HELP! my new garden is a jungle mess!!

Hi everyone!

I'm completely new to gardening (I've never had any outside space before) and I've just moved into my first home which has a very decent sized garden! however.... Its a complete jungle!

I've been tackling it bit by bit but I feel that I need some advice on how to get it all back to a state where I could plant a lawn and make a nice big veg patch! and of course how to stop it all coming back!

Our biggest problem is quite a lot of brambles. The rest of it is all stinging nettles, sticky grass some vines (not ivy) some ordinary stumps of grass and a few other sporadic weeds. I bought some weed killer but then realised I'm way past the time of year where it would be effective to use it! :(

I managed to clear some soil but after a few days shoots of grass and other small weeds are coming back already!
Please help I have no idea what to do and feel like my efforts are a bit futile!

Hiring someone isn't an option as I can't afford it and would like to do it myself anyway.
Here is a picture of it when we first moved in a couple of weeks ago:


And here it is now after trying to do something to it:

As you can see still a very long way to go!

Any help and advice would be very much appreciated!

Thank you!
Emma

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

You've made a good start

Brambles will need digging out by the roots, but once they're out they usually don't come back.

If you can get hold of any old carpets (not foam backed) then you could cover the areas you've done while you're tackling the rest

 

Thanks I will give that a go would polythene sheets work as well? I have plenty of those but no old carpet!

 

welcome

 

One more question about the brambles! If I dig out as much of the root as humanly possible will they still come back if small bits are left in the soil or if there are broken bits of root left behind? apologies for my ignorance on this but like I said Im completely new to gardening let alone something as horrific as brambles! >.<

Thanks

 

As long as you get the vast majority out you should be OK.

Bindweed on the other hand....

 

I have a horrible feeling the vines may be a form of Bindweed... Any advice on keeping that under control? I've been removing any roots that I have come across in the soil cause as I said I want to get it back to just soil... I looked on the RHS page about Bindweed but a bit of human advice would probably be much simpler to understand! Thanks

 

I've got it on my newly acquired neglected allotment plot. Some of it has been covered over with thick plastic membrane for over a year at least and it was still hanging on for dear life.

I've put weed killer on it but I haven't found it that helpful as it just pops up somewhere else instead.

 

We had a raised bed full of it. Had to empty the whole thing out and remove all the roots- there was a wheelbarrow full!
A few shoots have come back since but extra strong roundup has dealt with them.
Where it was strangling a large hydrangea I untwined it and left the vine soaking in a pot of weed killer. This worked really well.

 

Flame thrower.

Although on a more serious note there is this thing I have seen that does burn weeds. Don't know if it would be any good for bindweed and perennial weeds though.

Mossiac

 

Yeah, I bought one of those just incase some of the weeds would stay away if I burnt them... I'll have to crack it out when I've cut a bit more back cause I think my whole garden would go up in flames at the moment haha (not that that would be such a terrible thing judging by its current state!)

 

I guess its just going to be a case of gruellingly picking through all the soil as much a possible and getting everything out... I'll probably invest in a 'soil sieve' to help.