On 17/04/2013 14:44, MichaelD wrote:
Hello everyone,

I recently bought a house with a 30x90ft garden, which was massively
overgrown:

[image: http://imageshack.us/a/img580/1193/gardenold.jpg]

I have since spent quite a bit of time pulling out all of the old bushes
and trees, burning as I go. As you can see, I've certainly made
progress:

I'd have probably kept one or two of the better specimen plants in place
and waited to see what spring bulbs came up. YMMV

[image: http://imageshack.us/a/img27/5903/garden2b.jpg]
[image: http://imageshack.us/a/img6/6974/garden3u.jpg]

However, I am now moving towards being in a position whereby:


- There are lots of roots in the ground from the large bushes / small
trees
- I have attempted to remove the bramble roots, but not done a great
job - lots left in there / hidden
- I want to remove all of this, and then lay grass!

Do you have anything against chemical warfare?

The simple way is hit it with glyphosate next decent sunny spell and
wait four weeks. By then it should all be dead and tinder dry. Rake it
up flash burn it off and then leave for another four weeks hitting any
new green shoots with glyphosate again as soon as you see them.

Then and only then indulge in mechanical extraction and rotivation.

If you have the patience to leave it fallow for a year and hit it
repeatedly with small amounts of spot weeding either chemical or
physical then you will get complete control in one season.

My plan is to hire a mini excavator (it's about 800cm wide - will fit
through the door in my garange!) and pull up the remaining large roots
(e.g. against the fence on the left, and over on the right).

I plan to use the excavator/digger to pull up the small amount of grass
that exists, and also level the ground a bit more.

I then plan to get a heavy duty (13 horse power) rotorator, and use it
across the whole area. I hope that this will pull up any roots / weeds
/ stones which are under the surface, so that they can be easily picked
up and removed.

The rotorator should also leave the ground in a good condition to lay
grass seed... I hope.

If you rotivate untreated bramble, nettle, bindweed or ground elder into
the ground then every piece of it will become a new plant.

I wanted to check with you guys regarding this - have I missed anything
or am I going about anything the wrong way? I am aware a rotivator is
going to blitz certain roots (e.g. the brambles), but I am unsure how
else to get rid of something dotted hidden across a garden of this size.
Obviously the mini digger will identify some bits...

Please do advise / help - I was hoping to get the digger this weekend
and do most of the digger work, with the rotivator the following
weekend. I can only spend weekends on this due to work, and we have
some extra help (probably 3-4 of us each day).

Does this all sound achievable?

It depends what you are trying to achieve. If your intent is to
propagate bramble and other pernicious weeds it will be highly
effective. Kill them first and then physically remove.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown