It’s a Jungle Out There: How to Clear an Overgrown Garden
- Fantastic Team
- Published: March 13, 2019
- 10min read
- Views: 113,150
Having to deal with a jungle of a garden can be a blessing or an outright cause for despair. How you’ll look at it will depend on how much you love gardening and how much free time you have on your hands. Of course, having or lacking the skills and tools will be also at play in how you feel about the project – see it as a blank (or green) canvas that tickles your creativity and inspiration or as a dreaded nuisance of a job.
So, this guide on how to reclaim an overgrown garden aims to help you get a clear strategy on where to start from, as well as understand all the important aspects that a garden clean-up process involves.
Read on if you:
And hopefully, at the end of it, you’ll have a clearer picture of the best approach, you can choose, as well as of the time that it will take to transform your wild green space.
Wishful thinking and motivation are all good to get started, but unless you assess properly the state of your garden and envisage roughly the end result, it’s unlikely that you’ll have an easy time sorting your yard, gone wild. Also, it’s a good idea to inspect your tool selection and see if you need to buy or borrow some extra equipment and supplies.
So, here’s what to consider, first, before you start scratching your head about how to tackle an overgrown garden:
Every garden is different, even when overgrown. Yours might be terraced, so you can’t even distinguish where the top level ends, for instance, or it could have a few winter-flowering shrubs that are now encroached by undesired brambles. Still, there is a general course of actions that you can follow.
Restoring the garden’s former glory takes time. Check below the best way to approach clearing an overgrown garden:
Most likely, your wild garden once had a neat and lush lawn area, which, now that you’ve cleared most of the green overgrowth, is beginning to show. If you think that it’s worth bringing it back to its original vigorous condition, meaning, it suits your needs and you like where it is, follow the steps below:
Naturally, if you determine that the old lawn is beyond repair, it’s been overtaken by far too many weeds or suffers from heavy moss buildup, you may reassess your tactics and consider laying new turf. Or you can decide on a some sort of hardscape feature over the area, be it to cover it with gravel or to install a patio.
Taming an overgrown garden, sometimes, calls for removing old and dying trees. This especially applies to diseased fruit trees that no longer produce good fruit, due to failed annual pruning and overall neglect. Here’s our general advice on addressing unwanted trees in your garden:
There are various pruning techniques that can be applied when shaping an overgrown garden. Rejuvenation pruning is especially popular if you’ve got large trees and neglected shrubs that have gone wild with messy, overgrown branches in all directions. But as pruning does require some skills, experience and good tools, it’s not a bad idea to ask an expert to inspect your trees, hedges, shrubs and bushes and give them the trim they need.
As a rule of thumb, late winter/early spring is the time to get the loppers, pruning shears and secateurs into action, before new buds and shoots emerge. Rejuvenation pruning allows for long-untended plants to become more manageable. Still, only some plant varieties can handle hard pruning (the bush is cut back in one go to about 10 inches from the ground). Those that can easily tolerate extensive rejuvenation include Lilac, Rose-of-Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus), St. John’s wort (Hypericum), Honeysuckle, Spiraea, Old Climbing Roses, Mallow, Abelia, Dogwood, Hydrangea, etc.
Other shrub species, which may fail to recover if “chopped” severely, however, should be pruned gradually over 2-3 years. This rejuvenation trimming technique involves cutting back, in the first year, one-third of the thickest and oldest branches, which can be deemed unproductive. In the second year, you should take a good half of the rest of the old and somewhat unmaintained-looking canes. And in the following year, trim back any remaining old stems. What you’ll notice is that new, productive branches will rapidly appear and replace the ones, you’ve removed.
If uncertain about what you’re doing, however, we strongly recommend leaving the job to a professional.
Explore our garden maintenance service and how can it help you rejuvenate your garden.
You may be lucky and find on close inspection that your newly acquired garden is only slightly overgrown. Maybe, it’s been left unmaintained over one season only and now, it needs a bit of work and some TLC. Below, we share some quick-fix tips that will help you tidy up your green space that has not gone totally wild.
With some creativity and a few basic tools, you can give your slightly messy garden a facelift that will suffice the requirements of any potentially picky buyer or tenant.
Most herbicidal products will turn green weeds into unsightly yellow “flops” that still need getting rid of and possibly replacing with flowering little pretties. The task will take a good month, as well, as weed killers take time to work. So, if you don’t have much time on your plate (say, you want to sell or rent the property as soon as), you’re better off removing weeds manually, with a fork or by using a flame gun. Spot weed around paved areas, water features and shrubs. Quickly go around and tidy up flower beds and rockeries. It will take you much less time than using chemicals, especially if your garden is on the small side.
To keep on top of weeds, mulch as you go and cover the area around trees, bushes and shrubs with gravel or shredded bark. You will appreciate the transformation almost immediately as focal points become more defined and the contrast of dark and light colours – more prominent. Mulching is good for boosting soil water retention, too, so treat the job as a priority.
Mow the slightly overgrown lawn and trim the edges to get that neat look. Even if the grass is somewhat pale green, a bit patchy in spots and not the best looking, a tidy and well-defined turfed area will do wonders for the overall look of the garden. Pick a day to overseed it and feed it so that by the time you get to the first viewings, the lawn appears its best.
Again, be clever and use contrasting colours and features to your advantage. Eyes are drawn straight away to striking borders and hues from the “polar” opposite sides of the colour palette. For instance, it’s not a bad idea if you achieve sharp definition between individual areas through edging with rocks, stones or gravel.
The easiest way to balance out fast-growing greenery is by landscaping the garden layout with an easy-to-make garden path. You can construct one in no time by literally plonking natural stone slabs directly on the ground or lawn. A garden path will encourage anyone to take a short stroll, especially if it leads to a beautiful tree, a barbeque area or a quaint bench.
If your time is limited and you wish, for whatever reason, to achieve a blooming garden overnight, get some seasonal plants that are already in flower from your local garden centre. Invest in a few terracotta pots and transplant your new varieties. This is the quickest way to arrange an eye-catching display of pastels, different shades of green and a few bold colours until later-flowering plants and shrubs in the garden come in bloom. Container gardening is your best bet if you want to have a fast garden makeover as a result.
Well, not everyone’s got it in them to deal with an overwhelmingly overgrown garden. You may not have the time but you’re in a rush, or just lack the skills and tools to tackle something that looks like a jungle. So, if you are in need of a fast solution and could do with some help with your garden makeover, the pros at Fantastic Services have what it takes to handle the job for you.
Our garden clearance service comes with a range of advantages, from free green waste disposal (up to 180l), reduced rates with the Fantastic Club and carefully developed customised approach to the option to benefit from additional services, upon request.
Just check out below the results of our previous work on various garden clearance and makeover projects.
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Overgrown gardens can be a challenge for those who don’t have the time and equipment to tackle the clearance of excess vegetation and fast growing weeds. Still, if you feel that you’re up for the job, here are some final tips to help you out in this quest:
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Have you ever tackled a garden clearance project by yourself? Then, we’ll be glad if you share your experience and some extra tips with our less prepared readers in the comment box below!
Images source: Shutterstock/by Simon Annable and by WathanyuSowong
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