My, erm, new garden...

So we moved in here last May, and the weather all till about November was dire and the garden is in pretty much the same condition as it was; though the thigh-high, stalky grass got strimmed.
Before us the house was vacant for about 2 years, and the garden got wild, though before that it was looked after and well maintained. I'm here as a complete novice looking for some help and advice to turn it back into a usable, vaguely attractive space, rather than overgrown wilderness.

An aerial view of the back garden, on the right there's a large patio area, old, empty, concrete-bottom pond thats full of garden waste, 2 paths (1 heading towards the back line, the other curving around the top of the pond) and what was formally a 'wild' corner in the back right, now covered in a thick layer of nettles, although I cut down miles of brambles, and dominated by a very wide-growing tree. The back right corner has the most potential for a flower/veg area, I think. In the back left theres an apple(?) tree, a rose bush and brambles. Along the back line are various trees and, yep, more brambles. There's also a nice red rose bush in the middle of the lawn.




While the back is mainly lawn, there's also a little bed by the oil tank that was used for growing different berries, although I'm not sure if there's anything other than weeds in there now.


Now here's an interesting thing, once upon a time this was a compost bin. Now it's more of a large planter...and it has a tree in. We rent the house from my fiance's family, who say there was never a tree in there before... I have no idea what sort of tree it is, or if it's alive and/or can be transplanted elsewhere. I also don't know what the...green stuff growing in the compost bin is? Can I even use the soil in there now, or is it only good for the bin?

Strange green things in compost bin, which are dark pink on the stalks -


Closeup of tree buds, which are hard and black, though there's green inside when I broke a small branch off -



This is a really pain in the bum - both front and back gardens are full to bursting with these...frondy things. They spend most of their time being long, green and useless, though for a few weeks last year they had little purple flowers on long stems. You can pull the 'fronds' out, but the buggers just come back unless you get out these little white bulbs that they grow from, which takes a lot of digging... What on earth are they, and is there an easier way to kill them/make them less huge?


There's a pathway under all that ivy and moss, honest. It leads to another mysterious tree.

A month or so ago, I reached the end of my tether having nearly a quarter of the garden swamped in dirty great brambles, so I chopped all of them in the back corner down.
Just one of many piles -

In doing so, I found a skinny little nothing of a sapling, being throttled by brambles. After taking pains to untangle it, the little tree has nearly doubled in height and is bushing out like crazy. What kind is it, and will it get any bigger? Bearing in mind that the wall is about 7-8 feet high.



Last year there were nettles growing under the carpet of brambles, now with the brambles gone, the nettles are even worse. I think they're rejoycing in their freedom. There are a lot of them, and they're covering the bed with the most potential. Best way to rid myself of them? I was thinking of strimming the leaves down and going at the roots with this pointy, angled fork.

This is where all the damn brambles were coming from, is it worth trying to dig up the root balls, or just keep them cut down to stumps?

The part of the 'bed' that isn't covered with nettles is overshadowed by a monster tree, that likes to grow sideways as well as up. It's literally like another small tree coming out of it sideways, and it's taking up a load of room. Would it be alright to take a handsaw to the sideways bit, and reclaim a load of garden?


The back line is...tidy enough, for now. It's mostly unruly trees that cover the shamfully ugly post and wire fence between ours and Mr Opposite's gardens.

Could anyone tell me what these little white flowers are though? They've popped up over the last few weeks. I really hope they're not weeds, they're the prettiest things in the whole garden at the minute.



Oh crumbs, I didn't mean to write so much. Sorry for the novel, hopefully I can turn this into a working diary to make up for it. Just to top it off though, the paths and lawn edges are also teaming with incredibly vicious red ants... Thoughts?

 

I'll let one of the experts answer all your questions but I will say one thing about weeds. They are only weeds if you don't like them. ie: I class Lupins as a pest. They self seed EVERYWHERE! and drive me to distraction.
If you like it, then keep it

 

The shrubby tree with the flower buds is a lilac. The flowers have a nice smell and it's worth keeping. The frondy grassy one looks like chives. Do they smell like onions? You could dig some up and put them in a pot and use them in salad and cooking.

 

Hello and welcome to GC fiwen.
Think I can help with a few of your questions.


This is an Ash tree seedling, best get rid of it. They're fast growing, their roots get everywhere and they will seed themselves all over your garden. You'll probably have to move the compost bin out of the way and make sure you dig it out, roots and all. If you cut it off, even at ground level, it will simply grow back again.

I think the green things growing in your compost bin are Aconites. These are worth keeping, they are one of the first flowers to appear in January or February each year, they should replant easily enough, you'll find a small brown bulb at the base of the stalks, replant these anywhere and they'll come back every year.
If you want to re-use the soil from the bin, it's probably full of Aconite seeds and I think you've got a Dandelion growing in there too, so expect to see more of those appearing next year where ever you decide to spread the soil.


