large area landscaping advice

hi, i would like some advice for landscaping ideas to deter dogs and people in general away from walking/lounging on an area of ground roughly 1.5 acres in size. it is currently just a muddy space. it cant be high, ie. i cant plant a forest. maximum height would be about 1 meter. given the size of the area i need something cheap to fill the space, some kind of scrubs/shrubs that spread well and are quite woody and hardy. this could be use to break up open areas of grass. i dont mind if there are grassed areas to cut, even if they are difficult to access to cut the grass. it cant look like a mess but it doest have to be an award winning garden either. a wildflower meadow perhaps? perhaps a pond/moat area how deep does it need to be to stay wet?

thanks for any help.

 

I think you need to break down the problem area a bit more as it sounds like you don't need landscaping advice and more planting advice.

You say you have a patch of land that you want to keep dogs and people away from. Why is that? Is it a front lawn or part of a communal area? Do you have any pictures of said area too?

If you're looking for a boundary then plant a low hedge, such as berberis. This will reach roughly a meter high, is woody and thorns that shall keeps dogs off.

 

some houses over look the land they will have a hedge boundary the land itself will have no boundary. we cant really create a boundary to envelope the land. i think we need need to make the land unfit for ball games/dog walking/picnics/sunbathing. my idea for doing this is to fill up the space/break up the space with lots of plants/scrubs/shrubs/hedgeplants or a wildflower meadow with a few nettles/thistles included. i dont know the difference between landcaping advice or plant advice, i dont have much gardening experience.
the land will be privately owned but not blocked off and open for public use. if it is simply grassed then anyone may use it for any legal purpose

 

Presumably this means you are buying it?

if you haven't already done so, I'd strongly recommend that you check what you're actually going to be allowed to do with it. Sometimes you can do pretty much as you want (within reason), sometimes you'll be allowed to do precisely nothing, and everything in between.

My dad nearly bought a piece of grass land years ago, but found out at the last minute that he wasn't even going to be able to put a fence around it or change it from its current state as a flat patch of grass, so losing quite a lot of money in various legal expenses already forked out, he wisely pulled out in the nick of time.

I have a piece of land that I can do quite a lot with, but I can't do just anything I like unless I want to suffer the wrath of the busybodies at the National Park office whose sole purpose in life is to stop ordinary people from having any fun (with the necessary insurance in place, I'd be allowed to let people churn up the ground with 4x4 and then shoot some innocent birdies for a few hours, but I can't have a discrete shelter for any livestock I might put on there for example).

You mention a moat. I'd love to do a moat But you'll almost certainly need planning permission for any significant change to the shape of the place. This is, I believe, especially true where any significant water feature is involved, as the planning authority will want to know that you're not increasing the risk of flooding of other properties, or contaminating existing waterways etc.

Assuming all these issues have already been thought about, and its all fine, I can think of quite a few things you could do, but it really all hinges on what do you want from it? Is this an investment purchase, or do you want to actually use it? If you want to use it, what for?

 

You're the guy who did the hedge on the development property right?

If so, could the hedge supplier do you a deal on;

Gorse
Rambling Roses - a few parallel lengths of cheap wood fencing (not the solid type, but the half timber style) would give them something to go a metre or so up and then tumble over to form a thicket.
Berberis

You could use some leftover hardcore infilled with top soil to create a rubble rockery. Saxifrage, something called Summer Snow and other relatively cheap alpines would soon colonise it.
A wildflower meadow would be easily walked through though.

It's a tough one as it's a large area that by the sounds of it has some level of right of way, so what you do will need some level of protection whilst getting established.
In addition you need low maintenance and low growing (to discourage local dope heads and other undesirables?).

Stinking Iris and Stinking Hellebore should fill a bit of space and self seed reasonably well too.

 

thanks for the advice, im just looking for advice about gardening and cheap plants that cover a lot of space. i will deal with the legal issues. i already own the land. im not going to use it for anything, i want to stop other people using it. "fencing " the land off with wood/bricks/metal/plants is not an option. i need to fill the land with something or break it up into smaller parts. i need advice on the cheapest/woodiest/thorniest bushes and shrubs
thanks

 

hi, i just re-read your post and remember i read somewhere that you dont need planning consent to site a mobile stables/horse shelter on your land. you can search for it on google. is it the planners who are stopping you?

 

I think longk has it about right. Source a wholesale nursery who can provide gorse, berberis, low-growing mahonia and holly. Another very useful plant in this situation would be euphorbia...there are several varieties that spread easily...robbiae, myrsinites, characias...and their sap would definitely deter anyone from tangling with them twice!

 

Do people actually buy gorse? Its surely just a weed. It self seeds and spreads like crazy.

Personally I wouldn't plant gorse in the situation described, mainly for one simple reason. It is extremely flammable. Even when its still alive and growing, underneath the healthy visible growth there is often a considerable amount of dead stuff from the previous year(s), which dries out, and may as well be made of petrol.

I certainly wouldn't want a lot of it close to my house, and especially not if I can't stop total strangers walking on the land and doing as they please on it.

 

i think gorse is what they plant near all the roundabouts here, i say plant, it might just be a weed lol.

 

did you have problems with a mobile horse shelter and planning?