Landscape designer here. As others have mentioned, the best thing to do at this point is take out weeds and trim hedges, and do nothing else until you have a comprehensive plan. It’s a whole lot easier to leave a mature shrub in your yard than to buy and plant and wait on a new one that might not even end up being in the right place.
Your comprehensive plan might be as simple as grass everywhere, and two flower beds by the house, or you might want no grass at all, and a beautiful low-maintenance yard with shrubs and perennials everywhere. Depending on what you want out of your yard, spending a couple of hundred dollars on a landscape design could be money very well spent. If you don’t want to get too fancy, I’d still say start with a good plan before you do anything beyond clearing weeds out.
Depending on what your hedges are, they can be nicely rejuvenated by razing them to the ground, and then controlling the new growth as it comes up. Shrubs can be extremely forgiving. Round-up for the weeds is the way I’d go - it’ll kill everything dead but not poison the soil. I wouldn’t till until I knew where I was going to be making beds and lawn; tilling increases your weed growth. Once you have a plan, then you can start making beds and rototilling and amending soil.
My plumber actually took that one out after you guys identified it. I was telling him about my plans for the yard, and he said, “I got my chainsaw in the truck - if I have gas for it, do you want me to take that thing out for you?” So I guess you need a Jerome and a Larry.
My family has had Larry for a plumber since I was a little girl, and I swear, if you saw this guy on your doorstep there is no way in hell you’d ever open the door! Reasonable, though, and a good plumber, and honest. And I have no doubt that I could call him right this minute and say “Larry! There’s water everywhere!” and he’d be here in twenty minutes.
My uncle and cousin would cut down every tree on an acre yard, if you gave them the go ahead. They would have fun the whole time too. They don’t clean up afterwards though. The tree disposal is your chore.
Anyway. I have an opposite problem. I just bought a house last year and my yard is a featureless flat square o’ lawn. I have planted some small trees along the back fence to screen me from the neighbors over there, and other than that – nothing. It is a blank slate, waiting for someone with imagination, money, and time to come along and do something with it. I don’t have any of those things, so I’ve just been weed-and-feeding and mowing it.
He can’t be anywhere near as fun as an AARDVARKJSFU.
*100% safety record in 24 years of operation
*eats landmines.
*eats anti-tank mines
*shreds/grades/powderizes anything in front of it. Anything!
*Can clear the length/width of 4 football fields in 1 day
I’m not sure what Canada will charge to rent you one, but one thing is for sure: afterwards, none of the neighbors will mess with you. Ever.
Yeah, I’d cut that hedge down to the ground to rejuvenate it. It’s choking on its own growth at this point. It looks like it could be a very nice, bright green hedge if trimmed nicely. I think I read somewhere that it’s the trimming that causes that thick small branch growth like that; maybe if you take it off to the ground, as it grows you could trim it by cutting off extra growth right at the bottom, rather than along the top and sides.
Oh yeah. Like I said earlier, depending on the hedge, you can cut them right to the ground and they will grow up healthier and better. Lilacs are like this, as are cotoneasters and elderberries (some people grow elderberries just this way - cut them to the ground each spring and just have them as a small shrub). It’ll take a few years to get them back to hedge level, but it might be an easier solution that trying to thin that brushy mess you’ve currently got. If you don’t care about losing the hedge, I’d give it a try. If you care, you should probably try to find out what kind of hedge it is first.
Biggirl I think you meant take cuttings and root them right? That is how the nursery’s propagate those shrubs. It’s not something that every person can accomplish. You can probably learn if your good at growing plants normally. The same goes for grafting.
I don’t think you’re talking about the same thing we are; I’m talking about cutting the hedge off at about ground level, and the hedge growing up from the root again, which is a perfectly fine method of rejuvenating some hedges.
