removing heavily weeded area

Hi All

I have an orchard area which had been left to become a jungle, approx 100-140m2 containing a selection of apple trees.

I have cleared it back as much as possible with a brushcutter but what is left is a lot of ground is covered in ivy and other weeds. There is also Ivy growing up two of the trees one of them it is up to the limbs and the other is just low on the trunk. People have also used the area as a bit of a dumping ground which has resulted in some dead patches.

The ground is also very unlevel where spoil has been dumped there historically.

I want to bring it back to life and encourage wildlife to the area. i was planning on rotovating it getting it to a better level and prepping the culverts and fencing ready to seed it in spring.

A friend told me that before rotovating it i should spray the area (Protecting the trees with Glyphosate) then again after however another friend has told me that i shouldnt spray it especially in november and should use a turf cutter to take off the top level and then rotovate it.

Any help or advice would be great. I want to try to do it now as there are several culverts that need attention immediately and would make sense to do the work.

 

Thanks for this.

problem is I need to remove a large amount of soil from the culvert so ideally would rotovate the land then add soil then rotovate. If that makes sense. Think however may just have to deal with double moving

 

Gotta echo the 'don't rotovate' advice, which I had to learn the hard way. It made a bad weed problem much, much worse.

If you're going to add soil, take a look at 'no dig' methods. Placing cardboard over cut down weeds and then topping with a good amount of topsoil will effectively kill the established weeds and allow you to plant less invasive natural species immediately.

 

Some photos would be good.
This doesn't sound like a one year fix to me, sort the fencing out by all means.
Not quite understanding the part about culvert, drainage ditches?

I'd remove all ivy by hand from around each tree to a circle of at least a couple if feet from the trunks.
Don't spread any of the soil mounds around until the ivy is eradicated, burying ivy is not a good idea.

A slow step by step approach would be best I'm thinking.