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Garden novice... halp plz!

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    #32
    Conor Bourke
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 17,424 ✭✭✭✭Conor Bourke


    theyoungchap wrote: »
    How did our OP get on here?

    Hello!

    About 4 weeks ago I rounded up a few friends and we cleared about 2/3 of of the garden in a few hours. There’s one big pile of remnants to be cleared but I ran out of bags and it’s just been too busy and warm to do much more. I invested in the slash hook after all :D it was handy for the briars and bindweed around the shed, which I’ve almost cleared.

    Got a skip bag for a lot of the junk in and behind the shed but could probably get another one at this rate with what I unearthed up at the back (a flippin’ hot water tank was amongst the detritus). Need to clear the last patch, get busy with the sprayer and then I think I’m more or less done for this year.

    I’ve the stumps/roots of the hedges to try and pull up, any advice?


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    #33
    theyoungchap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 522 ✭✭✭theyoungchap


    Cornelius Crow wrote: »
    Hello!

    I’ve the stumps/roots of the hedges to try and pull up, any advice?

    Either hire a stump grinder (dodgy name I know) or get somebody in to do this. I read a lot about this it is more difficult than it looks. We got a man in to do it for us, he was great and did it in no time for a couple of hundred quid if I remember correctly. PM me if you want a name.

    It was worth every cent and he did a great job.


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    #34
    Graces7
    Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    looksee wrote: »
    Some stuff from lidl is great, other stuff is rubbish. We got some of those €8 shears a few weeks ago - knowing full well that you get what you pay for and €8 shears are unlikely to be up to much. We were right, they are useless. Decent clippers and secateurs are not cheap but if you look after them they will serve you well for long enough, go to a hardware shop, garden centre tools have notiony prices.

    I had secateurs from LIDl for e2 and they are great. Cleared a jungle of aged brambles ..


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    #35
    Conor Bourke
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 17,424 ✭✭✭✭Conor Bourke


    Hello again everyone!

    Update time: Summer 2018 was too hot to do very much work in the garden and the grass pretty much died which was fine until I got pretty seriously ill in August and was out of action for a few weeks. By the time I’d recovered, things had started to grow back and I hadn’t the energy to go back at it until June of 2019, by which time things were even more out of control and daunting than ever.

    I spent almost every spare minute of last summer clearing that damn garden. I had some occasional help but for the most part it was me on my own tipping away at it. I filled two maxi skip bags, countless loads in both the brown and black bins (was over my weight allowance on every collection for about 4 months) and did at least two trips to Ballymount with the car wedged to the gills with green waste.

    I chopped the briars behind the shed down with an electric hedge cutter from Lidl that a friend loaned me, it was a game changer, there’s no way I would have been able to achieve as much, as quickly without it. Once I moved off the bulky stuff I dug out the roots of the briars and bindweed. I even got down the side of my shed which I didn’t think would be possible.

    Today I flew in to Windmill Road with a half tonne bag of green waste and the realisation hit me that it was probably the last bulky bag of waste I’ll ever have to dispose of. Nothing that’s left now is too big for the green bin.. I can’t believe it!

    What I’m left with now though is a rough and scruffy lawn at the back and stumps of shrubs is the main issue. I’ve set myself the challenge of getting rid of them by September and hopefully then I’ll rotavate and reseed the lawn and maybe try to create some flowerbed borders.

    Once again, I’m asking for advice on how best to get the shrub/hedge/tree roots out without absolutely killing myself (I went at one of the laurel roots with a pickaxe and damn near put a disc out in my back). Is there anything I can do to encourage them to rot away eventually?

    I’ve a few before n after pics for ye as well!


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    #36
    Conor Bourke
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 17,424 ✭✭✭✭Conor Bourke


    And another few, in particular the last one shows the roots I want to get rid of.


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