New house. Moved in October time.
Moderate sized garden, once well kept with a variety of planting (I suspect an older couple with time and enthusiasm for gardening). Neglected and overgrown for the past 2 years or so. Lawn not cut, other stuff run riot, etc. Previous owners started clearing the front and just left it in a heap of dead wood.
Lots of brambles, ivy and some kind of bulbs (probably a variety) to the front:
Brambles, ivy and what looks like Italian arum all over the back.
I want to level and gravel the front for parking. the rear I want to turn to lawn for the kids. I've managed to clear the front back to ground level, but there's a lot of long matted grass hiding a multitude of treasured (iron spikes, a yard brush, etc), that's resisting my persistent raking. There's also a few high spots where there might have been raised beds -I've hoiked about 1/2 ton of largish stones out of the garden.
Before I level, should I run a rotivator the front to even the ground out a bit? I intend to lay some geotextile to keep the weeds down, then put 10-20mm gravel down for a short term (2-3yr) fix.
In the rear I'm a little worried about the copious amount of Arum - which I believe is poisonous, and quite hard to get rid of. I need to level the rear too, and the garage will eventually go - there's a fair bit of bigger work needed long term to get it how I want, but I want this Arum stuff gone first. Would Round-up type weedkiller work on it? If I just bulldoze the whole lot, would it pop back up?
Any other thoughts?
Moderate sized garden, once well kept with a variety of planting (I suspect an older couple with time and enthusiasm for gardening). Neglected and overgrown for the past 2 years or so. Lawn not cut, other stuff run riot, etc. Previous owners started clearing the front and just left it in a heap of dead wood.
Lots of brambles, ivy and some kind of bulbs (probably a variety) to the front:
Brambles, ivy and what looks like Italian arum all over the back.
I want to level and gravel the front for parking. the rear I want to turn to lawn for the kids. I've managed to clear the front back to ground level, but there's a lot of long matted grass hiding a multitude of treasured (iron spikes, a yard brush, etc), that's resisting my persistent raking. There's also a few high spots where there might have been raised beds -I've hoiked about 1/2 ton of largish stones out of the garden.
Before I level, should I run a rotivator the front to even the ground out a bit? I intend to lay some geotextile to keep the weeds down, then put 10-20mm gravel down for a short term (2-3yr) fix.
In the rear I'm a little worried about the copious amount of Arum - which I believe is poisonous, and quite hard to get rid of. I need to level the rear too, and the garage will eventually go - there's a fair bit of bigger work needed long term to get it how I want, but I want this Arum stuff gone first. Would Round-up type weedkiller work on it? If I just bulldoze the whole lot, would it pop back up?
Any other thoughts?