Totaly overgrown
Solentman
Posts: 74
Hi this is my first garden as you can see its very overgrown can I please have advice of the best way to remove all the brambles etc. is poison the best option I'm happy to clear the ground completely and start with a blank canvas.
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Always helps if you add the pictures
Solent if you want a blank canvas, hire a brush cutter/with strimmer, heavy duty, and cut to ground level, then spray with roundup and SBK. Weedkiller's take about 4 weeks to get best results. On the other hand you may have some good plants/ shrubs in there which would be worth keeping. ID will be the issue with all that in there, but if you post pics on here you'll get plenty of help and info about saving them.
Dave, Thanks.
I'm going to go for blank canvas, according to a neighbour there is / was a green house, shed, pond and possible a boat in there
and its very rough and uneven.
I will keep the steps and the stone piers have roses so they will defiantly stay and somewhere at the bottom of the steps there is what looks like a York stone patio the builders did clear it back a bit so they could get in to fit the new windows and French doors
be aware that if it's been a gardeners garden (before it went feral) there may be stuff you might want to save.
remove weeds/brambles/things you don't like - but keep an eye out for stuff popping up once they get daylight again.
I'm with treehugger. If there was a greenhouse, it's likely there was a gardener.
Maybe you could tackle it a bit at a time. It would be a shame to lose mature plants that would take years to replace
As my dear late mother would say
"act in haste: repent at leisure"
There's no rush, Walk around, as best you can and try to get a feel for the place.
What an amazing project - all those plants waiting to be discovered!
I would start near the house and work your way out, that way it feels like you're making some progress, or I'd try and unearth the greenhouse. Clear the brambles and other obvious 'weeds' out of a bed or two and see what comes up over the months.
We'd love to see your progress - you could even blog about it or record progress in photos or videos, if you had time - I'd follow it
my favourite saying is:
its easy to cut bits off plants, but it's bloody difficult to stick the bits back on again!
there could be 40 year old Japanese Acers hidden under there, or mature magnolia's or camellias.(all of which are worth a fortune!)
Take it easy this year, clear a route thru, remove the obvious weeds and see what appears
If practical, cut back the undergrowth, and possibly spray the brambles with SBK or similar strong weed killer. As others have said, there could well be some good plants in the jungle. This is the ideal time of year to see good plants as most are coming to life now.
It must have been a big pond if there was a boat!
Our garden was the same, maybe not so much bramble. I'd get the bramble professionally sprayed as it's a sod to dig up.
Otherwise it's going to be backbreaking hard work I'm afraid but worth it.
We waited until the first spring and summer to see what came up but it was nearly all weeds, we saved very little apart from the mature trees.
We dug up walls all hand built, a cache of glass and rubbish, a mini (car) I kid you not.
Little and often, it took us a few years but it's lovely now.