Help the newbie homeowner and her junkyard of a backyard.

In My Humble Opinion
1

In Brooklyn, the concrete took care of itself. Here on Long Island, you’ve got to take care of your yard. Something the previous owners did not do for over two years, according to our neighbors.

We moved in two weeks ago, removed the trash (tires, rusted weights, metal pipes, car batteries— wtf were those people doing back there?), trimmed the 8 foot hedges as much as we could, killed the 5 foot weeds that lined the property and pulled those out. Now we have absolutely no idea how to go about making the backyard look less like a junkyard and more like a yard yard.

How do we get rid of those awful hedges? They are about 6" high with hardly any green on them, plus there seems to be a mulberry tree trying to grow in the middle of them. Hand-picks and pointy shovels? Chain and car? Dynamite?

We have no grass. It is all low growing dandelions and other weedy type stuff plus bare spots. Should we just get one of those tiller type jobbies, plow that stuff under and start again next year? Would that make all those weeds grow back? Industrial strength weedkiller spread a foot thick on the whole back yard? Would that discourage future grass from growing?

We won’t get into the mulberry trees that have taken over 2 thirds of the yard. That looks like it requires a ladder and a chainsaw-- not gonna even attempt something like that.

Any help from resident gardeners would be greatly appreciated.

2

I’m a new homeowner, myself. (Read: I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.) We bought our home from a divorced teacher who didn’t have enough money to take care of the property. When we cut back the shrubs, they looked horrible. The azaleas were the worst of all.

The shrubs that I cut back to a reasonable height still look very straggly a year later, but the shrubs that I cut back “too much” have fleshed themselves out nicely.

If you want to rip the hedges out and put in new, tiny things, then go ahead. If you want to keep the existing ones (mine are more than 30 years old,) then I’d just fertilize, water, and wait.

3

I can’t help with all the problems, but I have a hedge that has lots of “no green” parts. I was actually able to just pull those out of the ground. I trimmed the smaller dead branches down to a manageable stump, then just wiggled it until it came out of the dirt. It was damn near effortless.

Also, I think if you kill all your weeds now, your soil should be OK to seed next spring. Not sure on that, but that’s what I’ve heard.

4

A systemic weedkiller should take out the weeds and their roots to prevent them from growing back, then you need a rotovator to break up everything and bury it.

We have a similar type of garden, except ours is full of nettles and brambles, and we have a disused septic tank under there somewhere, except we have no idea where it is!

5

New homeowner here - our front yard was a real mess when we bought the place. In particular, we had a bunch of ancient bushes in front of the house - they had been planted too close together and had grown wild and intermingled. Some of them had been trimmed so often that they were in essence a lump of wood with some leaves growing out. Looked very crappy.

With a lot of labour, we managed to cut them all down with an electric saw and dig their roots up (with picj and shovel). Then, we replentished the soil with numerous bags of compost and black soil, and planted new shrubs. Looks a lot better, but it wasn’t cheap - plants are pricey. But I figure I’ll only have to do it the once.

Point is that in some cases where the bushes are simply too old and neglected, I think it is better to just start over. I’d do the same for the lawn - kill the weeds, plough under the crap that is there, add refreshed topsoil, and re-turf or re-seed it; though if I had the cash, I’d probably hire someone to do that.

The process is certainly labour-intensive and not cheap. Just like everything else about home ownership, I’ve found … :smiley:

6

Our hedge was untended when Mr. K moved in and we haven’t touched it in 20 years because it is like 20 ft. tall and a daunting amount of work. When I started working on it this year, my goal was to just get the completely dead ones out and trim up the good ones a little. I can’t trim the tops because they’re just too tall. One of these days I might hire someone to do it. Our Master Plan is to eventually replace all of the hedges with evergreens. We really need the sound buffer (our road is something of a truck route). It’s also a degree of protection from mental case drivers who seem to crash fairly often in close proximity to our house.

7

That’s a hell of a lot more work than what we did - we only replaced the bushes in front of our house, only one of which was around 8’ tall. I’d imagine that taking out a 20’ hedge is most definitely a job for professionals (or those with a lot of experience and time).

An evergreen hedge sounds great - with hedges I have no experience, but I’ve heard that the most common mistake is to plant the plants too close together, leaving 'em thin and weedy when they grow up.

8

I’m in the same boat except two years later. Previous owners had left us with a large amount of construction debris. The rest of the yard was wild kingdom both front and back with a lot of fast growing ivy. We have some sort of plum tree that is fast growing and sends shoots off all over the yard.

We have removed the construction debris and some of the weirder items in the yard, but we haven’t finished.

Have you thought of tilling the whole thing over, planting a few perennials and maybe mulching the rest for easier maintenance?

9

Sometimes stuff isn’t worth saving and you have an opportunity to do it right and start fresh. Cut the stuff shrubs and trees off, remove the roots, grade the yard properly, build retainers and such as needed, and replant. Worry about plants next spring if you need to, and get a plan drawn up now.

Aply weed killers and such as directed, don’t over apply. I would Round Up the yard.

10

This site may be a starting point:
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/education/mgprogram/index.html

11

I want to thank all of you guys for all the good advice.

Our next door neighbor said the front hedges will come back next year all green and pretty (we had to cut back all the way to branches because the front of the hedges had grown out onto the sidewalk and into the street.) I think maybe we’ll keep trimming them until they are manageable for this summer and see what they look like next year.

The lawn? Looks like it’s killin’ and tillin’.

The mulberry trees? I’m thinking a professional will have to deal them them.
But please, don’t stop with the yard stories and advice! It’s making me feel soooo much less a lawn failure to read about other people’s experiences.

12

Please, keep one mulberry tree. The fruit is gorgeous.

