Garden's in a jock! Plus I'm an eejit. Help needed!

shakenbake

Right, my gardens in a real overgrown mess. The grass is about the same height as me and the ground is rugged and not very nice.

I'm not sure a lawn mower will actually move over the ground very well. So would the alternative be to use one of those strimmers? The garden is about 25 x 15ft.

I take it I need to dig the ground? Will I need to buy fresh top soil for it then?
I'd like to coat about half of the garden in nice coloured stone, e.g purple slate etc ... is that likely to be expensive given the size?

Thanks

Sonnenblumen

You've a bit of work to do, start eating lots of bananas and porridge.

1. Hire yourself a combi brush cutter/strimmer (similar to Strimmer) except it has a cutting disc for dealing with high grass. A strimmer will get tied up in such high grass. Cut down to below 12" and then replace disc with strimmer haed and finish off the grass /weed stumps. If you an old mower you could run that over in stages from 6" or less.

2. Bound to be a lot of residual weed crap and seed. So leave for aboput a week or when you see good active new growth emerging. Spray the whole area with Roundup (Weedkiller), very good stuff an dtakes approx 7 days to wipe out everything above and below ground.

3. Remove all residual waste. Next hire yourself a Rotavator and dig the lefe out of the ground. Rake and level. For grass area it would advisable to allow ground to settle or alternatively roll (yes you can hire rollers also) to a level and firm condition.

4. Mark off the area for stone dressing, line with a weed barrier, the stuff generally available in DIY stores is not great, avoid the lite fleece and builders PVC. Go for a heavy duty plastic woven fabric (Mypex) and place in position. You can make pins from old wire hangers. These will keep the liner in nposition which will prevent weeds emerging through the stone dressing.

5. Use roll out turf for a finished lawn.

Budget Hire costs c € 150-200, slate dressing c € 90 (small 25kg bags are pricey), Roll Turf € 60.

Tip If you plan your hires for Sat mornings you get to keep the equip for Sunday for free, only hassle is you must return early Monday to avoid any penalty charges.

Good Luck.

S

shakenbake

Thanks a million for the reply, Sonnen!

Sounds like I need to stock up on bannana's and porridge so.

At least it'll be the most honest few days of work I've ever done anyways!

I'll do an after and before pic

Can you recommend any place for rotovators, or are they fairly common?

crosstownk

I did more or less what sonnen recommended a year after I moved into a house with a 'builders' back garden. The only difference is that I put down top soil and threw out some grass seed. After some weeding a season later I had a perfect lawn the following season.

Sonnenblumen

Plenty to choose from but some are better than others in so far as they keep a good range of gardening equip in stock and in good condition also! I'd have no probs recommending:
South Dublin - Hills Hire (Cabinteely)
Mr Hire (Rathfarnham)