Stuff you need to keep a lawned garden tidy? First timer

[ATV]

Sorry for the newbie type question but this is the first time I’ve had to look after a garden.

I’ve moved from a terraced house with York stone flagged back yard to a house with a decent sized garden. Big hedges, lawn, apple tree etc etc.

The previous owners kept it in great shape and the 3 times I’d visited the garden looked great.

Now it’s looking like a dump. Main areas are:

- There’s fallen leaves and small twigs everywhere making it look very untidy. Apart from raking it, is there any recommended machine that can suck up this type of debris?
- The bushes/hedge are growing alarmingly fast and need cutting back
- Weeds have started appearing on the lawn.

My father-in-law is coming round this bank holiday weekend to tidy up.

I’m quite keen to get stuck in myself in future so if anyone can recommend any Buy-It-For-Life gear that I need please let me know (the clearing of the debris is a major one as it looks awful every time we look out of the window)

[Billy_Rosewood]

How often do you mow?

I tend to go out and pick up the bulkier debris and rake if really bad then let the mower take care of the smaller leaves.

I've become a fan of ryobi stuff so have a mower, leaf blower and am looking to replace the hedge trimmer with a ryobi one. That seems to cover all bases and keep things neat for a layman.

Interested to hear people's thoughts on weed control.. I have a massive outbreak of dandelions this year!

[GliderRider]

If the fallen leaves and twigs are on the lawn, a rotary lawnmower with a grass collector will pick them up. For freshly fallen leaves and twigs, a garden blower/vac will work if they haven't been on the ground for long, but to be honest its easier to just rake them up and stick them in the garden waste bin or on the compost heap.

Depending upon the size of your hedge, you need some sort of hedgetrimmer. I prefer a petrol one as I have never got on with electric ones. A good secondhand Kawasaki, Stihl or Husqvarna is better than a new cheap one.

Basic tools to get are:

• Leather-faced gloves
• A rake - plastic Bulldog type or a metal spring rake with an expanding head.
• Loppers
• Secateurs
• Garden fork
• Garden spade (not a shovel)
• A stiff broom
• Strong dustpan (see Addis Scoop below)
• Sieve (not essential, but if you see one at a boot sale...)
• Metre-cubed hippo type bag (usually you can get one from a skip if you ask first)

Take a trip round a big out-of-town car boot sale before rushing out and paying top whack for tools in a garden centre. If you have to buy new, Screwfix and Toolstation are probably cheapest. 'Middle of Lidl' and Aldi are also both good for garden equipment when its in.

Either paying the council for a garden waste bin or buying a large plastic composting bin will help save multiple dump runs.

Some sort of small shed or garden store saves bringing the tools into the house ifyou don't have a garage. Look for a used Keter 'Store-it-out' Max on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree. They break down into small enough parts to go in, or on, a small hatchback.

One of my favourite garden tools is this Addis garden scoop/bucket/tool tidy thing. If you buy one, you won't regret it. Ours is green with a yellow handle, but I can only see black ones now.

Edited by GliderRider on Sunday 25th August 09:01

Edited by GliderRider on Sunday 25th August 09:03

Edited by GliderRider on Sunday 25th August 09:05

[JWH]

A photo or two to give an idea of size would probably help.

[Snow and Rocks]

Yep more detail needed or at least a photo - domestic grade stuff is probably fine for maintaining a typical suburban garden but if the place is of any significant size, spending the extra on pro grade gear will be money well spent in the long term.

[AlexC1981]

I could see that Addis scoop mentioned above being very useful to rake leaves into and to carry round to use as a bucket when weeding. I bought a wide snow shovel recently to collect leaves with. Hopefully it will work well for when they go slushy and awkward to rake.

It's well worth paying for a green bin, particularly as many tips require you to book in advance these days.

[Wildfire]

Almost exactly the same position, but a year and a bit ago. Lawn, lots of hedges, 2 apple trees and other trees.

In addition to the excellent list, I now have:

Various lawn fertilisers
Grass seed
Strimmer
Scarifier
Roller aerator
Petrol combi-tool (hedge trimmer and a trimmer)
Apple picker.

I use the mower to pick up leaves and other light debris and we do an apple pick every other day when they start dropping.

[DonkeyApple]

ATV said:

Sorry for the newbie type question but this is the first time I’ve had to look after a garden.

I’ve moved from a terraced house with York stone flagged back yard to a house with a decent sized garden. Big hedges, lawn, apple tree etc etc.

The previous owners kept it in great shape and the 3 times I’d visited the garden looked great.

Now it’s looking like a dump. Main areas are:

- There’s fallen leaves and small twigs everywhere making it look very untidy. Apart from raking it, is there any recommended machine that can suck up this type of debris?
- The bushes/hedge are growing alarmingly fast and need cutting back
- Weeds have started appearing on the lawn.

My father-in-law is coming round this bank holiday weekend to tidy up.

I’m quite keen to get stuck in myself in future so if anyone can recommend any Buy-It-For-Life gear that I need please let me know (the clearing of the debris is a major one as it looks awful every time we look out of the window)

You can spend a fortune and fill a shed with equipment or you can get by without barely anything. It's personal choice.

Probably the minimum pair of tools is a hedge trimmer to regularly cut everything back and a mower to then cut it all up and dispose of the clippings along with all the leaves and twigs.

Lawn maintenance is no different, one can dedicate every waking hour in the search for perfection or one can just cut it regularly and maybe do a couple of broadleaf sprays a year.

