Any advice on how to deal with all of this, most nettle bushes and notweed. Very established and thick
by MrEnglish13
Any advice on how to deal with all of this, most nettle bushes and notweed. Very established and thick
by MrEnglish13
31 Comments
A bit at a time.
It mostly looks like bramble. Get some good thick gloves, hack it back to near to the ground with shears. Then dig it over with a garden fork, pulling out the roots. You’ll miss some so you will have to monitor it and dig out any new shoots that keep coming up.
Your neighbours will be greatful I suspect.
Unleash the goats
Are you sure there’s knotweed in there? It just looks like brambles and nettles to me. Looks like there’s a small tree beyond the washing line that might be worth keeping.
You could go at it with a brushcutter until you’ve taken off all the top growth and can see where the roots are. There will probably be several large knots of bramble roots, and you might want to dig out the big ones to reduce them because they’ll keep coming back (they will do anyway for a while, but much less time if you’ve dug out the main roots).
But personally, I would probably pay a garden clearance service to clear it, because it will be so much quicker and easier to do with the right tools, and they are going to be fairly expensive tools you aren’t going to need most of the time in a normal garden. Pay for a one-off clear, then mow regularly for the rest of the year.
Theres likely to be some wildlife in it so getting a strimmer could cause them harm. Too many hedgehogs end up with chopped legs. As another poster said a bit at a time is the best approach.
I don’t think I’ve actually seen bramble this bad. It won’t be easy unfortunately.
Right, it’s growing season. Best thing you can do in my opinion is to use hedge cutters. Do in stages and it’s but the quicker you do it, the easier it’ll be.
Spraying it I don’t recommend and doesn’t work well with brambles if it all. Pilling it up is the best option.
After this there are a few options, depending on the thickness mow it keep it down to keep it down like that. If you want to use the garden and get rid of it start digging it out. Again, this is quite the task and will be an awful job.
If you can’t or don’t want to do it yourself and can afford it, get someone in. They’ll hate the job but live the transformation.
Remember there will be a lot of waste so have a plan for that too. Burn it, green bin or your local tip.
Cleared this a few times. Get some welders gauntlets from Screwfix. Firstly decide what you are doing with the waste. Bramble tops burn green.I don’t recommend composting it at the thorns don’t compost.
Cut down to 6 inches using a wide toothed hedge trimmer or a brush cutter. You need to check for nest first now. Then use a mattock to dig the nettle and bramble roots out. Neither are deep rooted.
It looks daunting but i think it’s doable by yourself in 2 weekends excluding waste disposal.
goats
Get a shredder.
Hire goats, genuinely.
Strim it down, spray it give it a week rake out the waste into a small pile set on fire
This excites me, as you’ve got potential for a lovely outdoor space there! A good pair of gloves, a weekend hacking away at it, and many cups of tea and reward-beers and you’ll be so grateful you did it. Keep us updated please!
Goats!
A strimmer or hedge trimmer is probably where your at.
Start with that taking it down by 15-30 cms at a time. Once your 30-50cms above ground height its time to go to hand tools.
This is for wildlife and your power tool.
A patio knife and a claw cultivator with some sharp secatuers / pruning shears.
Clear the right side first and then work in sections along the left up to the fence. Confirm whos fence it is and its polite to give the neighbour a heads up, the brambles might be holding the fence up and there appears to be some ivy overhanging further back.
You can probably get this done in a weekend but it will be some graft, id advise press ganging 1 or 2 unwitting victims.
You need a brush cutter, get a mulching blade to go with it, an hour tops and this is all gone
If there really is knotweed then you need to be **very** careful with it. It’s an offense to move it because it is invasive, damaging and roots from tiny bits. So treat it with great care if you have it: definitely don’t go cutting into it while you deal with the rest.
But the photo seems to show primarily bramble.
That’s manageable but will take effort (wear gloves, they’re nasty spikey). You need to cut it back bit by bit and dig out the roots that can be substantial. I’d suggest a mattock would help.
Call someone in to get rid of them. They can do it in a day or two max. Health and safety comes first mate. And it will give you a good start.
