Overgrown garden

martin123 · 28 May 2005

Hi all, Ive just finished refurbing the house and its now time to start on the garden.

We've been here just over a year and nothing has been done to the garden at all. Its 10m x 6m, grassed with a border on 3 sides.......and looks horrible.
The garden has roughly 100 weeds including one that wraps itself around everything, according to a website there mostly dandelion, dock, stinging nettles and a few 5ft celery type sharp looking things(sorry best i could do !). There's no flowers in the soil anywhere only two shrubs called a viburnum and a red pillar(so the labels say)

Now the question is where do we start, would it be easier to just rip everything out including the lawn and start again or begin weeding by hand or ??? this is our first garden so looking for a few ideas really.

Thanks

nstreet · 28 May 2005

The weed that wraps itself around everything sounds like a variety of bindweed. The problem with this weed is that the roots are very long (5m approx) they are also very brittle and break easily, a new plant will grow from the smallest root fragment.

I would level the whole garden and dispose of the layer of top soil and start again from scratch. Good luck.

masona · 28 May 2005

martin123 said:
this is our first garden so looking for a few ideas really.

Depend what interest you have in your garden, do you have the time to keep it tidy and so on. I'm not a keen gardener so I built a summerhouse across the garden to take up most of the land

and a lawn which is cut twice a week to keep it down. If you buy plants, it will need looking after although there are plants which can look after themselves. You can spend and waste money if you're not careful. It all depends what spare time you have as the garden can take most of your time in the summer. There are some garden website for ideas.

rona · 28 May 2005

I've read that the best way to deal with bindweed is to place canes for it to climb up so that a systemic weedkiller can be directly applied to it and kill the whole plant, roots and all.

Thermo · 29 May 2005

most of the larger weeds will dig out fairly easily as they have tap roots eg dock. The bindweed is a sod, and its a case of systemic weedkiller such as roundup and then digging it out. If your short of ideas pop some photos on of it or get someone in to do it/give ideas. As for stripping of the top soil, its expensive!

breezer · 29 May 2005

i have seen them do it on ground force, just turn everything over with a fork, throwing away the junk as you go, but this does include bindweed, its roots and grass

GRC · 29 May 2005

Would it help to ;

(a) run over the whole garden with a strimmer to chop the tops off the weeds; then

(b) spray what remains of them with Weedol or Roundup, then

(c) dig it over after a few days once the weedkiller has taken effect, and the weeds will be less trouble and likely come out a bit easier.

Regards, Graham

breezer · 29 May 2005

i dissagree, some weedkillers take in the stuff by the leaves to the roots , to chop thetops of first then spray with weed killer not good idea, also it means more work, chop , dig, spray, why not spray, dig, (no chop)

martin123 · 29 May 2005

Thanks for the replies, here's the plan. As for the lawn i took a strimmer to it this morning (finding two stone buddah's) and then cut it with a mower.I'll leave the lawn till next weekend so i can see where the weeds have grown back and treat them with a lawn weedkiller. Tommorow we will try and dig all the weeds out from the borders and treat the bindweed and see what happens.

Is it worth waiting to see if any weeds grows back around the borders before we spent a fortune on plants or is there a weedkiller thats plant friendly

thanks again

nstreet · 29 May 2005

There is a well known saying that gardeners use;

One years seeding gives seven years weeding.

So if the weeds have been allowed to set seed for one season, they will almost definitley return for many seasons to come.

Thermo · 29 May 2005

if you are using a systemic weedkiller, such as round up containing glysophate, (which is the only way youll kill it by the roots) leave them to grow, spray them and youll need to leave them for 7 - 14 days to allow it to work properly and kill them off then you can dig them out. If you dig the ground over, pull out carfully whatever weeds you come across and turn the earth over and bury it so that any remaining weeds are forced under the soil (one spade depth). The systemic weedkiller is freindly if used carfully. It only attacks the plant systems that it falls on so use it in a small directed jet sprayer on a calm day and be accurate. if you get any on a plant you want to keep douse it with water. It doesnt affect the soil and some varieties act as a nutrient adding nitrogeon to the soil as soon as they come into contact with it.Cut them and theyll come back. Patience is the only solution.

Dewy · 3 Jun 2005

Because of the way bindweed (convolvulus) propagates from every bit of root left then digging will never get rid of it.
Using a glyphosate systemic weedkiller is the only way to be sure of killing it.
This should be done in the growing season so that it carries the glyphosate down to the roots and kills them.
The normal way to do this in an established garden is to grow it up canes so you can wear a rubber glove then hold a piece of absorbant cloth (towelling) dipped in the weedkiller to coat the plant.
I managed to get rid of hundreds of bindweed plants this way.
Dandylions, docks, bindweed and nettles will keep coming back every year unless you manage to kill them at the roots by using a systemic weedkiller (glyphosate)
They also seed readily so be prepared for more to grow the following year unless you stop them going to seed.
Whether you decide to kill everything in the borders or the whole garden is up to you.
If the whole garden you can use glyphosate in a watering can or a garden sprayer on a calm, dry day.
Personally I would just kill all the weeds in the borders and mow the grass. Once the grass is mown regularly many weeds will be killed by the mowing and those that arent can be removed by using a lawn feed/weed.

sr72 · 3 Jun 2005

get some elbow grease into them weeds(the soil underneath will be very fertile because its been left to go fallow) then get some spuds lobbed in!!!!....just think chips...mash....jacket..boiled.... roast...mmm

...information courtesy of father.

Scoby_Beasley · 4 Jun 2005

nstreet said:
There is a well known saying that gardeners use;

One years seeding gives seven years weeding.

So if the weeds have been allowed to set seed for one season, they will almost definitley return for many seasons to come.

Bum!! beat me to it , but it is true !

Dewy · 5 Jun 2005

nstreet said:
There is a well known saying that gardeners use;

One years seeding gives seven years weeding.

So if the weeds have been allowed to set seed for one season, they will almost definitley return for many seasons to come.

I had hoped to miss that but Scoby_Beasleys response has made sure I wont forget it.
I was an avid gardener until a major accident 2 years ago which has resulted in 6 operations and many months of physio.
In that time my garden has turned into a jungle with much of it covered in brambles from birds dropping the seeds along with those horrible sticky things with sticky seeds that cling to anything that passes and spread in their thousands, plus lots of docks in what was the lawn.
I have already given much of the garden 3 doses of glyphosate but it takes a lot to get rid of the brambles any ivy that is spreading up & over everything.
Grrrrrrrrrr

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Overgrown garden

breezer

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