Please help us with our first garden!

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Hi there,

We can't keep on top of this garden, its our first garden and its over-run. No matter what we do, 3 weeks later its like this again. We've tried galleons of weed killer, tearing it all out by hand.. Believe it or not 90% of the garden is concrete!

It's got so bad, its teared down the fence panel at the end. We both work a lot so we can't spend every day doing it, but any tips to keep it tidy for longer would be very helpful!

Thank you in advance!

Luke

FlyDragon

With your working hours, do you want it to be as easy to care for as possible?

What about ripping up everything that's there now (looks like mostly weeds anyway) and get turf laid?  You'd need to water it at first and then mow regularly but apart from that it would be pretty low maintenance.

foxwales

You have a lot of bramble and what looks like weeds and grass growing through concrete paving.  You need to cut it all back and ideally dig out as much of the bramble root as possible and dig out all of the weeds.  Lifting the slabs won't be easy, but if you want a blank canvas, you need to put in some graft

foxwales

Also worth mentioning if bramble is present next door, runners will easily work their way back into your garden, so it will be something you need to keep on top of.  Over the counter spray bottle weedkiller is not going to be effective at killing back all of that

Loxley

If I was you I would get your PPE on and spray the brambles with glyphosate early in the morning. (Forget fast-acting weedkillers). Cut down after a week or two when it shows signs of dying. There will probably be regrowth, so wait a few weeks, and repeat the spraying process as before.

Loxley

Then you're going to have to positively garden the area - removing the slabs and laying to lawn, or planting flower beds, and then actively mowing/weeding regularly.