Crumble is a nice option.
Looks very familiar. Ours was similar when we moved in, and I know how overwhelming it feels at first.
Heavy duty gloves, long handled loppers, a fork, and a big gardening knife will help. The bramble crowns are the real challenge, so mark any you can’t dig out straight away and come back to them.
Definitely stop them flowering, and dig out any that pop up in the grass or they’ll regrow from the root.
Heavy mulching helped stop the smaller ones taking root. I’d avoid chemicals if you can, as they can damage everything else around them too.
It will come back at first, but less and less each year if you keep on top of it.
Strim it, clear the waste, wait for regrowth, spray it with herbicide. Respray if necessary, make yourself a new garden from the blank canvas.
I wish this posted by my neighbour. I know it’s not because there isn’t a pile of rotting upholstered furniture in the corner along with hopefully empty gas canisters. And a giant out of control leylandii at the back. 😭
Goats or a lawnmower you dont care about
It’s mostly bramble. Get those really thick fireproof gloves to pull the roots out, after you’ve trimmed them down to manageable size with shears first. Then pile them onto a heap and set light to them. They’re the type to start taking over your compost heap if you just chuck them on there.
You haven’t said what you want to achieve? Cut them down if you don’t want them. Trim and prune if you do. Simples
Cut it at the base near the ground, keep doing that, leave it in a big pile then remove it, shred it or compost it. Then move onto the next bit.
Once you’ve gotten through the worst of it – a week perhaps, then you can see what’s there to work with – maybe put down cardboard and put a compost mix over the top and start to plant a cover crop like clover
I had a very similar garden and I couldn’t even get into the garden due to overgrown brambles etc. Myself and family spent days hacking it down/away. It is totally possibly but will require work. We did use a strimmer for a lot of it.
Don’t do anything with it until nesting season is over.
A petrol strimmer, and PPE.
I had a great time with a hedge trimmer at knew then ankle height, really good fun.
We bought these, they are well thick and have long sleeves to protect against those nasty thorns.
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChsSEwjJj42o06eUAxURlFAGHTwyA0oYACICCAEQARoCZGc&co=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyY-NqNOnlAMVEZRQBh08MgNKEAQYASABEgJikvD_BwE&sph=&sig=AOD64_2vTxE6_-Lb-I_zyLXYY0mPig0pSw&ctype=46&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjs9oeo06eUAxWVQkEAHc6tFHQQzzkoAHoECAoQDQ&adurl=
That is certainly a lot of work. I once cleared an area about a third of that and it was hard going. We broke the back of it in one day just cutting all the vegetation to ground level. The next couple of days of digging up roots and chasing ground runners was a slog but very rewarding.
Our soil was in excellent condition once we cleared it. Stuff grows beautifully in that area now.
That’s a wonderful little space just waiting to happen. I’d love to see follow-ups.
99% of gardeners have never had to deal with anything like this.
The roots will be deep and cast a wide net. The rhizomes (a root ball that looks like a bunch of massive potatoes) will be strong and full of stored energy (starch, if I remember correctly). If you just strip it back, it will return year after year using that stored energy.
You need to kill the rhizomes. Use a glyphosate solution (Amazon sells 1L concentrate bottles for £20-30) and spray all the leaves. This should kill the rhizome and all the roots.
Don’t go for the cheapest stuff you can find. The very cheap products often have weaker concentration than advertised or poor surfactants, which means they won’t translocate properly into the rhizome. Stick to a known brand, take care, and read the warning labels. Glyphosate is nasty stuff.
Leave the glyphosate to do its thing for a week at least (2 ideally). It’ll work into the roots and kill the core of the plant.
Then use a brush cutter to strip it down and large rubble sacks to bag it up. Rent a Stihl or another quality model for the day. They’re 2-4 times as powerful as a Homebase model.
Also, forget the hedge trimmer/sheers approach. If you’re not an athlete or used to using one, your arms will fall off before you’re 10% in. A proper rented brush cutter has a shoulder harness.
Good luck, and post this in a landscaping/land management subreddit too and compare the answers 😉
Edit: grammar