab

Hi Tanith,
Thanks for your reply! I will get onto the Council and keep on at them until they fix it! I have lived here for several years and my daughter has never been able to play in the garden due to never having the fence...next door have several dogs which are always out in the garden over the summer months. As the neighbours kids are starting to get older, I am now finding empty cans of Fosters and various rubbish dumped in my garden...lovely! Do you think that the Council would also put up a back gate? The previous owners took it with them when they left so I have never had a gate either! Kids keep walking through the garden and have kicked down the bit of fence at the back of the house to cut through into the other street! What a lovely place I live in eh?!? I have a heavy duty strimmer so will strim it down. It is very hard work strimming, but like you say, if I keep on top of it, it shouldn't take long and will eventually become a nice garden. I wouldn't mind using the currently infested nettle area as a veggie patch one day, that would be great and save me some £££ too! I wonder when I could start strimming the grass? Will have a look for some strong weed killer and try and crack on with the nettle bits soon, before they start to get leafy bits on them and multiply even more!
Thanks again!

donner_kebab

Thanks Hex2! Sorry, this is gonna sound really dumb, but will ask anyway!!!! With regards to digging them all up, would I be better getting some sort of large fork to do this? I know you can get big forks and spades but think that the spade won't be as good? I am sure that I have a large fork somewhere...just need to find it!

tanith

Hi again, seeing as your neighbours also have dogs then it is doubly important that you have a safe garden area for you and your child.. keep on at them as if they are all council property it is their responsibility to maintain them.. have you tried looking at your council website and see what it says about maintainence in the 'HOUSING' section... our council really respond quickly to e-mails and I recently got the dead tree outside my house cut down by e-mailing about how dangerous it was... take a look around the website and see what you can find or look in your terms of your tenancy book it should say what they are responsible for there...

Digging up the roots of the weeds and brambles by fork is probably the hardest but the BEST way to go.. if you tackle a little bit at a time while the ground is damp and soft it might be a bit easier... just do a couple of feet each time as it really is hard work and you have to get rid of the roots or they just resprout...

You could start strimming the grass around the end of April time once the weather warms a little and the grass is not so boggy, rake all the strimmed grass off and then maybe strim again in a week or two then you should be able to start your weekly mowing....

Good luck with it...

hex2

I actually managed to bend a cheap spade digging mine up!

I used a mix of a fork and a spade to lever things out. the fork to loosen the roots, and the spade to lift clumps out and dig the gorund over afterwards. For the really deep conifer roots we used a crowbar .

Get the best gloves you can - even cheap rubber gloves will stop the nettles which seem to sting more the older they are.

point3

If you've got neglected overgrown land, then the chances are that the soil will have been compacted down as well as having a dense network of bramble roots within it. This can be very difficult to dig - best tool I found for the job was an old-fashioned mattock.

docij

Have you got any relatives (young and old) who might help you out with some garden clearing one weekend in return for pizza and drinks at the end of the day?

In terms of the nettles, I tried the plastic and carpet treatment and it worked really well. It made the weeds much easier to dig up once they had been starved of light and water.
I'm sure it will be worth all the effort in the long run. Good luck!

System

Been there, done that etc. In no particular order lets go through your post.

Dogs.Whether it be a council owned or private property next door where the dogs are, it is the owners responsibility to keep them contained WITHIN their side. If you have any concerns, then do as I did and inform the Council Dog Warden and invite them round. They can enforce the owners to erect a barrier to keep the dogs in.

Refuse appearing on your side. Inform your Housing Officer. They will provide you with Diary Sheets which you record anything anti-social. This applies to noise/rubbish/abuse etc.

Boundary. all council houses have had concrete posts and wire mesh fence, however many people have removed them and installed panels, then when they deteriorate, there's nothing left, the council won't normally come round and construct more.

Brambles/Nettles. these really are a problem. The good point is that what keeps you away from them, also keeps intruders away. I've seen at first hand how prolific these can be and seen how they've been cleared. However the roots are there and they return. You say you have a large garden. I suggest you consider asking on the local freecycle site, for anything that could be used to create a barrier between them and you, ie mesh/fence panels, and invite a friendly neighbour to erect a secondary boundary. Forget about the original council boundary. Let the briars grow behind, then monitor and clear those that grow into your area.

I take on board what you say about time limitations and inexperience , so this may require more than I can suggest. BUT,:-

* would it be possible to start obtaining tools etc via the freecycle site in preparation for any garden work.

* could you suggest to any of your few friends that you'd like to invite them over to spend evenings/weekends helping you transform your garden, if you could get a few, then one could look after your child etc whilst the others work.

* it's too soon to be cutting grass, we have snow to come yet. But you could break off the dead bracken/nettles using gloves.

Somewhere on this site, I have produced photo's of what our garden WAS like and what it's like now. Yes, I know there are two of us, but my wife cannot walk unaided and potters round the garden on hands & knees and I have angina following a heart attack, so anything is possible.

Keep us up-to-date on any progress you make.

dND

Just a quick thing - don't be tempted to compost the bramble or nettle roots. Burn them or put them in the green recycling. If you try composting them they will just start growing again in your compost area.:eek: