What to Do If a Garden Becomes Overgrown
It doesn't take too much time for a garden to become out of control and the longer you leave it the works it becomes, so what do you do if a garden becomes overgrown?
12/08/2023
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If you have put a lot of time and money into establishing a garden filled with plants, shrubs, and trees to create a perfectly landscaped garden, it can be upsetting when you leave it unattended for a while and it gets overgrown or out of shape. Or perhaps you have moved into a new home and the garden has been left untouched for a while and doesn't look very nice. Don't despair, there are ways to get the garden back on track so that you have a beautiful garden where you can retreat to when you need time to breathe and relax.
Here are our top tips for taming an overgrown garden
Taming an overgrown garden is fairly simple if you put down the required steps needed to achieve a beautifully tamed garden that provides you with joy throughout spring and summer. Take a walk through the garden and jot down what needs to be done on a notepad. This will help you to decide on a plan of action and what needs to be done first.
1. Clean out as much as possible
Start by cleaning out the area as much as possible. It might be a good idea to have a labourer or your gardener come for a couple of days to clear out as much as possible. Assign an area where all the debris can be piled, preferably one that has easy access when it needs to be removed. With all the mess out of the way, it will be easier to get a better picture of the next step.
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2. Make room for the view
If the garden has been neglected for a while, you are probably looking at trees and shrubs that are overgrown. A garden service might not help you with this but there are companies that offer tree felling and rubbish removal at a fair rate. I have previously paid between R150 to R250 for larger trees and shrubs to be trimmed and they will each cut them down to the roots if you need this to be done.
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3. Trimming and tamed
What shrubs are now left behind can be trimmed down to size and shaped to give the garden a tamed look. If some shrubs have become leggy and bare on the lower branches, it might be better to cut these back to force re-growth or remove them completely. To get this job done, you are going to need a sharp pair of garden shears, secateurs, and possibly even battery-powered hedge trimmers.
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4. Get dug in
This is another task where it might be a good idea to hire casual labour so that the garden beds can be forked and turned and any plants or shrubs removed to open up space. This is also the time when you should add compost to the soil to enrich and promote growth of the remaining plants. Additionally, if there are overgrown clumps of plants, this is the time to divide them and re-plant. Add a layer of mulch around the base of plants in beds as this will help them stay cool when the weather gets hot.
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5. Take stock of grassed areas
Depending on the condition of any grassed areas, if these have been left uncared for a long time, you may have to seed the area to establish a new lawn and grab instant lawn to fill any blank spots. If you do not want to go through the hassle of hiring a spike roller, you can do the same job with a garden fork - it just takes longer. Remove any areas where weeds have taken over and then rake the grass (this time of the year) to remove any dead thatch.
A great way to get the garden established faster is to use a spike roller. This is a large, heavy roller that has long metal spikes that you roll over the grassed areas to aerate the soil and break it up so that water and nutrients have a greater chance of doing what they need to do. You can hire a spike roller for a day or two from a hire store.
6. Take care of nutrition
Now that everything is taking shape and the garden is emerging, the last step is to fertilize and water well. Fertilisers are rated as per the formula and area where they are applied, so you will need one for the lawn and one for the garden beds. If there are any fruit trees in the garden, you can purchase specialist fertilisers for these.
Give the garden a couple of weeks and you will see a drastic change as plants and shrubs put forth new growth and spring blossoms. Now all that's required is a routine check-in now and again to see what needs to be done before it becomes overgrown.