Topic: Clearing Overgrown Land

[Garden Manager]

Wasnt sure where else to put this as its not really about an allotment.

I work in a garden where the owners have recently decided to extend the garden into a patch of wasteland that they bought with the house and garden. A new fence has been constructed and work has started removing the old fence around the original garden. The 'new' bit is quite large an forms an L shape between the existing garden, a neighbours plot and the edge of a small wood. Nothing much has been done to the plot for years and is full of nettle, bramble and bracken, but does have bluebells in it in spring. The plan such as it is is to incorporate the plot into the garden but not to become highly cultivated, the idea being to put it down to grass and perhaps a few trees or shrubs (maybe wildflowers).

As I have been asked to help sort out the area i am somewhat at a loss as to what  to do or what approach to take. It would take a lot of work to clear the plot manualy, but I am not sure there is any other way of acheiving the aim of incorporating it into the main garden any other way. There is talk by the owners to rotovate and put grass seed down, which i know wont get rid of the scrub/weed species and will almost certainly make things worse!

I need some advice i think. While i know about nettles and brambles, and how to destroy/remove them but not so much with bracken. How easy/hard are they to kill without using chemicals (garden is in the country) or digging out. Would the plan of seeding grass and them cutting do the job, and how long would it take to do? Also what other ways could this plot be incorporated into the garden and be relatively easy to maintain ?

Any advice appreciated.

[Bill Door]

Yes a difficult job.  I would suggest you "google" Braken and have a look at the RHS site.

It might pay to try roughly cutting back all the old growth and keep it chopped back until the blue bells have finished.
Then consider a spray if you are not growing organic.  If you aregoing organic then you will have to try to keep cutting down the weeds.

I would not suggest rotovating the ground where the braken is as this might cause more problems.

good luck

Bill

[Unwashed]

Knock the brush down with a brush cutter and then just keep mowing it.  Nothing but grass can survive consistent mowing, not even bracken.

[Melbourne12]

Knock the brush down with a brush cutter and then just keep mowing it.  Nothing but grass can survive consistent mowing, not even bracken.

When we had to clear a similar area to site some beehives, that's exactly what we did.  It worked a treat, and was minimum effort.

[Jeannine]

I totally agree on that, it is dine quite often here done  folks who buy acreage with lots of bush and want to expand. They use a strimmer to cut it back then start mowing, high at first then gradually lower and keep at it, the ground eventually reverts to grass and there is a lot of bracken here. XX Jeannine

[Ian Pearson]

I agree. I've cleared similar land just by scything 4 or 5 times during the year. Rake off the cuttings for compost to make subsequent cuts easier, especially if it contains woody stems. Bracken is a good source of potash I seem to remember.

[Garden Manager]

Thanks. So you would agree that rotovating is NOT a good idea?! Just cut cut and cut until the bracken dies and the grass grows naturally.

Those of you that have done it, how often did you cut and how long did it take to kill the bracken/scrub and get grass growing instead?

[Unwashed]

No, I can't see that rotovating will help at all. 

If the brush is really heavy duty like birch or gorse then you'll need to use a brush-cutting blade on the brush cutter and I've never found that to work very well, if it was me I'd do it by hand with my slasher, but bracken and nettle you can do without any problem with a good brushcutter and heavy line (3.0mm or 3.3mm would be my choice, any lighter than that and it tends to break too often, any heavier and the machine probably can't spin the head fast enough and the heads aren't designed for such heavy cord either), and the line head will mash it up beautifully too so that it will rot down quickly, whereas the brushcutter blade just cuts it and doesn't mash it up at all.

Some tough bramble can sometimes be too much for a strimmer and it breaks the line all the time and that's a f*g so if the bramble is tough you might have to do whack that down by hand with a slasher, and then I've found it works well to drag a rotary mower around - pulling it backwards because you'll never push it over all the rough vegetation.  But after a couple of sessions of that you'll have tamed it and regular mowing is all it needs then.

I cut back some bramble scrub last year and the brambles hardly re-grew at all.  The nettles made a bit of an effort but very half-hearted.  I had to stop though because I broke a pane of glass strimming and I don't have a rotary mower - if I get one of those I'll be back on the case.

I've never cleared bracken so others can comment on that, but I'd be surprised if it was still sprouting in the third year, and wouldn't expect it to stop sprouting until the second year.  It has quite a reservoir in its root system and can re-grow from that for some time, but nothing can cope with continual mowing if the mowing is regular enough to prevent it forming leaves to photosynthesise, unless it can form a sward like grass does.

If the land is suitable and can be securely fenced pigs are also remarkably good at rooting out bracken and I don't think it's too toxic for them - bracken does contain some rather unpleasant spores and I think it's a bit toxic for horses too.  Goats can also be very effective at clearing scrub.

[Unwashed]

Bit of an article here about using goats to manage scrub.

