Bramble and other weeds in new lawn

Hi,

Apologies for signing up and launching straight into a request for help, but I'm feeling a bit miserable about this situation and hoping that someone with more experience of gardening and lawn care might be able to advise.

I am completely new to gardening, other than sticking a few plants from B&Q into pots and borders over the years and hoping for the best (apologies if this is making you proper gardeners wince - I am trying to mend my ways!). I've also never had a lawn before now

This year I arranged for all the gravel and overgrown borders in my garden (which i'm ashamed to say had become derelict since 2020) to be dug up by gardeners and replaced with a lawn. The work was completed about 3 months ago and cost an arm & leg. This was a huge decision and has crippled us financially but I was desperate for some green outdoor space so decided it was worth it.

Unfortunately, three months in, and we have a ton of unwelcome plants coming up though the lawn including dandelion, thistle, montbretia and now patches of brambles.

I understand the dandelions and thistle were under the gravel to start with, but I'm really upset about the bramble as it was previously confined to the top end of the garden near the gate but is now spread around the lawn - the same goes for the montbretia which was previously confined to clumps in the borders.

Everything I've read suggests that cutting bramble will make it proliferate further, so I'm feeling anxious to mow the lawn right now as envisioning my whole lawn be coming a mass of the stuff if I do.

I don't really care about normal lawn weeds like the dandelion, but please could someone advise on the best way to deal with the bramble, and possibly the montbretia if it's likely to be problematic.

I've found lots of information online about how to kill brambles, but none of it sounds very hopeful for trying to preserve my long-awaited 3 month old lawn .

I'm rather limited in what I can do myself due to a back problem and my partner's not much better thanks to arthritis (we are a right pair of old fogies) but self-help options would be preferable if not too strenuous as we are also on a very limited budget.

Of course I'm hoping that some seasoned gardener might look at this and be able to say it's no big deal & to just keep mowing, but I also know I'm not usually that lucky so don't expect this to be any exception!

I've just realised this post has got a bit long - I'm afraid brevity is not one of my stronger points, so if anyone has actually made it to the end, thank you for bearing with it. I'll be very grateful for your suggestions.

 

Hi @Nattie and welcome!
Don't panic about the lawn, it's looking pretty good! It looks like when the gardeners cleared the borders they chopped up and left bramble bits - which are a bit like Rasputin and seems to resist killing! However if you keep mowing your lawn regularly, they don't like it, and should eventually die out. Cutting it off won't cause it to proliferate as long as you don't leave the cut stuff around. There are weedkillers like SBK that kill brambles and don't harm grass, but they need the grass to be at least a year old to be unharmed.
Next spring, use feed and weed and it should kill the other weeds too.

 

@CarolineL Thank you so much for your response - this is the best I could hope for
I'm slightly embarrassed now that I may have overeacted to the bramble situation, but much happier to be embarrassed than to have had my worst fears confirmed. I genuinely imagined that people were going to say "get it dug over & re-turfed or you can kiss your lawn goodbye"!!

 

I'm currently dealing with the same problem! An overgrown garden (not mine) where we had to use a mini excavator to clear things! Inevitably we couldn't clear all the brambles and they started appearing through my recently sown grass. I used a sharp knife to cut out some of the biggest growths but since then, the mowing is gradually hitting them. Just keep at it!

 

Just keep mowing and most weeds will give up

 

Dandelions and thistles have very low rosette bases, so mowers usually miss them, or only take off a small amount so it might be easier to dig them out -if you can, or use a spot weedkiller for them. Dandelions are particularly tenacious. It'll take a few goes, and there's always the chance more will seed in from other gardens nearby if they have them, but that'll help a good bit. It also depends how fussy you are about a perfect green sward.
I wouldn't worry about the little bits of bramble either, because the mowing will help with that.
A bit of feed alone in spring is often a good idea, then wait a little while before using the weed and feed. It's more effective if it has a good amount of grass to work on, and that means the weeds too.
Many lawn 'experts' get sniffy about weed and feed, but for most gardeners, as opposed to groundsmen, that does a decent enough job. How often you feed apart from that again depends on how fussy you are, and also your climate and conditions. In very dry parts of the country, a bit of food, and leaving the grass a bit longer, is often a good method to retain the greenness. In wet parts, food is often a waste, and the regular rain keeps it green.

 

I would agree with the above. Keep mowing right through the winter then feed the lawn, allow the bramble shoots to grow a few inches and mow them off, and keep mowing. You will need a selective lawn weedkiller to get rid of the other broad leaved weeds. Follow the instructions on the bottle. It may take a year or two but you will end up with a reasonable lawn eventually.

 

Thanks so much all of you for your advice. I'm so pleased that it's no big deal
I'm really not worried about having a 'perfect' lawn but might try the weed and feed next year if the lower growing weeds look like they're taking over too much. Hoping we won't need to feed the lawn much in general as live in a pretty damp area - more worried about it getting boggy in winter months if anything but will cross that bridge if we come to it!

 

I would think there must be a large bramble bush somewhere nearby that is spreading its roots under your lawn and pushing up shoots. Raspberry canes do the same speaking from experience. Try finding it and digging it up.

 

Hi waterbut,
Theres no brambles or other fruit bushes nearby, but the gardeners who laid the lawn reused soil that was previously in a brambly area at the top of the garden and spread it everywhere. I was a bit cross about it when the brambles first started popping up through the lawn, but now I know they can be controlled through mowing I'm not too worried

 

I've never come across brambles sending up suckers. Raspberries and so do other Rubus species.
Brambles tend to spread either by seed or tips rooting which is one reason for their arching style of growth, to bring tips into contact with the ground..

 

As @CarolineL says the SBK brushwood killer is very effective and economical against brambles and similar.
Though as she says its said to be safe on established grass, on new grass we would not spray it over the whole lawn.

What you can do now is to carefully use a small brush and manually paint the leaves of the brambles and others coming up.
Just painting the biggest leaves should be effective, would not bother trying to paint the smaller ones which will probably be on the same root as the treated big leaves.

However expect next Spring you will find lots more coming through the grass and that is the time to really attack them, but do test first on a small area of grass if sprayng and do not mix the SBK in a stronger ratio in the hope it will be more effective.