How can I get on top of my garden?

[sameagain]

I have an established west facing garden 60' x 40'. It was one of the reasons we bought the house - lots of mature trees and shrubs.

However, we've been here 6 years and the trees have got so big there's no light and the flower beds are just too big for me to keep on top of weed wise. It's quite fussy in design, with lots of curvy beds etc.

It seems a tragedy, but I fear some of the trees will have to go and am wondering if the only option is to start from scratch and get someone in to create one of the "low maintenance" gardens I keep hearing about. I have about 2 hours a week I can give to gardening and atm it takes almost that to cut the grass.

Better ideas?

Trees and shrubs can be cut back to let the light back in. If there are shrubs in the flower beds and they are varied enough, then can you take the beds back to the shrubs (plus a bit for bulbs/ annuals for a bit of colour) and then not need to weed. The ideal is that the shurbs cover all the 'floorspace' and then you don't need to weed.

But reducing beds wll probably mean more grass - but cutting takes less than weeding. Unless you cover with membrance / mulch?

shouldn't take that long to cut grass, it is a long time on edging or something? do you grow any food or do you want to?

membrane and bark chip the flower beds, you can still put shrubs, flowers in but it looks tider and is almost zero maintenance.

can you afford to add a bit of patio / decking to create a no maintenance area?

I'd sacrifice a tree or two to open it up again.

What are you cutting the grass with? 2 hours is a very long time for lawn mowing - perhaps a change of mower is called for?

I can cut our lawn - which is prob 80 x 40 and on a very steep slope in 15 minutes.

Starting from scratch sounds like it'd be a great shame. Perhaps a good tree surgeon, a new mower and a more shrubby garden would solve the problem.

We don't have trees in our garden but it was overgrown with weeds and it was just depressing. I cheated and got a gardening company to come and do an overhaul - they cleared all the rubbish and weeds, put down membrane for the beds, cleared all the weeds growing between the paving slabs and filled the cracks with some sand/cement stuff, planted out some nice shrubs and herbs, tidied up the lawn and took away three vanfuls of rubbish to the tip. Now we just periodically cut the grass and do some weeding and it is so much easier. We even get to use our own herbs these days. I highly recommend it!