[artichoke]

Nice to see a plug for the scythe. Since getting my scythe in May I have been able to clear quite a good strip alongside one allotment between it and a very overgrown hedge full of brambles, coarse woody weeds (no bracken), docks and tough nettles that were steadily invading my plot. I am not very good at managing the brambles either with scythe or machete, but once I had scythed a strip alongside them to stand on, it was quite easy, if slow, to cut the bigger brambles with loppers or secateurs, and burn them.

This is not remotely on the same scale as the OP, of course, but having given up on my useless strimmer which refuses to start even after an overhaul, the scythe has given me the confidence to tackle this sort of area. I have cut this one twice since May, and will do a final autumn cut soon. It is a treat to watch docks collapsing in front of me, and I expect them to give up the ghost after regular topping, in spite of their huge roots.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I turned what was effectively rough grazing nto a lawn once just by persistent mowing. It's very effective, and not too much work. After a year or two, you can start doing something more interesting with the ground.

[Unwashed]

A scythe is the tool for cutting at the root, but if it's brambles and woody stuff consider a slasher.  I wouldn't be without mine, but I do need to learn the art of peening because it loses its edge very quickly in the rough stuff.

[artichoke]

Aha! Peening!

On my 2 day scything course we were taught peening, either on a curved anvil (very small solid metal block, blade slowly passed over it while hammering, skill and experience needed) or on a "peening jig", a sort of small simple three part jig that needs less skill, flat anvil, the one I bought. It can be looked up on line and even I can do it. But so far my scythe has been sharpened by a wet stone dragged across it over the last few months, so apart from the supervision and training on the course, I have not yet needed to use the peening jig.

I do have a slasher/machete, but I am not efficient at using it, yet. At 70 I am very much into slow and careful.

I have met goats in Oman where they ate all the vegetation I was employed to illustrate for a book about plant foods used by nomadic tribes in the deserts.

Apparently even the Mediterranean landscape was heavily wooded before goats were introduced. So I do believe that goats would be as good as strimmers and scythes in cutting down vegetation.

I also have two ancient and rusty sickles which I was told would not submit to peening. I have to find someone with a rotating stone. Frustratingly I noticed one of these on a recent visit to Caithness (Wick) but i didn't have my sickles with me........

So if anyone knows a stone sharpener for old sickles within East Sussex or Kent I would be very glad to meet them.

[Jeannine]

The only time we cut brush down ourselves(many friends have done it here)we used a petrol brush cutter with what looked to be like a circular saw blade on it, it went through small trees.XX Jeannine

[ancellsfarmer]

Aha! Peening!

On my 2 day scything course we were taught peening, either on a curved anvil (very small solid metal block, blade slowly passed over it while hammering, skill and experience needed) or on a "peening jig", a sort of small simple three part jig that needs less skill, flat anvil, the one I bought. It can be looked up on line and even I can do it. But so far my scythe has been sharpened by a wet stone dragged across it over the last few months, so apart from the supervision and training on the course, I have not yet needed to use the peening jig.

I do have a slasher/machete, but I am not efficient at using it, yet. At 70 I am very much into slow and careful.

I have met goats in Oman where they ate all the vegetation I was employed to illustrate for a book about plant foods used by nomadic tribes in the deserts.

Apparently even the Mediterranean landscape was heavily wooded before goats were introduced. So I do believe that goats would be as good as strimmers and scythes in cutting down vegetation.

I also have two ancient and rusty sickles which I was told would not submit to peening. I have to find someone with a rotating stone. Frustratingly I noticed one of these on a recent visit to Caithness (Wick) but i didn't have my sickles with me........

So if anyone knows a stone sharpener for old sickles within East Sussex or Kent I would be very glad to meet them.

Try L F Pittam, 88 Longstone Road BN21 3SJ. Hardware and Ironmongers Merchants in Eastbourne.

[Robert_Brenchley]

You're right about the Mediterranean and goats, Artichoke. From what I remember the goat numbers shot up during Roman times, leading to deforestation, loss of fertility, and silting of estuaries as soils were eroded. Some of the original Greek ports are now a couple of miles inland as a result.

[artichoke]

While you are there....thank you very much for offering me some Wizard field beans, but I have just received a large packet from Tuckers seeds, so you need not sacrifice yours.

Back to Clearing Overgrown Land........

[antipodes]

Definitely a goat. A friend put a goat on their scrub patch and in no time, it had eaten everything and I mean everything, bramble, the lot. Heaven knows how they manage it. She had it on a chain with a tyre on the end of it which was hooked over a long pole banged into the ground and the goat could only go as far as the chain. Maybe it's possible to borrow one for a few weeks?

[Garden Manager]

I heard somewhere that pigs are good for clearing land like this. Probably wouldnt happen though. Anyone tried this?

[artichoke]

The late lamented John Seymour was very keen on the pig method.