Where to start?

I've just bought a house that's been rented for 8 years so the garden has predictably been neglected. The garden's a standard 50' lawn at the back of a semi. We're in the South East so we have a lot of daylight hours, but the garden struggles for direct sunlight. It's North-facing and there are several fir trees are along the West fence of the garden, presumably to block out road noise, but they're almost as high as the house and about 3 metres in diameter - completely overgrown and block a lot of light.

We have a lot of moss (about 20%), a lot of weeds, a bald patch where there's least light, and the ground is quite bumpy. And where there is lawn, the grass doesn't even look that nice!

My goal is pretty low: an average lawn. Not award-winning (I don't have the time), just an average lawn that hardy and requires little more than a once-a-week trim.

So, where to start? Cut down the trees, dig up the lawn and start again? What would you do if it were your garden?

 

Hello and welcome

Be careful with the sweeping statements. I know plenty of people who rent who have the most amazing gardens (some on here, some not, some like me who rented for a long time before buying). Conversely there are plenty of people who own their homes and just leave their gardens to wrack and ruin.

 

Ha! I speak as a first time buyer and former renter... If others are better than me then full credit to them!

 

Hi Neil, if it were me I would seriously consider having those conifers cut down, I love trees but they look past their best, look like they've been topped once before and like you say will be blocking a lot of light from your garden.

It still looks like you'll have some vertical interest with the deciduous tree at the back (is that in your garden?), so it wouldn't be leaving a blank view

 

Bilbo, you have a keen eye. Yes, they've been topped - badly! The next question is how would you recommend getting rid of the stumps - they're quite sizeable, can you dig them out?! The nearest tree was taken down some time ago, leaving a stump. I'm tempted to put a compost bin over it to see if it can decompose, but goodness knows how long that will take.

And yes, the tree at the back is just at the corner of the plot and I *believe* it doesn't belong to us. I'm trying to clarify that though - there's a railway line behind and the tree's very tall, I don't want to be the one responsible if it falls in the next high winds!

I'm tempted to remove the current conifers and replace them with younger ones around 9' tall, start again!

 

Removing large stumps is not one of my specialties and probably one for the tree surgeons amongst to recommend , it won't be an easy task.

However if do get round to removing them and replant them, might I recommend you look away from conifers, unless you look at Thuja instead of Leylandii. Personally I would look at Portuguese Laurel, Common Laurel, Photinia or Grislelinia for evergreen hedging or you could mix evergreen and deciduous, creating an attractive hedge for you and wildlife

 

In case anyone's interested, here's a picture showing an update of the garden after two years.

These are the main steps I've taken:
2014
- took down the conifers to ground level
- treated the lawn with Verdone Extra to get rid of the worst of the weeds
- scarified to remove the moss (leaving very little grass!)
- dug over and reseeded ~20% of the lawn. This was to replace poorly growing grass near the conifers, and to take the lawn closer to the fence

2015
- continued annual application of Verdone Extra, and regular weeding of the lawn
- applied pelleted chicken manure to the lawn (this is a great slow release fertiliser)
- built the raised bed to cover stumps and allow replanting of the bed
- scarified and aerated lawn
- overseeded the lawn where needed

2016
- planted flower bed

The flower bed remains a work in progress, but it's a fun project.

 

Wow. That is a beautiful lawn. All of your hard work certainly paid off!

 

You've made a lovely job of the garden Neil!