hi me and girlfriend recently bought our first house, and it has a garden that is shaired with down stairs but are not bothered with gardening (and it shows), we have a 5ft fence all the way round the garden which is roughly 20ft x 40ft? to start me had a 30ft elderberry tree that has just been chopped to the stomp as was growing out of concrete and close to man hole cover so had to go, along the left side we have ivy covering the fence and its well esablished and need ideas of how to get rid it, as its about a foot deep by 5x40? so there is alot to go on the back fence we have a vine not sure wich one but has herat shape leaves with white flowers, the main prob with this as its been allowed to grow for about 6 years so its now got a total height of about 7ft by 2ft by 20ft and dont even think it starts in our garden as have been chopping like crazy but its so dence its like trying to cut through 100 birds nests as its quite twiggy, a neighbour lent me hedge trimmers and they jammed it was that thick!! finally problem number 3/1 as tree is gone appart from roots, the lawn was quite long so used a hover mower and left about 3in long, was ok but very yellow and storky left for a week and cut again looking better but this time was also lots of bald patches every ware and moss patches towards the back so racked up moss and remaining dead grass, then a few days later after a heavey rain i airated the soil as it was quite compacked and it is clay based, now there is quite large patches of dead or no grass and other places its still patchey neighbour said just keep watering as it will re grow, but currently seeing no groths as of yet any and all addvice would be great

thanks ant & katy