Best way to clear overgrown garden

[FartyBumCheeks]

Ok, some I'm a totally novice gardener. I have discovered procrastination skills of a prodigious level when it comes to my garden. Funnily enough, it is now overgrown with giant thistles (I thought one was a 6ft bush) ivy, random shrub type things etc.

A friend pointed out that unless I want Ray Mears moving in there, I needed to sort it out. I am confident that he will not. The triffids would eat him. I would like a less shit garden though.

I hear napalm is frowned upon, so I thought maybe a mini digger would be the way to go. Would that minimise the weeds etc returning? I just want a lawn for the kids, and a shed with a little flower bed next to it.

Any advice will be really appreciated!

Weeds grow in the best of gardens. You can't get rid just keep removing them and there will eventually be less but there will always be some as seed is blown into the garden, deposited by birds, cling to the fur of pets, come in on our feet and some lie dormant until disturbed or the conditions are right.
How big is your garden? How much time do you have to spend on it? How much money can you throw at it.
By the way - mine is the same at the moment as I am now living in a new house that was built in my garden and instead of storing all the top soil it got mixed in with every else so the garden is horrible.

I'm currently planning - then will remove all visible weeds at the end of summer and lay out the areas according to plan.

True about weeds. A mini digger is best when you have hardly any, because the weeds will grow more when they are broken up and buried. I would put down a piece of heavy duty carpet over it all after clearing the tall ones. Or you can buy specifically made covering from a garden centre. Leave it for a year or 2.

Don't use sprays or weed killers, think about the wildlife and your health.

Hire a petrol brush cutter and strip the whole lot. Then dig out what roots you can but you might need a root killer like SBK for the ivy roots.
Then cover the whole thing with cardboard and then a layer of fresh top soil. Lay the new lawn and plant your new plants through the cardboard.

If it's really overgrown you could use a strimmer. Can you ask friends round to help as it's hard work. Create a few flower beds. Can you afford to get a general gardener in for a couple if hours just to clear it for you and get rid if the rubbish.

The cardboard trick sound great. Does it work for weedy beds.

No don't kill the ivy with an effing root killer, keep it for the birds, I wouldn't want a garden without any wildlife. You know that a garden is outside to benefit you of course but also the world.

Can you post a picture so we can get an idea how bad it is

I have basically created most my garden through the use of cardboard.

I dug nothing out except brambles and just kept mowing where I wanted the lawn to be. All my beds have been created using cardboard, mulch and compost.

Next door used a rotavator and have spread their bindweed problem to epic proportions, I'm permanently pulling it up to stop it creeping into my garden.

I'd strim everything and see where you stand after that.

Yes that's working in a new garden I'm creating (it sounds posh) but it's an old field that had chickens in it surrounded by caves. Well it still sounds posh but it's our strange garden that has caves in it.

Any how I'm working on leaving the edges wild and mowing around a pond that I put in last year (in a hole already dug by the chicken people who lived here last) it's happening! The 'weeds' are disappearing and the grass is taking over which is what I want! I've thrown some grass seed about too.

ppeatfruit Caves? Tell me more! Do you mean a proper enterable stream cave/ Or are you not UK, and in one of these areas which has caves excavated into soft cliff faces that are used for storage?

Yes Mere real caves! one of which is approx 25 ft tall! The hill we're on is honeycombed with passages leading from them. The farmers used to dig out the tuffeau stones for the local buildings. We're in mid west France.

I'm not good with links ( I don't do them anymore because of security!) It's true though!!

The best thing to do is to pay someone to come in and clear it so you start with a clean slate .

TBH both dh and I are a bit frightened of going into the passages! Many are blocked off. They were used during the 100 year war by the locals and as a mushroom farm in the 1950s. There are stories about them, of course, esp. as this area was occupied in the 2nd WW.

Sorry to derail the thread OP

Definitely strim and mow the areas that you want to be flat. Eventually they will be!

Round the edges, I second thick cardboard and soil on top.

ppeatfruit If they're the result of farmers digging out stones, then strictly they're mines ;-) Caves are formed naturally by the action of water, either by abrasion (sea caves) or by the water being slightly acidic and reacting with limestone. I've seen your sort of "caves" in Greece, though not as impressive as yours. Great fun!

Get a goat!

Agree with the strim / cut back and see what you've got to start (we discovered a mosaic patio as a lovely surprise!!). See if you can get someone in for a few hrs to do it - if they've got a decent strimmer and/or big bloke-muscles they might get a lot more down than you could in same time, and should be able to take all the cutting away for you as will probably be quite a big volume.

If you do the cardboard & topsoil thing, my tip would be that it is easier than you'd expect to get one or two if those big white builders bagloads delivered and wheelbarrow it in to place yourself.

No Mere the natural caves were there millions of years before the stone was dug out by the farmers.

We have idly considered getting a potholeing expert to look at them and then (if they're safe) charge potholers for the pleasure of using them! There is a specialised bureaucracy in Paris that deals with them! There are oubliettes in them created by hunters .