Hi Good morning I have so much damage to my garden that I have decided to start from scratch, I have poisoned what is left of the grass and weeds, I have found the ground bumpy and uneven, I have decided to buy a rotovater to level it out, but how would that affect the poisoning of the grass and weeds that have already been done please. Trish
Leave it a few days so that weedkiller works it's way down into the roots. Then it's fine to rotovate and plant.
I sprayed the same 15 days and it worked all the upto roots it'll eventually be dead, first few days it'll feel like nothings happening but few days it'll be dead. Then rotavate it and rake all the dead weeds out
Depending what the weeds were, I'd leave it for longer than just a few days. Bindweed, couch grass, docks, field thistle and horsetail fern all take 2-3 weeks, if not two treatments. If you had any of those, Trish, you risk chopping up and distributing bits of still-live root all over the place! If they were just annuals or easily-killed perennials, no problem
The worst of it is brambles which have been cut down but the stumpy bit and roots are left and are still in the ground.
Eek! I think SBK Brushwood Killer is the only thing that kills brambles? I honestly think it'd be best to remove as many stumps and roots as possible before rotavating.
Oh I thought is was just lawn you were killing off 'grass and weeds'. As noisette says brambles are a different matter. That Gallup weed killer might kill the top-growth on brambles but they re-grow again from the roots, you can get rid of most of them by digging, then the odd one will still keep popping up again from root sections left in the soil. What are your plans for this area - lawn? If ornamental beds it might be best to use a weed membrane and plant through that.
You definitely need to try and dig out the brambles. They go down a long way but as you obviously don't have any other plants you wish to currently keep in that area it is better to take your time and work your way through them. As John says, it would help if you let us know what you want to do with the ground. We can then give better advice.
At the moment the ground is just a mess of bumps, poisoned greenery and trees and mud, I wanted to just tidy it up without too much effort or expense because of all the problems I have as I stated in my previous posts last year, I cannot have the garden I used to have but I want to try to keep it relatively tidy with just grass, anything else I put in the garden including shrubs and trees are damaged or killed off, I all but gave up but it breaks my heart to see it look like this.
Well, deep breath and first things first Either dig out the brambles (easier said than done!) or treat them with SBK. Then, drag or rake all the rubbish into the middle of the plot (are you allowed to have bonfires?) If you can safely burn it, with a hosepipe handy just in case, all well and good. If not, investing in a shredder might be a better move than a rotovator at this stage. Once you've cleared the rubbish out, things will look a whole lot better, and give you a clean slate for grass sowing or turfing.
