No plants, all weeds, Do I just pull out everything green?

[J'maar]

My house is set in between a neglected farm, a small forest, and overgrown land. The weeds have been starting to climb onto our property since last year, so my mother just calls a gardener she knows to spray the weeds. I noticed that the spray hasn't been doing anything, so yesterday, I got to weeding. I managed to clear a decent portion of the weeds, but I had to leave for errands. It is the middle of the night, so I can't take any pictures right now, but do you suggest that I pull out all the greenery? We have no trees or bushes, so I think it would be a good idea to just yank out everything and plant some stuff around the fencing. I may make a post tomorrow morning to show the yard, but what do you guys think about my idea?

 

[Marck]

Clearing an overgrown garden can be a necessary project, but I'd love to see photos before I say anything specific. What kind of plants do you want to grow in your garden? I do courage you to dedicate a place for a compost pile in your garden, rather than take the weeds (and their nutrients) offsite. It can be a low-maintenance cold compost pile.

 

[Sabina515]

Please post photos

I have seen people using a tarp to cover areas that are heavily weeded in order to kill everything naturally by not allowing sunlight. My yard was overgrown with alot. This year I put round up on everything. I had some kind of cabbage growing in the lawn next to the shed just randomly. Back to round up. Once everything was dead and dried up, about 2 weeks later I started digging everything up. The amount of roots I was pulling up was amazing and it felt great!

Weeds will keep coming back, try using mulch or rocks to block out and suffocate them. If you have a fence you can use bricks to line up along the fence to also minimize spread.

 

[roadrunner]

I know this isn't for everyone, but I allowed all of my weeds to grown years ago and learned their growing habits, i.e. how big they got, how invasive, when they flowered and so on...

Now I know which "weeds" are actually weeds and which ones I just allow to grow or which ones I need to prune to keep under control. I've even learned which ones are edible and/or medicinal and which ones are poisonous and which ones are great at attracting pollinators, birds and other wildlife.

It turns out that a lot of so-called weeds are very beneficial.


P.S. I also like to look at photos....

 

[DirtMechanic]

I know this isn't for everyone, but I allowed all of my weeds to grown years ago and learned their growing habits, i.e. how big they got, how invasive, when they flowered and so on...

Now I know which "weeds" are actually weeds and which ones I just allow to grow or which ones I need to prune to keep under control. I've even learned which ones are edible and/or medicinal and which ones are poisonous and which ones are great at attracting pollinators, birds and other wildlife.

It turns out that a lot of so-called weeds are very beneficial.


P.S. I also like to look at photos....

Virginia Buttonweed has a positive place in this world? I dunno....

I will say that wild violet has the uncanny ability to separate authors with experience from authors without as the latter invariably has to talk about pulling it up by hand.

 

[Sean Regan]

For me a garden is all about what you want rather than what you "inherit."

When we bought our house our garden had no patio, half of it was devoted for veg. No shed and a big cedar greenhouse where our summerhouse now stands. I ripped everything out and started from scratch, Apart from a couple of shrub which were there I kept for a couple of years, most of which I binned, I wasn't interested in waiting and seeing "what came up."

 

[Marck]

It is good to know what you have before you throw it out.

So many new gardeners (often new homeowners) chop and dig out rare horticultural treasures based on nothing but a foggy desire instilled by heavily marketed blandness. Of course, the mass-market landscape industry is happy to assist anyway they can.

Some people think that gardening and landscaping are synonyms. I know the opposite is true.

Also, never underestimate hand-weeding. With precision, I cleared one large garden of a huge infestation of Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). and another that was virtually carpeted in Bermuda Grass (Cynodon dactylon).

 

[Sean Regan]

It is good to know what you have before you throw it out.

So many new gardeners (often new homeowners) chop and dig out rare horticultural treasures based on nothing but a foggy desire instilled by heavily marketed blandness. Of course, the mass-market landscape industry is happy to assist anyway they can.

Some people think that gardening and landscaping are synonyms. I know the opposite is true.

Also, never underestimate hand-weeding. With precision, I cleared one large garden of a huge infestation of Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). and another that was virtually carpeted in Bermuda Grass (Cynodon dactylon).

As they say," each to their own."

Why are you suggesting a desire for heavily marketed blandness? In my opinion, no one on here is of that opinion.

Tell me what's "bland" about this? We were new house owners. We'd only lived in rented houses before.

If you're going to completely relandscape your garden, it seems pointless to wait for something to come up that's going to be in in the wrong place.

I've mentioned before, I'm a "garden manager" not a gardener. The closest I get to "gardening" is "training" shrubs and layering azaleas. I'm not interested in bedding plants or hanging baskets and our veg comes from Waitrose.

With few exceptions, our garden is exactly how we wanted from day one, though it took many years to achieve. It's now stayed the same for over 30 years apart from the filling in of the koi pool.

 

[Marck]

My remark isn't particularly about your garden. It seems you did know something about the previous garden if "half of it was devoted for veg". However if plants were ripped out without identification, who knows what was lost. In truth, my remark is more about what will happen to gardens such as your 30-year garden, if and when it is sold.