Another garden project

After three or four sessions spread over three or four days, we've finally reached this point:

Nettles, brambles you name it, I've got stung by it. The strimmer was working fine until I got to the dense patches of stinging nettles, at which point I unleashed my secret weapon - the hedge trimmer. Ingenious I tellz ya!

Now the next step would probably be to rake up the mess that I’ve created but I’m not sure how I would go about levelling the plot off. Due to the way the wild straw-like grass has grown, there are mounds all over the shop which are only realised when trying to walk on what is seemingly flat land. There is also a gentle incline towards you (from where the photo was taken) and I’ve considered getting a small JCB/digger in. I do however have apprehensions as to the effect of driving such heavy machinery upon the soil drainage and so on. Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone.:thumb:

 

Looking good so far :thumb:

I can completely sympathise with the weed invasion, we're still fighting through sections of this ourselves and also employed the hedge trimmer for help!

Do you have a picture before you started the work? I'd love to see how it was.

I can't offer any advice about the digger, but I do look forward to hearing, and seeing, your developments

 

Unfortunately I do not have any photos of what it was like before. It is my own fault for letting it get out of hand in the first place to be fair. First day assessing the situation, I found myself searching the internet for Guerilla warfare tactics, that is how bad it was. 4 - 5 foot high (on average) of all your regular culprits, stinging nettles taking up most of the space. I have a vision though... and it involves palm. Lost of palm.

Well, maybe just a little.

 

That's a shame that you don't have any before pictures, but I'm sure your progress pictures will more than make up for it

We all let the garden get a 'bit' out of hand sometimes - this coming from someone who knows :o My garden turned into a jungle last year and has taken a lot of work to sort it out to the level we're at now! :rolleyes:

Ooh, palms will be great, I can just picture it :thumb: It certainly sounds like you have the ideas and plans! What other plans do you have for the space? Seating areas etc?

 

Well that photo was taken about 6ft higher than the average relief of the plot, so that will hopefully make a good sitting area. That will be proped up by a feature wall with hopefully some railings, something like:

For the rest of the garden, I'd like to see a flower bed border in there, with some selected palms thrown in for good reason. Everything else will be beautiful green, cool, so soft you'll be able to walk on it bare foot, lawn.

*sighs*

 

Well, a couple of months of not having the time has resulted in:


The plus side is I know how much work awaits me. :thumb: I've been doing some homework though and palms will fit nicely into the plans.

 

I sudgest, you rake up the cut grass and vegatation etc, leave it a fortnight or so to ree sprout then spray off with roundup,id leave for a further week then spray again.

Then if really unneven id bring in a diger and grading bucket to deal with the lumps/ unneveness Or if poss run a large driven cultivator over it and pickaxe up the lumps if small. Obviusly raking out roots etc.

Id then sudgest you seed the area and keep it mowed till you work out your plans.

If youve never used a digger, then consider getting a machine/ operator in. It usually works out cheaper in terms of productivity in that someone who uses one regularly can do in a half day what would take an ameture a weekend or more. Leveling out ground with a machine in order to avoid excess compaction takes a degree of skill but with a good operator you can get a very good finish.

A similar job I did, I leveled it in 4 hours with a 3 ton digger, The next day a couple of hours raking off the stones with a spring tine rake and seeded. Total 8 hours

 

I wish I'd got a digger in to level mine. Good luck