Sorting out a garden left overgrowing for around 10+ years

Hi All,

First time posting here but I wanted to ask advice, I have lived in my rented house for almost 3 years now and I now want to rediscover my garden again. The house belonged to the missus' god mother who hadn't done any work in the garden for at least 10 years but it could be more like 20. We rent the house of the god mother's daughter and we are friends with them.

The garden is quite long and backs up onto the mountain, I can see it is layered with at least 1 level. The whole place is overgrown with nettles (pointy thorny ones), I want to clear the garden so that I can have some place to chill out and maybe plant some fruit. I managed to clear the steps up to the garden about 2 years year ago.

What I would like is some suggestions on the best route to getting rid of the forest and having a usable garden without spending a fortune. I have taken some photos of the place but it is difficult getting a good shot of it. In the photos of the forest you can see that a wall was built to seperate the lower level to the next level (as yet undiscovered territory).

View up the steps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l4847umxu85chiy/2011-10-16_12-09-24_765.jpg

View from the top of the steps looking back:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/as0a9gn69k5tf0g/2011-10-16_13-11-34_54.jpg

Looking towards the rear of the garden:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/as0a9gn69k5tf0g/2011-10-16_13-11-34_54.jpg

Looking from the RHS to the LHS from the top steps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpdni719jxjrb78/2011-10-16_13-11-49_474.jpg

Looking from the front right to the rear left of bottom tier:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ogqjlmsaa1p7lzk/2011-10-16_13-12-23_546.jpg

Thanks for looking, and any advice and tips would be greatly appreciated. At the moment I have an electric hedge trimmer , hedge shears and some snips to work with in the jungle.

Lee

 

Hello and welcome.

I think you need to add two new tools to your arsenal. I'd get some loppers for cutting through thicker branches of the shrubbery you want to tidy, and I'd also look at hiring a brush cutter. Its basically a super beefy strimmer except instead of a bit of string for a blade, it has an actual blade. Hire the protective gear at the same time and ask for a safety briefing because they don't half kick when they find something hard. You can get hardened rubber blades now instead of steel ones, which apparently makes it less brutal if it hits a rock or tree stump, but I can't comment on that much as I've only ever used one with the older steel blades on.

 

I'd pretty much agree with @clueless1. Three years ago we acquired a plot via Landshare for growing veggies. It hadn't been touched for at least 10 years and was a jungle of brambles, nettles, bindweed and hogweed. The landowner used a brush cutter to get it down to ground level then we started digging it over and planting veggies. It took a while to get it under control but if you keep at it you can make a difference.

After the first year we decided we wanted a bit more space so we attacked the remaining wall of brambles along one side of the plot using hand shears and loppers. It took a couple of days but once it was down to ground level we were able to dig it over and start planting.

Take it steady, do a bit at a time but keep at it until you've got it under control. Brambles and nettles will try to grow back but keep digging them out or cutting them off and they'll eventually get the message.

Good luck!!

 

Well those pictures were mainly too close up to help get an over view of what to do. If the garden has been cultivated in the past then it may well still have plants, shrubs and trees that will be worth retaining. Have you observed it over the course of four seasons to see what (apart from brambles) is actually growing there? If you've not done that then you may well end up chucking out the baby with the bath water.
So my advice would be to study the garden over the next 12 months, take out the obvious weeds but disturb as little as possible. Chart what grows where and plan accordingly. Lets face it, if you've put up with looking at it this long, a little longer won't hurt.

Good luck

Andrew