Ultimately the key is to work out how many tools and how much money you want to throw at it and then how much time a week you wish to spend on it and from knowing that you can plan what type of garden you want.

[JimM169]

Just to add to the above, some sort of sprayer will be useful to treat the lawn weeds, and apply any other chemicals (if you're happy to use them)

https://www.toolstation.com/hawksmoor-pressure-spr...

If the lawn is a decent size may even be worth getting a spreader for fertilizer,weed killer application

https://www.ample-store.co.uk/products/evergreen-e...

[Turtle Shed]

We moved to a house with a good-sized garden last year, so reading with interest, but I also have one comment:

Consider getting a trailer.

Just a damned useful thing anyway, but ours basically becomes a garden waste mobile skip. It's big-ish at 8ft x 4ft so it takes a lot of waste, and it has a cover so it never looks unsightly. One trip to the dump every three weeks or so is way better than bagging things up and chucking them in the car for more regular trips.

Single axle is a must as lots of tips won't allow twin axles on site. Mine is galvanised, will last years and years.

You may of course already have a trailer.

Edit to add:

1 - We use the Toolstation 1/2 ton dumpy bags around the garden as one useful way to collect and load the trailer. About £4 each.

2 - The other thing about a trailer is that you can chuck bigger stuff in withouth bagging it. Sounds obvious, but if you've just taken out a some fairly heft branches etc, chucking them straight into a trailer is a whole lot easier than chopping/bagging for putting into a car boot.

Edited by Turtle Shed on Wednesday 28th August 16:36

[Snow and Rocks]

Double check the rules where you are before buying but a trailer is game changing if you have plenty of storage - here in Aberdeenshire where everyone has a double cab pickup and an Ifor Williams they tried to change the rules and were met with a near riot so no issues going with a half decent trailer but I have heard of some draconian limits elsewhere.

[NomadicTurbo]

Turtle Shed said:

We moved to a house with a good-sized garden last year, so reading with interest, but I also have one comment:

Consider getting a trailer.

Just a damned useful thing anyway, but ours basically becomes a garden waste mobile skip. It's big-ish at 8ft x 4ft so it takes a lot of waste, and it has a cover so it never looks unsightly. One trip to the dump every three weeks or so is way better than bagging things up and chucking them in the car for more regular trips.

Single axle is a must as lots of tips won't allow twin axles on site. Mine is galvanised, will last years and years.

You may of course already have a trailer.

Our local tip (Cheshire East) requires a permit for trailers over 1.5m in length, but anything smaller is fine without a permit

[Jordie Barretts sock]

I've got six of these...

[Turtle Shed]

NomadicTurbo said:

Turtle Shed said:

We moved to a house with a good-sized garden last year, so reading with interest, but I also have one comment:

Consider getting a trailer.

Just a damned useful thing anyway, but ours basically becomes a garden waste mobile skip. It's big-ish at 8ft x 4ft so it takes a lot of waste, and it has a cover so it never looks unsightly. One trip to the dump every three weeks or so is way better than bagging things up and chucking them in the car for more regular trips.

Single axle is a must as lots of tips won't allow twin axles on site. Mine is galvanised, will last years and years.

You may of course already have a trailer.

Our local tip (Cheshire East) requires a permit for trailers over 1.5m in length, but anything smaller is fine without a permit

It certainly varies from council to council. Our only allows single-axle, up to nine feet long. You are supposed to have a permit (free), which I do, but I have never been asked to show it.

[Voldemort]

Jordie Barretts sock said:

I've got six of these...

Yes, but sheep st everywhere.

[netherfield]

Turtle Shed said:

It certainly varies from council to council. Our only allows single-axle, up to nine feet long. You are supposed to have a permit (free), which I do, but I have never been asked to show it.

If it's anything like here, you don't need to show it, they have NPR cameras, once of twice I've heard the siren go off, then of the guys goes and turns someone away.

I read in the local paper on the web that some folks have been trying to dump their rubbish from nearby council area because it's nearer than their own tip.

[Jordie Barretts sock]

Voldemort said:

Yes, but sheep st everywhere.

Which munches in quickly. And encourages grass growth, which the sheep eat...

But then again, sheep might be an issue on a Bovis estate.

[essayer]

Absolutely agree with disposal- chopping stuff down is easy - getting rid of it is harder!
Burning may not always be appreciated by your local Facebook group. Trailer seems a great idea

[GliderRider]

essayer said:

Absolutely agree with disposal- chopping stuff down is easy - getting rid of it is harder!
Burning may not always be appreciated by your local Facebook group. Trailer seems a great idea

Anything smaller than about 1/2" diameter I put in either my metre-cubed Hippo type bag or the green waste recycling bin, then chop it down in there with the petrol hedge trimmer. This gets the waste pretty dense. I can then get three, or four at a push, half full Hippo type bags in the back of the car (Grand Scenic) with the seats down, for taking to the dump. Half full because that's the limit of what I can lift by myself.

Unless you are a long way from your neighbours, burning just makes your problem everyone else's, plus it takes longer supervising a fire in many cases, than a trip to the tip and back.

[Sway]

Consider a robot mower, installed one at my folks' as they're getting on a bit, and the grass has never looked healthier even though my stepfather was pretty fastidious.

Grass is about the only plant that actually enjoys getting chopped frequently - it means regular micro mulching, and weeds don't get the chance to establish.