Huge garden - nettles - black stuff

We bought a house 18 months ago with a huge steeply sloping garden. We've only had a very small garden before and don't really know what we're doing with this. The bit next to the house is OK but beyond that it's a mess.

There are all sorts of shrubs with rampant weeds between them. I've sprayed the weeds twice and it was looking pretty barren but we didn't get black fabric over it all soon enough the weeds have come back with a vengeance, including a lot of nettles. Now we discover the black (non woven) stuff is breaking down in the sunlight and weeds are coming up there again too.

In the next couple of years we'd like to do something nice with the garden, but now we just want it weed free to give us a breather while we get the house sorted.

What's the best black stuff we can use to smother the weeds? It think it might be black plastic. If so where do you get it? It has to be UV resistant as a lot of the garden is too steep to put a mulch on top, it just slides downl.

Can we just trample the weeds and put the plastic (or whatever) on top. It would be a mega-job to dig it all out. I've just come in to ask for advice after a big digging session!

 

Hi Blueboots & welcome to Gardeners Corner.

On the cheap, old carpet is very good for keeping the weeds down, as long as its not the foam backed stuff, breaks down into hell of a mess.

Are you a member of Taunton Freecycle ? a wanted post on there would probably get you some.

I'm in Hambridge, where are you based ?

 

Hi Ziggy, thank you. I'm looking forward to being active on the thread. Right now the garden frightens me, but if I can get into gardening it'll be one glorious opportunity :-) I'm in Clevedon on the coast.

Carpet's a good idea (inexpensive is also good). We'll have a load of real old stuff when we get the house soterd, but that won't be soon enough, the weeds are getting me down now. I tried and failed to register with freeserve once - I'll try again!

Can I just throw carpet over the weeds or should I flatten them, or cut them down and take away the cuttings? I like the idea of just throwing carpet over the lot for now.

 

Clevedon, ahh, you've got a pier to fish from then

Just throw it over the lot, once the light is excluded most things will die off. You'll probably still have to dig out some dandelions & stuff but it'll give you a fighting chance.

 

Hi, welcome, you need to be careful what you do there, sounds as though if you dig out or kill off all the root fibre a good thunder storm would move all your topsoil further down the hill.

We once planted a field of potatoes on a hill and half of them ended up in the pub cellar at the bottom of the valley!!!

 

Good point Blacksmith

We might need to talk about terracing at some stage. Happy Birthday by the way

 

Oooh - that sounds like disaster! I hadn't thought of that but I should have. Someone has built a gravel path to the bottom, sort of stepped but with lots of slopey bits. All the gravel is travelling downwards (and there's weeds coming up through the membrane under that too).

Terracing sounds like a good move, and we'll ask about that in a while (along with the best ways to make it low maintenance). For now I'm very relieved to hear I can just throw carpet over the lot 'cos it's turning into jungle.

We did try our hand at veggies for the first time though - you can hardly see them for nettles now, but we grew sweet corn and they taste great :-)

Thanks for the advice guys, and happy birthday Blacksmith!

 

I fancy that, but I'm not sure we'll be able to grow potatoes. I can barely get a fork it's own depth into the ground in some places, it seems to be a thin layer of soil on rock or gravel. Shrubs and weeds seem to do OK, but I can't see there being enough room for root veg.

 

Sound like a real challenge your garden, if you like gardening you could make it realy interesting, does your garden face north or south.
If you terrace it you could have raised beds for veggies and you should be able to get good light to all your plants with a slope like that.
I would love to see a photo of your garden and get a rough idea of how big it is.

 

It's north west facing, and slopes down to the Bristol Channel so there's salty wind to contend with too :-) I'll try to work out how big it is. I have some photos too. I''ll post them on Wednesday.

 

The garden is triangular. It's about 25m wide on the narrow (house) side, and goes down about 100m.

The pics are 1) The garden from the house. This is the top bit and is reasonably under control.
2) looking down from the bottom of the lawn to the jungle.
3) looking up towards the house from part way down the jungle. The small tree (chestnut) in the centre of the pic is gone now, but the weeds are much bigger.
These aren't that clear, I'll have to try again but I don't think it will be easy to take meaningful pictures

 

Looks like a nice plot, I think you may be in a frost free area being high up and with sea air you should be able to plant earlier than most people, the only problem I can see is the evergreens may block your evening sunlight which you will need being north west facing.
The good news is that you must have some very fertile soil for weeds to grow that prolific without fertilizer.

I hope you like gardening because you do have your work cut out to get things round but the results could be stunning.

Good luck.

 

Shiney may have touched on an adea there, you could by a couple of lambs, goats or some chickens in the spring and they will keep the ground clear all summer, plus you get fed at the same time until you can work on the garden.