wild garden

Hi, I am new here and a new home owner and have no idea what to do with some of the plants as they are established and over grown, I do not want to cut them back if I will kill them. I also have the biggest ant hills I have ever seen outside of the countryside.

So things I will do first
Install a water butt
rake all the dead stuff up :D

then? laying turf last after I sort out the all of the bits in-between.
Any advise would be great

 

Hello tricky4511, welcome to GC First bit of advice: take your time....it might not look much at the moment, but it can pay to leave existing plants/borders for a year to see what appears. As and when things flower and you (or we) can identify them, then you'll get plenty of advice on here about pruning. I thought I caught a glimpse of a blackberry bramble? My first job would be to dig it out and bin or burn it! (You'll know which plant it is....they fight back ). Have you thought about the basics, apart from your water butt? Shed, washing line, bins, patio for relaxing on in the sun? Once you've worked out what will go where, you'll have a clearer idea of what to remove/renovate. Those ants nests are impressive! With a sharp spade, you could just slice them level with the existing grass and spread the soil around. You might need a strimmer to get the lawn low and even enough to mow, but it's not a lost cause. It's going to be exciting seeing what you make of it!

 

thank you for the reply and welcome, I do have brambles at the top and bottom of the garden. there are (pic4) lavender plants and rose bushes, all the mounds in the grass are smaller ant hills. I have a shed patio already all they need is a good clean.

 

Hello @tricky4511. Welcome to the forum.

I agree with @noisette47 You need to get that lawn area leveled out so that when you start getting into sorting all of the beds, you won't have to worry about tripping over anything. I've never seen a bramble but it is my understanding that yes, that too is a priority.

I do think once you get that lawn sorted, it will be an immediate benefit.

 

We had a nice few days so i started on the garden, I raked up the old fallen stuff did a little bit of cutting back of the dead stuff but left the stuff i don't know about. under all the moss i found a horseshoe.
i started to flatten out the areas i am working around and it turns out allot of the mounds are not ant hells but really thick rooted grass. two of the really big anthills have been flattened as i slowly move down the garden.

 

Yes that looks like couch grass, which all needs to be dug out with the roots attached to stop it spreading. It will take time but it's worth the hassle to have a good lawn eventually.

 

I guess it depends on what you envisage as the finished appearance, do you want flat open grass with manicured borders, do you want shrubs and hidden "secret" bits or do you want a wildlife friendly garden with a pond? All are very different, my daughter has the first option where everything is manicured, quite high maintenance, picking up every fallen leaf etc. Mine is very wildlife friendly mixture of shrubs and bits that are not obvious when you walk into the garden, I can hide and often do!!
Were you to pay for a garden designer the first thing they would do is draw up a plan, measuring the space and making a scale drawing of what you might achieve. I went for the "that'll do just there" approach and any measuring was done with my feet rather than a tape measure.

 

At the moment @burnie I am going to go for a clean tidy garden that I can use then decide what will fit best.. I do like wildlife and am a 2 minute walk away next to a huge nature reserve and the countryside but what to do I have no idea yet.
My neighbour has the other side of the garden (not shown in pictures) and does nothing with it, I may ask to look after it and have it for wild flowers pond and a vegi garden. I have already been a bit cheeky dropping hints if they don't care about it I could look after it (bit of stealth pruning and cleaning done). what ever i do with it would be on the cheap and think it could be taken back at any time.

 

That's a good idea Tricky. If your neighbour needs extra persuasion you could offer some of the veg you grow from time to time.

 

I reckon there are two broad reasons why people neglect their gardens.

Lack of ability, either because they don't have time or because they physically can't. I used to have an elderly neighbour who loved her garden but unfortunately the loss of her husband and her own failing health meant she just couldn't keep it nice.

The other reason is straight up lack of interest.

In either case, I would bet they'd appreciate the offer of someone else making it nice, but you might have to be quite forward about asking, as many people are simply too proud to ask for help.

You need to be tactful though. No matter what words leave your mouth, the words that reach their ears will be 'I think your garden is a mess'. If you can find a way to make it look like they're doing you a favour, that will minimise the damage to their pride. Your idea of growing veg is a good one, and if you offer to share the produce then it sounds more like a business transaction than an attempt to take over.

 

There is another thing to be delicate about. You are basically asking to take over part of their property are you not? Even though they are not taking an interest in gardening, they may be a little wary of someone taking over. Just a thought.

 

@tricky4511
Two things: firstly I'd get yours sorted and looking good, before approaching the neighbours. Secondly offer to rent a section of their garden from them.

 

'Rent' is difficult, would recommend 'crop share' ie: if there is a crop, feel free to have SOME.
But you need to control it. If they have pet(s)/children/visitors to excess, avoid!

 

I agree I need to do my side first.... from what I can tell the garden is depressing her and she is just fed up of it but cant/wont do it her self as she has no idea what to do or where to start... She paid a guy to come in and chop everything down and strim the grass as her side is bare of any kind of shrub and the lawn is as bad as my side. It is a maisonette so the garden is divided with a path (see the first picture of my first post).
I am going to be burning all my dead stuff in the next few days (burn bin) and i think she dropped a hint that she does not really care if I went over the border to tidy the bottom of the garden.
I did clean all the slabs and drains already and she was happy with that.

But what I did today was if it was brown I cut it down, my plants are starting to bud so any that was not I did a few test cuts and if the wood was brown inside I cut it all back. Some seemed to be dead R.I.P lavender bush and Rose bush they had rotten to base probably due to it all being left for over 3 years to grow out of control and there was/is all the brambles I have cleared out.

Big hole left in the middle but there are new plants growing and may be some children from the old rose bush.

 

i spoke to my other neighbour today while doing some more in the garden, he used to climb over the fence to cut the lawn without permission.