Grass is always greener...

So true!

So true!

 

Looks fabulous, nice and secluded and my dogs would love it. Plus no nosey neighbours looking in, which is always a bonus.

I agree with what others have said - do a bit at a time.

Another thing you could do is tackle the plants which are going to cause you most problems, such as the leylandii - they'd be the first thing I'd get rid off.

Good luck and please share lots of photos of your progress

 

After your encouraging comments we tackled the brambles today. It was such a nice day it would have been a crime to waste the opportunity.

The chickens helped too:






There's still plenty left, we probably got about 20% of them though :-)

 

Excellent start there Dan. I'll bet the chooks has a great time in there! I can see a wonderful bonfire coming on . Love to see a good bonny . Piccie for us perhaps when you light it up please?
Jenny

 

I do like a good bonfire, trouble we have is there are a lot of overhanging trees. So it's either under a tree or the middle of a lawn... :-(

Hopefully will get the courtyard sorted this year, so will be able to at least cremate things in the BBQ!

Things either get shredded and used as mulch or piled up in the woods for nature to use as it sees fit.

 

With all this talk of bonfires, and all those brambles, I feel I must throw in a cautionary tale.

When I lived in Sheffield, the old chap next door told me a tale that up until a year or two before we moved in, there had been brambles growing all along the bottom of all the gardens on our side of the street. Some local youths had one day set fire to it. Apparently the resulting fire was so large that all our side of the street had had to evacuate, and the local fire brigade had to call in help from neighbouring stations to tackle it.

 

If it weren't for the thorns in Brambles I''d suggest you put them through a shredder, and compost them (as there is difficulty having a bonfire)

I got an upmarket model, barely used, off eBay for a song - took several months of waiting and reviewing the Search Results emails each day for the Right Offer though ...

 

We've got a cheapo shredder. I'd prefer one with the rollers that crush/cut. Ours has a spinning blade and can stall if the branches are particularly tough. It was brilliant when we cut the buddleia back, the chippings make excellent mulch that returns the goodness back to the soil and gives the creepy crawleys somewhere to over-winter.

 

I think that's part of the problem!! ... lots available buy-it-now for ridiculous prices for second hand (presumably because the seller sees it as "unused" and doesn't want to lose much on it ...) and for the rest I assume rather a lot of buyers with the same idea as me :(

Took me 12 months or so to get one at my price-point ... presumably no one else lived near the seller! It had been used twice, came with original box with instructions ...

 

Or get an incinerator bin. They don't half speed through the fuel, often raging far hotter than an open bonfire in my experience, and of course much easier to keep under control than an open fire.

 

A rather wet weekend, but made a bit more progress today:






But we did find some steps we didn't know were there, so all in all a rather productive half a day!




I'm taking the opportunity to hack the shrubs back right down too. It may not be the ideal time of year for some of them, but really we need to clear some space to see what we're actually left with.

This section's got another weekend or two and it'll be able to be left alone for the rest of the year hopefully, other than the odd scout for bramble shoots. I'll invest in a good weed killer to target the new bramble growth.

 

It's coming on nicely Dan. No longer a situation where you can't see the wood for trees!

 

Its probably about the best time of year. A few weeks late perhaps, but seeing as its been unusually cold, probably fine. If you're going to cut shrubs and trees, I've always been led to believe its best to do so when they are dormant, or just before they wake up, ie up until about now really. Less fungal spores about waiting to enter fresh wounds etc, and less activity in the plant and less heat and therefore less stress from dehydration. The only downside is if the birds are nesting. We were once thinning a Blackthorn thicket when we became aware of a birds nest in active use, so the chainsaw was stopped and we left that patch alone.