How do I deal with a massively overgrown garden?

[MariaDingbat]

This is an incredibly privileged problem to have, I completely acknowledge that, but could really use some advice as I'm out of my depth.

My husband inherited his parents home and sadly they had been ill and unable to upkeep them house for a long time. It's got a half acre of garden with awful llyandi hedges along the drive and on two boundaries. They are huge, the boundary ones are over 2 stories high! What is the best way to take them out? Can we even take them out? We have to do the work ourselves as we have been quoted 2k just to cut back the driveway, which is way beyond us.

The rest of the garden is overgrown and covered in ivy and moss as no light had been getting in. I'm thinking of just getting a mini digger, chipper and skip and culling as much as we can. Any advice is this is even a possible thing?

Clearing an overgrown garden is incredibly hard work. And until you know the size of the issue, you can't say if the quote is excessive or not.

The reason it is expensive is that it is incredibly hard work.

And heavy work to get rid of the stuff you clear.

@AlisonDonut I am not minimising the hard work and can't see scale of the job, but just one quote is not a representative quote. At least 3 are needed to judge whether the initial quote is fair. I was mostly suggesting other options to reduce the sum involved, which the OP says they can't afford.
And my first post did advocate for using a tree surgeon and how in my opinion the cost is reasonable.

This sounds like a lot of hard work.

I've inherited a garden that was once beautiful. It takes hours to do very little and then there's all the stuff to get rid of.

But as the seasons change I've seen the flowers that were planted so I'm glad I haven't got the time or the energy to just clear it.

In your case I'd pay a professional.