This is a Lilac, definitely worth keeping for it's lovely fragrant flowers which should be opening in the next couple of weeks.

To get rid of the nettles and brambles, you'll probably have to resort to spraying them with a good brushwood killer, which will deal with both of them. Be prepared to carry out at least a couple of applications this year to rid yourself of them completely.
You can get rid of them by digging out the roots, but it's many hours of back breaking, laborious work and every little piece of root left behind will grow back again.


This is Honesty, a lovely spring flower, worth leaving in place after it's finished flowering for the attractive papery seed heads which will stay on the plant and carry on looking good right through the autumn and winter. If you do this, you'll also find it happily seeds itself and spreads around the garden too.

Hope you find some of this useful, enjoy your new garden!

 

Hello fiwen30. You have your work cut out for you!
How exciting to transfer this garden into something beautiful.

I believe this is Geranium robertianum


From Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium_robertianum

 

I don't think the little weed in the compost barrel is G robertianum (aka Herb Robert) but it is a geranium of some sort, sadly, not a prettily flowering sort.

Yes, that's an ash tree in the bin, get rid of it. I left one grow 15 years ago and it's now an annual battle to stop it reaching for the sky.

The lilac and honesty is good.

The long straggly purple things - you don't mean those bright green clumps of pointy-leaved grassy things all along some of the path edges, do you? I thought they were montbretia (crocosmia). Again a bit of a weed but pretty when it flowers in late summer, and you may as well leave it there until you have other plans for replacing them. If youn were really, really lucky they might be day liles but I think not. Or do you mean the insignificant low growing things around them? I think it's a weed but not one I know the name of.

This garden has massive potential, and I'm envious except for the amount of work it represents. I would start by keeping the lawn mowed regularly as this will discourage some of the weeds growing in it and make everything look a bit neater and under control. You did right to cut down the brambles as they only get thicker and stronger if left and you need space in which to work. They will immediately start growing back from the root, but relentless cutting slows them down.
To save yourself hours of labour I would also go for the weedkiller option but try to find a friendly local gardener to check that you aren't going to weedkill something worth keeping first.
I can't see what that big tree is - you could post a close-up- but it might be willow. What ever it is you're unlikely to kill it by removing the fallen-over section and it will definitely let in light and help the tidying process. While you're at it, you could remove all the untidy low branches on those smaller trees/shrubs, making them look more like a neat tree shape with a proper trunk or several smaller trunks showing. This will free up bed space for this year and you could probably be far more radical with them later on when you've found your feet a bit.

 

Hi fiwen 30

Like Madahlia, I assumed the 'frondy things' were montbretia, until you wrote 'purple flowers'. Monbretia has flowers in shades of orange and yellow.

I should leave the compost bin geranium (pic 6, not, I think, Herb Robert - I pull that up regularly!) for a bit, or simply transfer a clump into a pot if you want to get rid of the rest. It's still early in the season and it might turn out to have attractive flowers later on. If not, it's easy enough to chuck it away in the autumn.

As Madahlia says, just mowing the lawn regularly is a good start. Everything will immediately look better and you'll feel you have some measure of control. Then you can tackle the rest slowly, if necessary.

Good luck! Watching a garden come back to life is very exciting - worth all the hard work.

 

You have the potential for a lovely garden here and it looks as though there are already some useful and attractive plants. I'd say first priority is exactly what you're doing: tidy up, cut back the obvious problem plants and observe. Use your camera to record what comes up and when and where while you're doing the general tidy up and when you're not too busy doing that get a good plant book and compare the pictures with whatever you've found.

If you like something, keep it for now; as the garden's been neglected for a while chances are that you'll be able to see which of the plants are thugs as they'll already be taking over. Don't get too hung up on whether or not something is a weed, a weed is only a weed if it's growing where you want something else. Although to be fair weeds are usually identified as such because they're vigorous and can overtake everything.

As everyone else has said, keeping the grass under control will soon have it looking like a lawn even if it's full of weed at the moment. Also making a neat cut along the edges to define the borders will make it look even better.

Finally, I'd agree get rid of that Ash, they really don't belong in urban gardens as they get far too big too quickly and they spread like wildfire.

Best of luck and keep posting the pictures.

p.s. A little story about Lilac, I've always loved it but my husband didn't think it was worth space as it only flowered for a short time every year. In our first garden there was a long (about 100m) mixed hedge along the roadside which he worked hard to keep in check. After we moved the new occupants let the hedge grow (we'd always kept it at about 4ft high max) and driving past one day, low and behold we saw that at the one end there had been a little clump of Lilac all the time so 7 years of hedge cutting meant we'd never seen the flowers. Moral of the story is, let it all grow a bit so that you can see exactly what you've got.