Time to Reclaim Part of my Garden.

May 18, 2006 1:31 PM

Part of my garden has been growing wild for some time: I've decided it is time to reclaim it. But my current tools aren't up to the job. Any suggestions?

There is a part of my garden that I haven't paid attention to for a bit. It's getting kind of wild, and I want it back. The space is mainly chest-high grass and the like. I've tried attacking it with my line trimmer, but it's just not up to the job. What other tools or techniques could I try? Bonus points for non-chemical solutions: my cats hang around in the area (and there's probably a feral living back there as well), and I don't want to use anything that would be bad for them.

posted by baggers to home & garden (12 comments total)

I believe a heavy-duty trimmer and line are your best bet... but if you want this to be cool, learn to use a scythe.
posted by Krrrlson at 1:34 PM on May 18, 2006

chainsaw
posted by mattbucher at 2:08 PM on May 18, 2006

Yep, heavy-duty string trimmer, absolutely. I retook a back yard in a similar manner. Once through quickly at knee height, so you can see; followed by a low pass right at ground level to take the stuff out, followed by tilling the entire yard, followed by grass seed or flowers or whatever.
posted by jellicle at 2:11 PM on May 18, 2006

If it is indeed grass, and not shrubby, gnarly stuff, a pair of grass shears should do. Take a couple of whacks at it, much as jellicle describes. Then a shovel or digging fork to get up under the rootmass of the grass--grasses are typically shallow-rooted. Once you loosen the dirt sufficiently, you should be able to uproot the stuff. Mind, though, most stolon/runner-growing grasses can resprout from just a tiny root portion, so I would expect to be fighting some grass for a while. No need to use chemicals, particularly if you're interested in growing anything there in the immediate future.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 2:15 PM on May 18, 2006

You can rent a string-trimmer at most industrail rental yards for about $20/day.

Alternatively(or after whacking it back, but you don't need to for this), if you are looking just to neaten it up and plan to utilize it later, you can lay down flattened cardboard boxes(tape and staples removed) or newspaper(no color ads) and mulch over it. This is the lasagna method. Tree-trimming companies will often drop off free chips(10-20 cubic yards worth, so be sure you can use all of them) if you call. Look in the free ads; craigslist or daily/weekly paper. Try to get 4-6 inches worth over everything. Water it every now and then. Doing this will improve your soil and keep down the weeds until you know what you want to do. If you are just planting trees or shrubs, you can punch a hole through the mulch and cardboard and plant directly into the soil.

Trust me, I'm a lazy gardener. If you can resist being in a rush, you can have good soil with 1/4 of the work.
posted by a_green_man at 2:29 PM on May 18, 2006

grasses are typically shallow-rooted

I feel compelled to correct this: many, if not most, lawn/grain grasses have extensive root systems that can go quite deep. This is the reason they are often used as cover crops: to permeate the soil with roots and to draw nutrients up from way down below. It's true that the main rootball(what most people think of as the entire root system) is usually easy to pull up, but the vast majority of roots you will never see without carefully excavating the area like an archeologist. Sorry, I don't mean to be a curmudgeon

That said, Emperor SnooKloze has an excellent technique also. If you decide to go without the power tools, getting on your knees and using a spade to slice just under the soil will quickly uproot the grass without leaving stubs like a string trimmer will. If you are doing the lasagna, you don't need to do this at all, though.

You can also refer to a previous post of mine re: chemicals and identification if you think it might be an invasive grass. (Note: sometimes the lasagna will smother even stoloniferous grasses to where you just have the edges of the area to worry about. Use extra cardboard).
posted by a_green_man at 2:53 PM on May 18, 2006

Borrow a few goats and fence them into that patch. Everything growing in there will be turned into fertilizer in two weeks.
posted by flabdablet at 3:20 PM on May 18, 2006

a_green_man is quite correct. I was hasty in my generalization, and have the bermuda grass in my garden to prove it. Cripes, but I hate bermuda grass. I'm kind of a tree nerd, so my comparison was kinda in the vein of "compared to shrubs and trees". Or maybe I'm just short on sleep. Or something.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 3:56 PM on May 18, 2006

Thanks for all of the ideas. I'm right out of goats, but I'll see about renting a decent line trimmer and attacking it from two heights. I like the idea of the lasgana method as welll: I might give that a go while I work on the rest of the garden.
posted by baggers at 4:10 PM on May 18, 2006

You might also consider a Garden Weasel.
posted by beth at 7:17 PM on May 18, 2006

A tractor and brushhog could do this in about 5 minutes if there is open access to the site. The rental wouldn't be very expensive, either. My little Allis G is perfect for this kind of thing.
posted by rfs at 8:20 PM on May 18, 2006

We had this problem, we ended up digging most of it out by hand, it took forever, but really got to the roots. We should have rented a bobcat, if you have much a yard, rent a bobcat. We have rented the following cool things this year to clear a wild yard:

Brush cutter: like a weed whacker but with a nasty blade
Sod Cutter: Cuts a swath 14 inches wide and 3 inches deep, gets all those weed roots out. You can roll up the weed/grass stuff like carpet at this point.
Tiller: After the sod cutter we put down new fresh dirt and turned it in with the old dirt and put lawn seed down.

Ta-da! Jungle to lawn!
posted by stormygrey at 5:55 AM on May 19, 2006