Help with what to do with country back garden (0.40 acres)

cr0fty

Hi all, hopefully somebody can offer some advise.

I have recently purchased my first home in the countryside that was previously unoccupied for a few years- the back garden is around 0.40 acres and is densely overgrown. It consists of grass/reeds/nettles and has quite a lot of tangled overgrowth. Some areas of the growth would reach up to about hip height (I'm 6 foot for context).

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I should be doing with it / what service I should be looking for to help get it under control. It is far too high to run a household lawn mower/strim.

Not interested in a manicured finish, just need to get it back looking like a back garden again and not a bush!

I have attached some pictures for context, and any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Garden Novice!

elperello

It's not too bad, I've seen worse.

Is there a neighbour who might mow it with a tractor?

Would save a lot of work.

Once you get it down you can make a plan for future use.

Looks like a nice spot.

Dempo1

Is the ground level OP , looks a little bumpy 🤔

If level, absolutely get a Local farmer to cut with a tractor mower, might need to be done a few times over the coming weeks.

You may then have to consider treating the area with fertiliser or a treatment like evergreen 4in1 as its likely there's a lot of perennial weeds and wild grasses have got a foot hold throughout the site. Depending on the condition of lawn after industrial cut and treatment, you mave have to sow fresh seed but hopefully not.

It's quite a big area and I'd tend to focus on getting the lawn in shape initially and then look at planting idea's, layout next year.

Home you've a decent ride on lawn mower😏

Good luck .

Gant21

Bag lime would also be a good alternative to fertiliser as costs are high on that. Get some one with a atv and spreader.

The Continental Op

Perfectly doable with a mower or ideally start with a decent sized strimmer. I've just done one of two cuts I do each year on very similar grass along our river bank with a strimmer. Looking at your pictures that would take me 4-6 hours but I'm getting old so I'd do that over two days. For me a tank of fuel lasts about an hour then I take/need a rest.

There is a technique to the strimming. You can work a strip from right to left and move the cut material as you strim it to your left leaving the area you are cutting freer of cut grass. On really thick areas come down on a small area of grass from above so it gets the maximum chopping up then move it to the left by cutting again with the right to left action.

To make it relatively easy work you need at least a 40cc strimmer capable of taking 2.4mm strimmer line or thicker. A metal blade is good in some circumstances but not so much when the crop has gone over on the ground like yours. You could strim that and think you have it all done but only cut the top half of the grass, you need to get right down to the base which is difficult when its gone over like yours. A line strimmer will with effort get that.

Ideally do the job when the grass is bone dry but you can strim when its pissing it down but the heavy areas will just be heavier and much harder to cut. Don't do a massive swath in one go concentrate on a narrow 50-60 cm strip and move the tool slowly its not a scythe that you have to swing around like a madman. You need to try and get to the bottom of the grass and clear your working area to an area you have already cut.

Then if you can't be bothered to pick up - I don't on the river bank - a few days later as some of the grass starts to grow through all the cut material strim it all again. This time it should be really easy you chop up all the cut grass a bit more and you can get all those bits you missed the first time around.

Lumen

I'd bring in a landscaper to sort out the grass and focus efforts on boundary planting (and removing that horrible looking thing on the left).

Paddy McGinty

It seems as if the OP may have posted and ran!... so I'll take this opportunity to jump in as I have a similar sized site, also neglected, which I'm now starting to attack having recently retired. I'm certainly no gardener so for me this is a massive task hence I'd really value any constructive advice or opinions from those who know better!

A farmer friend cut the grass and weeds down so far with what he called 'a topper' hanging off back of his tractor, so we could then at least walk around it. However he couldn't really do as much as needed as there are large stones strewn over much of the site and he was understandably concerned about damaging his blades. We then got someone else in with a digger thinking we could simply scrape the top off but it turns out there are stones at all depths so it seems a massive amount of new topsoil would be needed to cover it and start again.

