Overgrown Garden
Mr G the novice Gardenee
Posts: 2
Please help.
As you can see the new house we've bought comes with this 'jungle'.
We are novice gardens, but have great hopes of transforming this into a lovely space.
Our aim is to lay to seed a new lawn then start putting in borders, meadow flowers.
Could you please advice how best we tackle this first.
Shall I get in a mini digger and dig over and level garden or will that cause more problems for the new lawn with weeds etc?
Many thanks in advance
0
Posts
Thanks.
We aim have removed to remove all the outbuildings. The big tree will be trimmed. All ready some of the lower branches have been removed, as it shades at least half the garden!
Once this is done, should we use the mini digger to level then add top soil straight over the existing 'lawn' or use weed suppress until we seed in March next year?
To be honest if you mow the lawn regularly it will probably be fine, if it's too dry or compact in places, any clearance work will make it worse but once finished you can deal with the issues. once the outbuildings are cleared you may want to level the area so the lawn is the same height But I would add a bit of topsoil to the low areas not dig it all up. I would also consider keeping and renovating the greenhouse if at all possible - might be a bit beyond keeping though. Spend your time clearing the area. Once you have a blank canvas, you can decide what to do.
Remove all the rubbish and the obvious weeds like the ivy. Clear the paths and strim the grass. Then mow it. It should start to look a bit better.
If you are going to demolish the outbuildings, clear up as you go along. Don't leave the detritus on the grass for more than a day or so, so as not to damage what grass you have. Come the spring you will probably have all that work done and then reconsider what needs done for the long term.
I wouldn't recommend anything like a mini digger as it's likely to chop up underground stems / roots of plants like ivy which will then regrow from all the chopped-up bits! I speak from experience as I let a chap rotovate the end third of my garden and it's now entirely ivy.
Good advice there. Have you considered not having any lawn?? Or clear the lawn to make a bed, and sow a meadow/wildflower 'grass'?
It will be worth making a note of direction and amount of sun your plot receives, for when you come to the planting choices.
So much potential in the plot... must be overwhelming but very exciting.
I really don't think it's too bad.
As others have said: clear away the rubbish ( including any of the buildings you're sure you don't want), give the grass a cut and take a good look at it.
I'm sure you'll find it's less bad than you think now.
Great opportunity to create your own garden without having to worry about what others have done int he past.