Hello all,
I'm hoping some of you lovely people can assist in helping me with this.
Through a series of events that were unfortunate this garden hasn't been cared for in a while.
What would be the best way of tackling this garden? I.E Tools/small machines
It has no side access and the house is quite narrow.
by MrCulling
29 Comments
Employ a local gardener to sort it out if poss.
Honestly you might do better paying someone to clear it for you. You’ll need some relatively expensive kit to do it yourself which you’d probably not use again.
If you can hire someone do that they’ll take the waste too – a local gardener might come with a a team and they’ll finish it quickly. Good luck!
I want you to hire some goats.
You can either hire a big clearing saw-something like a Stihl fs 411with a brush knife on, or hire someone with the same.
This is the kind of thing I do for a living. It’s going to be best to get a gardening company to come in a sort this out for you unless you have plenty of spare time, tools and a vehicle to take the waste away in. Call around and ask for some quotes. Make sure you ask for waste away.
Is the only access to the garden through the house? If so it’s going to be a ballache, but doable for a professional firm. Not going to be cheap but someone will smash it out for the right money.
There are companies who will deliver some goats to your garden and set up temporary barriers for them.
The goats will eat everything and fertilise the ground, as well as entertaining you.
YouTube gardeners would get some content out of this.
That’s who i’d reach out to.
1. What’s the end goal? Just clear or something else
2. How mobile are you?
3. How important is this garden to you?
4. Is there anything that existed in the garden that you’d like to keep?
5. How much time do you realistically have for this.
Basically. If you have plenty of time, care about the garden. Maybe have stuff you like there, and are fairly mobile then you could easily do this over a few weeks with some shears, loppers, and pruners. Just chop it small. If you can get a green bin great, otherwise gradually pile stuff up in dedicated regions and eventually bin it or run a mower over or some other tool to shred. Like mulcher. Then dig over garden where brambles and that settles. This also let’s you save any plants that are still alive.
Otherwise. If you don’t care for the garden, get a brushcutter (imagine a strimmer on crack) and just rinse it. Be careful of wildlife and solid things, a petrol one would be best. You can likely rent one for a weekend. Then dig and clear
Final option is pay a gardener. They’d likely brush cutter it away. So the second option. But you pay somebody to do it. Great of you don’t care and want it gone, have the money and maybe mobility issues.
Personally I’d go option 1, but you may prefer option 2.
First is there anything in there you want to save? This will determine how aggressively you go at it. If you want to save nothing the see if you can rent a weed trimmer with spinning metal blades. Then clean it all out. If there is something you want to save then just use the trimmer and make a path to it. Then go out in a spiral pattern from there so it can be saved. If multiple things then get the yard paint that dissolves over time and mark the stuff so it doesn’t get damaged.
Looks a lot worse than it is. Common state in which to receive a new allotment. Only challenge is access. I would try a walk through and tie yellow ribbons on what you want to keep and have a bit of a plan. Best to leave a bit, work around it. And come back later rather than cut something down you want to keep.
Use a wide toothed hedge trimmer and loppers to cut everything else down to 6 inches. Then use a mattock to dig out the roots of the stuff you don’t want.
Ideally use a chipper, or cut up and place in rubble sacks or trugs to take to the tip (reuse the sacks and trugs).
I did something similar state and size last winter. Probably took me a month of weekends working solo.
Lookup gardening youtubers near you… some do this for free. Or get a powerful strimmer.
Looks like fun to me.
Have a bring your own cutting tool BBQ party?
Get the goats, make a some YouTube videos and Timelapse and post link here.
Know any goats?
Hire a petrol brush cutter, PPE up and get stuck in, it’s the only way to do it….unless you just get someone else to do it.
Goats mate.
Fire, and lots of it.
Are you in a hurry? Otherwise shears, saw and some good gloves, right?
Stoke Newington?
Electric chainsaw and hedge trimmers.
Strimmer with a blade on it
https://preview.redd.it/2vw9osq4832g1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b505c33cc347e90512b65107b58829246b86fb5d
If you are able bodied it’s really not that tough. It will be difficult to get rid of all the stuff, though.
A big manual cutter will be your starting point, things will quickly clear up so you get an overview of what you need next.
I dealt with a garden like this. Spray it with SBK brushwood killer. Then lots of cutting, dig out whatever root you can. Then let what’s left regrow a bit, spray it with SBK again, and cover it with a weed barrier for a few months (ideally summer). Then rotavate and grass seed.
No side access so you’re going to need house trained goats
Brush cutter and those thick open bags.
Honestly you can do this with extendable hedge trimmers in a day, rent a good one and chainsaw helmet. Use it upside-down and trim through the bottom of the brambles.
You might need a pruning saw or a use a bowsaw for the thicker stuff.
Once you’ve cut it at the bottom you can sorta cut it into sections and roll it into a skips. Wear boots and thick trousers you can compress it down it won’t take much space at all.
I run volunteer groups doing exactly this sorta thing, but in parks and on canals.
Ideally you’ll have a pitch fork but a normal gardening fork will do in a pinch to move it about once cut. Oh and some thick work gloves.
Goats all day long