That all made me think differently so I've chosen to focus instead on some hard landscaping to begin with. I'm thinking rather than try and attack the whole lot in one go, we might be better dividing the area up into maybe 4 or 5 separate 'zones' so we can do it over the next couple of years, or however long it takes.

As I said I'm no gardener but more than willing to learn as I go. I'm guessing if I say I'm striving for a 'low maintenance' solution that all you seasoned gardeners might just roll your eyes at me!

Anyway, here's the story so far...

We built what was to be a block shed (6m x 4m) that we've now decided will be a cross between a 'shebeen' and a leisure or summer room. In front of that we'll be putting a large concrete patio and a 4 foot path all the way around, and adjacent to all that will be a large semi-outdoor entertaining area with a heavy duty pagoda type structure covered with a polycarb roof.

All that stuff is towards one boundary which is currently clear so we'll be putting a mix of hedging, shrubs and trees down long most of that boundary (about 50m long). Theoretically we could leave that boundary clear as the field (about 3/4 acre) belongs to the forestry. They only use a narrow track to get access to fields lower down so aside from that most of it 'could' be a free garden extension for us... except we already have too much garden!

Towards the centre of garden is a very large sycamore tree which was completely strangled with vine. I cut all that back and can see the improvement from doing so. The ground was very bad around the tree so I'm going to make a square seated feature around it and that feature will then be surrounded by an octagon base of concrete and stone The tree will be in a protected square, the seating will be on the edge of that square and then 4 of the 8 octagon sides will have a path winding away from it thus dividing the rest of the garden up into four separate zones.

You'll gather I'm a fan of concrete so there will be a few different styled planters dotted around, all build with breeze blocks which will ultimately be rendered and painted

When it's all done and dusted I'd like to think we could end up with 4 different styles of garden out the back and another one out the front which will probably have to wait until year 3.

I'm ok with building structures/features and different styles of paths but fairly clueless when it comes to choosing which types of plants to use and when and where to put them.

Go easy on me ;o)

looksee

My experience of sycamore trees is the dratted things are fly magnets, so I wouldn't get too enthusiastic about it being a seating area. I am biased as I have an irrational dislike of them -I have rescued a good few trees from brambles and ivy in the partially developed but neglected garden I got with the house, and I have planted a lot more, but the sycamores will mostly go.

Your plan for working in zones is a good one, and remember, there's no rush, it will be there a long while!

When planting I'd suggest you keep flower borders to a minimum, maybe one or two and plant other areas up with shrubs and trees, once established they don't need nearly so much minding. Use mulch on any bits of bare soil and be prepared to top it up every year or so.

Don't forget to create a large but fairly hidden area for compost bins and all the essential stuff - lengths of timber, left over slabs and blocks- that will otherwise lie around and clutter the place up. (I really need to take my own advice here).

wildwillow

I think you need an experienced person, not necessarily a designer, to look at your site and give some options. I also hate the sycamore and would not tolerate it, there are so many beautiful native trees which would be wonderful to sit under. All that concrete makes my heart sink too but I am a garden freak.

Without seeing it I'm imagining taking advantage of the stony soil and plant to emphasise it and use informal paths. Think mini Burren in the stoniest sections. Once done, a little maintenance would keep it. My last garden was on very shallow limestone and no farmer would plough our fields as the large limstones cropped up everywhere. I used lots of rockery type planting with a little path around them and used the stones to make it look natural.

I recently did a new garden which is still a work in progress and the work involved would horrify you. But I consulted a few designers, none of whom listened to me and gave me their generic plan. I worked with a heavy machinery contractor and he gave me exactly what I had imagined. Very patient man, but he was getting more interested as we progressed and made a few suggestions of his own.

Assuming the land locally is similar to yours, have a look at what other people have done and how they coped. Gardeners love to get a new listener!!!

Try to have a vision of what you expect it to look like in five years.