What We Learned Clearing an Overgrown Garden

We started by clearing what we could ourselves

There was a lot we could tackle without bringing in professionals.

We cut back shrubs, removed smaller plants and gradually opened up areas that had become completely overgrown.

It was one of those jobs where you don't necessarily realise how much vegetation there is until you start cutting it down and suddenly have an enormous pile of branches sitting in front of you.

For this kind of garden work, one thing I would recommend is a genuinely sturdy pair of gardening gloves (paid link).

Light gardening gloves are fine for pottering around, but when you're pulling apart an established, overgrown garden you're dealing with rough branches, woody plants and all sorts of things you don't particularly want going through your gloves.

We also used ordinary hand tools for the smaller jobs, including a decent pair of secateurs (paid link) and small garden hand tools (paid link).

Some of the trees needed council permits

The bigger trees were a different story.

We couldn't simply decide we wanted them gone and start cutting.

We needed approval from council before some of the large trees could be removed.

Once we had the permit, we brought in a professional arborist to take them down.

This is something I would check much earlier if I was buying another property with a heavily established garden.

Don't assume that because a tree is on your property you can automatically remove it.

Rules vary depending on the property and the local council, so check what applies before doing anything.

And there is a very obvious difference between cutting back shrubs yourself and taking down a huge established tree. The latter was absolutely a job for the professionals.

The trees had caused problems we couldn't see

The biggest surprise wasn't actually above ground.

The tree roots had made their way into the plumbing.

Eventually, the plumbing needed to be replaced.

That completely changed the way I looked at the garden.

Until then, I had mostly seen the overgrowth as a cosmetic problem. It made the house look neglected and we wanted to clear it so we could start again.

But established trees don't stop at ground level.

Their roots can extend a long way beyond what you can see, and in our case they had become a problem for the house itself.

It was another reminder that when you're looking at an older property, it pays to look beyond the building.

Clearing it changed the whole property

Once the larger trees and much of the overgrowth were gone, we could finally see the space we were working with.

We didn't need an elaborate landscaped garden.

The biggest improvement came simply from opening the space up and making it manageable again.

It also made the house itself feel different.

There was more space around it, we could actually see what was there, and we weren't constantly fighting a garden that had been neglected for years.

What I would look at now

If I was looking at another house with a very established or overgrown garden, I wouldn't just think about whether I liked the trees.

I'd look at where the large trees are in relation to the house.

I'd think about where the plumbing and drains might run.

I'd find out whether any of the trees are protected or require council approval to remove.

And I'd consider the cost of professional tree removal if some of them eventually needed to come down.

An overgrown garden can absolutely be brought back under control.

We did most of the basic clearing ourselves.

But our experience also taught us that sometimes the expensive part of an overgrown garden isn't the gardening at all.

It's what you discover underneath it.

Clearing the garden also came before replacing and painting the fences around the old house.

Our experience was part of the broader lesson in What Renovating a 100 Year Old House Taught Us, and the old roof was another example of looking carefully before assuming something needed replacing.