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Clear vegetation from plot, DIY. Advice please!


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I am going spend a couple of days clearing my plot of vegetation. I'm not a gardener so any advice would be gratefully received. The photo gives an indication of the job at hand, taken last September. Its a rear garden plot so fill of small shrubs, bushes and paths, two small trees (which I can remove) but no grass. Thinking I will clear it now before the spring growth.

 

I have no garden tools at all. The plan is to borrow secateurs from my mother, who has a shed full of vintage (non powered) tools.

 

How to do it? I will be working alone. Snip all the stalks and pile the branches it to a big pile. Hire a chipper and convert everything into mulch? Or buy root membrane and pegs and cover the soil? Any ideas? I can't have a big bonfire as I am in the centre of town and the neighbours would throw me in the river.

 

Many thanks!

1794080774_Screenshot2020-01-16at09_39_34.thumb.jpg.65ca8bdffaf0ec5b2e74ddb83cf1cf5e.jpg

 

 

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@Cpd good question. Yes. My new dwelling will cover about half the plot, on screw-pile foundations, with heave protection and an insulated reinforced concrete raft foundation above.

 

Also hidden amongst the greenery are the foundations for an old defunct Victorian greenhouse (bricks and slabs), etc., just visible in the photo. Was wondering how to clear that. But that's for another post I think. Vegetation first.

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4 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

I am going spend a couple of days clearing my plot of vegetation. I'm not a gardener so any advice would be gratefully received. The photo gives an indication of the job at hand, taken last September. Its a rear garden plot so fill of small shrubs, bushes and paths, two small trees (which I can remove) but no grass. Thinking I will clear it now before the spring growth.

 

I have no garden tools at all. The plan is to borrow secateurs from my mother, who has a shed full of vintage (non powered) tools.

 

How to do it? I will be working alone. Snip all the stalks and pile the branches it to a big pile. Hire a chipper and convert everything into mulch? Or buy root membrane and pegs and cover the soil? Any ideas? I can't have a big bonfire as I am in the centre of town and the neighbours would throw me in the river.

 

Many thanks!

1794080774_Screenshot2020-01-16at09_39_34.thumb.jpg.65ca8bdffaf0ec5b2e74ddb83cf1cf5e.jpg

 

 

How big is the site (does the photo show the extent and even if so photos can be deceptive), how much time do you have and how much cash do you want to put into it? Also, what is the ground going to be used for?

 

Where are you going to put the waste?

 

You could do that in a easy day with a mini excavator and a skip to dump all the waste into or bury, or it could take you 3 weekends working flat out and you will still have land that has roots and stubs and residual vegetation.

 

I went down the digger option and it still took me 3 days and a crew of 3-4 of us over the weekend and myself on the Monday and that was with a 1.5ton JCB! Yes I did dig founds and did other stuff but the general site clearance bit took much much longer than planned and I felt the £250 for the excavator to do all that in essentially a long weekend was worth every penny. It also saved us a fortune as I dug a huge hole and basically bulldozed the old garage brick into it, then put in all the vegetation scrapings then backfilled in layers while compacting with the excavator. No skip on site at all and a very well draining lawn now, which in 3 years has not subsided one bit. Obviously don't bury stuff where you may build and only bury garden waste or rock/brick/concrete and deep enough it should never upset anyone in the future. 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Dreadnaught said:

@Cpd good question. Yes. My new dwelling will cover about half the plot, on screw-pile foundations, with heave protection and an insulated reinforced concrete raft foundation above.

 

Also hidden amongst the greenery are the foundations for an old defunct Victorian greenhouse (bricks and slabs), etc., just visible in the photo. Was wondering how to clear that. But that's for another post I think. Vegetation first.

Having now read this I think it's got to be a site scrape and skip - unless there is somewhere clearly out the of the way of the site you can "lose" the waste. 

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Just now, Carrerahill said:

How big is the site

 

Another great question. Site is 17m x 17m.

 

1 minute ago, Carrerahill said:

how much time do you have and how much cash do you want to put into it?

 

Plenty of time available. Can be on site all day every day if needed. No other job to get in the way.

 

Cash-wise, willing to spend any amount but keen to use my own DIY ability if I can. Squash playing 50-year old, can wield a spade (I think).

 

3 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

Where are you going to put the waste?

 

Elsewhere on the plot? Until mulched? Or taken to the tip?

 

 

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Another thing I forgot to mention is tree-root protection.

 

About half my plot is a tree root-protection area (fortunately mostly not where the new dwelling sit) so I should not really be digging down. I think the guidance is that normal gardening is OK but anything more dramatic is frowned upon.

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It’s a good time to be clearing up a garden as all the  old growth is not covered in new greenery, however if the aim is to get it as clear as possible as a “stage1” then  I would just cut everything you can a low as you can, dig out any easy root balls From shrubs and smaller plants and just pile it all up in a corner as it will rot down over the spring / summer.

