Looking for gardening help starting from scratch

newportlad

Hi all

Looking for advice on what to do with this space, no experience at all with gardening and not very creative 🀔 I put in some ‘before’ pictures if it helps

Also with how to remove the hedge stumps, impossible to move, thinking I need to get a saw to them or something.

Any help much appreciated ðŸ‘

Harry Palmr

In that sort of bed the stumps should be pretty straightforward to remove, you just need to get handy with a strong full length fork and a full sized pick axe, break up the earth as deep as you can go, feel out the roots and loosen them, use the pick to get under the "stump" and give the axe a pull, this is the sort of thing that might come free in one bound or could take a fair bit of push/pull and shove, if the whole thing comes out as whole system excellent but if you need to chop the main roots then do so as far from the stump as you can any root remains left should die and rot in situ.

newportlad

Harry Palmr wrote: »

In that sort of bed the stumps should be pretty straightforward to remove, you just need to get handy with a strong full length fork and a full sized pick axe, break up the earth as deep as you can go, feel out the roots and loosen them, use the pick to get under the "stump" and give the axe a pull, this is the sort of thing that might come free in one bound or could take a fair bit of push/pull and shove, if the whole thing comes out as whole system excellent but if you need to chop the main roots then do so as far from the stump as you can any root remains left should die and rot in situ.

Thanks for all those tips, I’ll try and source those implements and get working on it.

One I have that done, could I re-use some of the soil or would ye recommend putting a few layers of new top soil in?

Harry Palmr

With all the wood out the level with obviously drop and you'll take some away on the stumps so it's certainly worth topping up with fresh soil, compost mix which you can dig in so the whole bed is loosened up.

Idioteque

A Mattock head is great for removing roots and stumps. You can pick up the handle and head cheap in Goodwins (Handle just drops onto head very easy). You can pick both up for €22 total there.

I had a loads of stumps and tree roots to remove and these made short work of them. Helpful to have a pruning saw also for cutting some roots and making the job easier but might be overkill if you've just the one stump

looksee

Did you build the bed or did you inherit it? I would be inclined to lift all the soil out of the bed (onto a polythene sheet) and see what is at the bottom of it. Then mix some new soil, and some compost through the old stuff before putting it back in.