I know you weren't asking for advice on your post but now the subject has come up...
Yep getting the worst out and then using the rotovator would be a good plan. And then I have one word to say to you: MULCH!
If you mulch over the bits you have done so far, it will suppress weed growth (cocoa shells off the internets is my fave - for a lazy gardener like me, it improves the soil as it biodegrades). Then in the spring, after you've rotowassnamed, no doubt some perennial weeds will show up again and then is the time to consider systemic as it works far better on actively growing plants. Or you could just pull them up again. Or you could hoe them - oh yes another word: HOE! Keep slicing the growing bit off and they will weaken eventually. Buy a really good hoe - it will do you proud.
I thing the gentle approach with a new-to-you garden is a valid one. You get to find plants you want to keep that got trapped in the undergrowth, it helps you get to know your soil - dry bits, stony bits, claggy bits, and it is more sympathetic to any wild life - particularly this time of year.
Can't wait to see it. But don't show me round it unless you can cope with Idea-buzzy-Ingrid who will stand in your garden and go ooo - you've got an xyz bush - you could grow clematis up and then have a wassname underneath it and your veg bed should go there but don't grow Jerusalem artichokes coz they taste pants and and and... :)
no subject
Yep getting the worst out and then using the rotovator would be a good plan. And then I have one word to say to you: MULCH!
If you mulch over the bits you have done so far, it will suppress weed growth (cocoa shells off the internets is my fave - for a lazy gardener like me, it improves the soil as it biodegrades). Then in the spring, after you've rotowassnamed, no doubt some perennial weeds will show up again and then is the time to consider systemic as it works far better on actively growing plants. Or you could just pull them up again. Or you could hoe them - oh yes another word: HOE! Keep slicing the growing bit off and they will weaken eventually. Buy a really good hoe - it will do you proud.
I thing the gentle approach with a new-to-you garden is a valid one. You get to find plants you want to keep that got trapped in the undergrowth, it helps you get to know your soil - dry bits, stony bits, claggy bits, and it is more sympathetic to any wild life - particularly this time of year.
Can't wait to see it. But don't show me round it unless you can cope with Idea-buzzy-Ingrid who will stand in your garden and go ooo - you've got an xyz bush - you could grow clematis up and then have a wassname underneath it and your veg bed should go there but don't grow Jerusalem artichokes coz they taste pants and and and... :)