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6 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

Site is 17m x 17m.

 

Grab a shovel, a mattock or pick and mark out 1m^2 and clear it down to a scraped clear piece of land. Take a middle of the road piece in terms of bit of old found, old bush etc. and clear it, see how long that takes and multiply by 289 that will give you an idea of time and indeed effort.

 

If you have nothing else to do and want a work out then great, go for it, I'd get a skip though.

 

You can get a Mattock for £20, a wheelbarrow would be good too, good gloves and plenty of other "weapons" to help you!

 

That site will produce a pile of waste about the size of a small caravan. 

Edited by Carrerahill
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Come the spring wait till most things are greening up then hit it with a poison such as roundup, make sure you ware protective clothing, I always ware gloves waterproofs that can be washed and wellington boots. Poison is nasty stuff but it has its use. Personally I would not bother with a chipper / shredder as it does not look like you have enough stuff to warrant it. 

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10 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

site scrape

 

What does it mean to site scrape? How deep should I go?

Could that fall under the heading "normal gardening" or will the local tree officer be after me with a pitch fork?

 

As mentioned, I shouldn't dig across the hole plot because of tree roots.

 

I have a soil survey report. It is made ground for about a metre. Clay of various types beneath.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

I think the guidance is that normal gardening is OK but anything more dramatic is frowned upon.

Scrape the site and dig out any roots, you don't need to go down deep. When we did ours with a 3' digger bucket I just ran the bucket about 2-3 inches into the ground and removed the whole top layer, most things it just nipped off from roots and left them and bigger things it tore out. The result was a fairly clean site with only minimal amount of holes where things needed a bit more effort - there wasn't really any digging - apart from the big hole, or should I call that "soak-away".

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At some point your going to need to clear the site and as others have said you will need to get it scraped and levelled, this is digger work ! Have a good look at the rest of your site to see if you can landscape in as much soil as possible as removal will be expensive. 

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Before you go much further, what is the landscaping plan and how do finished site levels compare to existing levels?

 

If you need or want to build up the ground level, dig it all and and stack it up to compost for later.  If you need to lower site levels or just keep them as they are, remove what you dig up and dispose of it.

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Just now, Dreadnaught said:

 

Its a good idea but I am rather worried about the preserved trees then keeling over. The local tree officer would then kill me.

I dosed my entire site with Gallup 360.  It only affects the plants you spray it on, not the ground.  Don't spray it on the trees and they won't be bothered.

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2 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

 

Its a good idea but I am rather worried about the preserved trees then keeling over. The local tree officer would then kill me.

I'd not use poison either, with all the issues our planet has the last thing I want to do is dump poison onto it, but I get it, it's used, and I do sometime deploy it but very very rarely. 

Edited by Carrerahill
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1 minute ago, Carrerahill said:

I'd not use poison either, with all the issues our planet has the last thing I want to do is dump poison onto it. 

Understand you point and in most cases I have avoided using it, however in some situations where, time, money and ability are against me I will use it for specific jobs. 

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Thanks all. I am going to re-read all this advice and have a think.

 

I am now wondering whether instead of me just attacking the veg with a pair of secateurs, instead to combine the vegetation clearance with a scrape, all done by a man with a (small) digger. 

 

If there is to be a scrape then there is also the question of levels.

 

I am starting to think deeply about levels. The plot is far from uniform because of the old greenhouse foundations. And raft will be thick so I will be wanting to push the no-digging requirement a bit if I can so that my final-floor-level does not end up being too high in the sky. (The foundations will be thick as I need a 225mm heave protection as well as I want a concrete raft, which will be 300mm EPS and the 200 mm raft. Some 775mm in all).

 

I need to think this through. If I have a digger man on site for a vegetation scrape as you all suggest then could I just as well ask him to flatten the site to me chosen ODN datum too, all in one go. All while ensuring my tree officer and arboriculturalist are happy too.

 

Hmm, time to put on my thinking cap.

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Clearing a site by hand is bloody hard work, get a man and machine in and get your levels right from the start. Working from a cleared site is soooo much easier. If you want to control weeds etc around the outside old carpet is great (and free).

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There isn't anything particularly nasty in the photo, tbh. Shrubs, a few perennials and a few nettles. I can't see any bindweed either (rampant climber, strangles other plants, large white trumpet shaped flowers in late summer/autumn).

Check if there's anything you want to save for re- planting later, take out the shrubs/small trees then get rid of those nettles. They will come through first and spread quickly. After that, a large covering of weed suppression fabric will save a great deal of time and effort until you know what you want to do with plant and machinery on site.

Clearing a site by hand with minimal tools is back breaking work, even for a fit squash player! Different muscle groups, used in different ways.

There won't be enough vegetation to absorb glyphosate or be burnt until a few months from now. The weed suppression fabric will stop it all from growing in the first place and you may be able to re-use it when you do your final landscaping.

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