Garden over run with weeds, what can I do?

[parameciumparty]

I'm trying to help my friend sort her garden out. It's fairly large and it has a lawn in the middle then borders around the edge and two patches near the house.

All of the non lawn areas are full of nettle, bindweed, ranunculus and various other weeds. I've cleared as much as I can, but I know they'll come back. I put a weedproof membrane down and the weeds are coming through it in places.

Ideally, she'd like lawn everywhere. What can I realistically do about these weeds? I've thought about better cover then stone chippings on top of the areas she doesn't plan on grassing. I don't know what type of cover would be most effective and not go rotten or become torn.

Also, how do I go about establishing grass on an area that's had nettle etc.?

If you mow, mow, mow, mow, then basically you'll end up with grass. It's one of the few things that can cope with being mowed constantly. Spray it with glyphosate (Causes cancer but works well), make it flat, throw a grass seed mix down, then keep mowing.

Cardboard or carpet over the areas she doesn't plan to grass... this will eliminate light and help thin the weeds. If you can do this before the winter then by summer next year most weeds will be clear... doesn't look great in the meantime admittedly.

I've had weed mat of all varieties covered in chipped bark for years, I have to add to the bark each year but it keeps all but the flying weeds down. A relative has slate chips over weed mat... this has not really worked with bindweed, nettles and Ivy...

Please don’t use glyphosphate. It may kill the weeds but it kills everything else, as well as being carcinogenic.

nettles are pretty easy to dig out - the roots are shallow and slightly yellow. dig over the ground with a fork and carefully pick out the yellow roots, and then there will be no more nettles.

once you've got the roots of the weeds out, you can put down grass seed or turf.

for non-grass areas, I'd recommend some low maintenance shrubs - maybe hebe or lavender. that will suppress weeds much better than a membrane or stones.

For the areas she doesn't want grass, look at low growing, mat-forming plants like creeping thyme, clover, chamomile etc. They will suppress the weeds but still provide useful flowers for pollinators.

Thank you for these suggestions 🥰