How to remove these plants and prepare for turf?

I would like to extend my lawn over some wide borders I have filled with plants. See the pics of two areas.

Does anyone know what the best way would be to prepare these areas for turf? I am removing the large plants that I can dig out, but others are perennials that grow back from underground each year. I guess I should kill them by treating them with something?

The lawn is clay soil don't know if that changes anything.

Thanks

 

I'd spray em with Glyphosate a couple of times, you don't want the perenials coming up thru the new turf

Takes a few weeks to work

 

There are some nice bulbs in the border such as the Hyacinths, Aliums and tulips, and if you don't want them, they can easily be dug up with a fork and many people would gladly take them off your hands. Same may apply to the ornamental grasses. Hell, you could even car boot them.

The Fuschia and Buddleja will need to be ripped out. The rotten tree stump looks ready for a couple of rounds with a trench shovel and/or wrecking bar. A match made in heaven when uprooting rotten stumps or small trees

With what's left, @Zigs suggestion may come in handy. And like he says, it will take some time for them to die back, especially bulbs as they are pretty resistant to herbicides. It may be tedious but carefully digging them up with a hand fork will get almost everything out if you want to lay the grass soon. As for the wild violets, dandelions and other weeds, a nuking with Glyphosate would save you the despair of leaving fragments behind and see them appear in your turf a few weeks later.

Also, rotorvate/cultivate the soil to at least 20cm when everything's removed or killed/dying off and get some topsoil for the turf as it's an absolute nightmare laying and levelling it straight on top of damp clay soil

 

Thanks a lot!

 

To be honest, it's probably a bit of an overkill using chemicals.
I would dig it over and get out the roots as best you can and lay the new lawn.
You will probably have some plants and bulbs come up through the new grass, but the key is that as long as you are able to mow the grass frequently they won't survive very long having new growth chopped off every week and they'll just rot away.
Not many plants can survive being mown, especially not herbaceous perennials!

 

I sprayed them all with glyphosate they're more or less dead. Some left I will pull up. I was thinking of digging them up now but the soul is quite hard, it's going to take ages and hard work. Do you think rotavating will be ok now as I read online rotavating will just spread weeds/perennials everywhere, and also read glyphosate may not kill perennial bulbs right away, so concerned it will all grow back.

But maybe it's ok to kill/now then as they grow through to save the effort now. I'm just going to put some goal posts there for my boy.

 

Current state

 

No, dont rotovate. Dig it over thoroughly. Ok, it may be hard work and take time but it is the way to go. This way any bulbs will be seen and removed.
Good lick Voobwm

 

@Voobwm - most bulbs can take a lot of glyposate punishment before they die off.

If your soil is rock hard clay, it would be beneficial to give it a good watering before attempting to dig. Maybe a couple of hours of sprinkler time in evenings for 2-3 days before digging it up. You don't want it too wet if it's clay as it can be very hard to dig if saturated. Test digging a few areas after each spray is useful to see how the soil texture is before adding more water.

You may be best to use a serious garden fork to dig the bulbs out wherever they're visible. A trench shovel is helpful for levering out deep bulbs such as bluebells, but all spades will slice through bulbs and severed pieces left behind have to potential to form new bulbs. Manually turning the area over is by far the most thorough approach/

I wouldn't rule out using a rotorvator if the subsoil is loose enough. Rotorvators can 'harvest' bulbs and spit them out. The same applies to tasprooted weeds like thistles, dandlenions, dock leaves - which surprisingly can come up whole. They can also do the inverse though if the soil doesnn't want to let them go.

If you have nettles, ground elder... or God forbid... field horsetails, you could make the problem worse! Much, much worse.

 

Ok will keep digging. Did about half today already and wasn't as bad as I thought. Just do a bit at a time.
Thanks for the advice.