13

And messy. Really, really messy. But I don’t plan to get rid of them, just prune them so they aren’t dropping mess all over the yard. And we’ve been eating them right off the tree-- tart and sweet at the same time. I’m thinking they’d make good jam.

14

Re: the hedges, a lot depends on the species. Some hedges will rejuvinate following trimming - others will leaf only on new wood. Also, the species will dictate how easy they are to remove. Many have small shallow root systems, and most evergreens are pretty soft wood. Depending on what you want to do with the area afterwards, you can often get away with digging around it, simply lopping off the aboveground growth, and sawing/axing the main stem(s) a few inches below ground level. Maybe paint the exposed wood with Roundup to dissuade suckers.

The first thing you are going to want to think about is what you want to do about trees/bushes, as they will in large part be the “bones” of your yard, and take the longest to get established and mature. If you are going to tear out the mulberries (I’m not a big fan) you might want to have it done before you install too much hardscape and plant material.

You might benefit from having a landscape designer take a look and draw up a plan. Some guys/companies will do a plan for a flat fee of a couple hundredd bucks. Often if you hire them to install at least a part of it, they will comp the cost of the plans. Just saying it might help to see it through neutral and experienced eyes. Walk around and see yards you like, and ask those folks if they had anyone help them. If you see someone out working in their yard, they are often happy to talk about it.

Whether you ask a pro or DIY, you will need to think of how you will use it. Think along the lines of creating different “rooms” outside to expand your effective living space. If you want to cook outside, you will need a food prep/kitchen area - probably near the door to the inside kitchen, but not blocking a main traffic pattern. You might want a seating area for guests, which could be a deck or patio. You’ll want to have sufficient shade and privacy. You may also want a play/recreation area, space for pet exercise, flower and vegetable gardens… What views do you want to emphasize/hide, from both inside and outside the house? How much time/effort do you want to put into ongoing maintenance?

Just saying, ending up with the yard you want takes considerable more planning than just digging a few holes and dropping in a few plants.

You’ll need to buy a few tools: shovel(s), spade, hose, rake(s), loppers, pruning shears, etc. Do a little research buying, and start with the basics before getting fancy. Garden tools get pretty hard use; you’ll do well to buy decent quality stuff.

Another thing, starting from a pretty bare canvas, you will never be in as good a position to amend your soil. You might want to check with local garden centers, community colleges, farm extension bureau, etc. to find out what the soil is like in your yard, and what would be best to amend it. Depending on what you’ve got, you might want to add manure or something else.

Oh yeah - take plenty of before and after pictures!

15

I’ve got some kind of a berry producing fucking tree. It literally rains berries on my little never-used front stoop. But I have flower beds on either side, and it’s a huge drag to work there knowing I’ll purplize my shoes, jeans, kneeling pad, etc. I believe this is the tree that’s leaning on and over the house. We’re going to cut it down sometime this summer. I couldn’t be happier.

Plus, purple birdshit. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that point.

16

When we bought six years ago, our house had been a rental for about a decade.

3 foot tall weeds in the very brown back yard and not much else.

The dirt yielded a four foot high mound of bricks before we were even ready to start considering gardening options.

We called in a pro who “burned” all the weeds, tilled in new topsoil, marked out a planting border for my mother in law’s gardening fetish, and put in sod. Didn’t take a year at all.

17

Money-saving advice: If you have friends who garden, you may be able to get perrenial plants from them. Lots of stuff creeps, spreads, or multiplies, and people get overrun with one plant or another. For the low cost of digging it up yourself, you can get things like hostas, white Nancy, lillies-of-the-valley, and various indigenous plants. Less money, less work. What’s not to like?

18

If you need to dig up a moderately sized plant/shrub, use a mattock I have a cutter mattock described in the article. I tried a shovel, chain and trailer hitch to take out a shrub and nearly tore off my bumper, and spent a long time doing it. A similar shrub took about 15 minutes, total, with the mattock. The small axe blade is perfect for cutting that heavy tap root which you can’t dig out with a shovel and can’t break by pulling.

19

I tried to keep my old shrubs. I cut about a third out of them each year. I waited for them to form a more natural shape (after ripping out the non-desirable ones.) I finally realized that two of them were actually live oaks. Had them ripped out. Was trying to baby along the others into natural shapes and realized, hey. I don’t love them. Don’t let anything you don’t love grow in your yard. It took me two years to realize that. I had them ripped out and put in stuff I do love. You have no obligation to those shrubs. Kill 'em all.

A mattock works great to get rid of stuff, but if it’s super-old - pay Jerome to take them out. I don’t know if I can ship him to Long Island, but I bet you can find your own Jerome - yard guy, handyman, etc. He went after them with mattocks, shovels, and a chainsaw. Took him a couple hours to get rid of all that nasty crap and I’ve never regretted it. Here is the before and after. Don’t make my mistakes. Start fresh.

20

I, too, ended up with a house with overgrown shrubs and lots of junk in the back.

The front yard had junipers that grew erratically and looked like shit. When I finally got them cut out, I found I had a patio under there!! My cousin and I got rid of them with a hand saw, chain saw, shovels and a mattock. I burned them once they were down.

I wanted to just plant grass over where the shrubs had been (in the front yard) but my neighbor ran over and said “hey! Let me plant stuff there for you!” So while I did end up having to do some work and buy mulch and stuff, the results were 500 times better than what I had when I started (shrubs) and now a year later I have a beautiful flower bed.

I did a ton of cleaning in the backyard too. I’m still working on the yard (it’s been a year and a half since I moved in), there is so much damage to rectify. But if you do it a little bit at a time the results can be great. Just remember - it doesn’t all have to be done today.