Looking for ideas – Overrun back garden

[tomgreen]

 

I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this .

 

My Thai wife’s retired widowed mother lives alone in a small house that has an enclosed walled back garden and due to her advanced age she is finding it increasing difficult to look after this back garden . The mother is adamant that she does not want any locals coming to her house to help look after her garden . I and my wife live too far away to make regular visits to help out with the garden maintenance.

 

So I’m looking for ideas to help help the mother out with her garden area. I was thinking that if the garden area was cleared of its existing weeds /  bushes , at first that would make the garden area look a lot better , but in time due to the mother not being able to physically do any work on the garden , the weeds / bushes would then just return and the cycle of having to keep clearing the garden area , would start all over once more.

 

I’m trying to come up with an option where by the garden area can first be cleared of the existing weeds / bushes , then do some thing to the now cleared garden area that keeps it free of weeds / bushes and looking neat and tidy.

 

Concreting the whole garden area would be expensive.

 

Covering the area with some sort of decorative stones , would not stop the weeds/ bushes from returning.

 

Applying weed killer would kill the existing weeds , but the now dead weeds would still need to be removed on a regular basis .

 

So basically I’m looking for an idea that will remove the existing weeds / bushes , then keep the garden area maintenance free along with looking neat and tidy.

 

The garden area is approximately 14 X 15 M 

 

One other factor is that the mother has 2 Thai dogs who stay out side the house and of course roam around the walled garden area and do their business .

 

Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please .

 

 

 

 

.

[Lacessit]

Hire a flamethrower.

[2baht]

She needs 2 goats!

[Kwasaki]

16 minutes ago, tomgreen said:

 

I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this .

 

My Thai wife’s retired widowed mother lives alone in a small house that has an enclosed walled back garden and due to her advanced age she is finding it increasing difficult to look after this back garden . The mother is adamant that she does not want any locals coming to her house to help look after her garden . I and my wife live too far away to make regular visits to help out with the garden maintenance.

 

So I’m looking for ideas to help help the mother out with her garden area. I was thinking that if the garden area was cleared of its existing weeds /  bushes , at first that would make the garden area look a lot better , but in time due to the mother not being able to physically do any work on the garden , the weeds / bushes would then just return and the cycle of having to keep clearing the garden area , would start all over once more.

 

I’m trying to come up with an option where by the garden area can first be cleared of the existing weeds / bushes , then do some thing to the now cleared garden area that keeps it free of weeds / bushes and looking neat and tidy.

 

Concreting the whole garden area would be expensive.

 

Covering the area with some sort of decorative stones , would not stop the weeds/ bushes from returning.

 

Applying weed killer would kill the existing weeds , but the now dead weeds would still need to be removed on a regular basis .

 

So basically I’m looking for an idea that will remove the existing weeds / bushes , then keep the garden area maintenance free along with looking neat and tidy.

 

The garden area is approximately 14 X 15 M 

 

One other factor is that the mother has 2 Thai dogs who stay out side the house and of course roam around the walled garden area and do their business .

 

Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please .

 

 

 

 

.

Cut all down, put thick plastic sheet wall to wall,  lay large concrete paving slabs.

[KhunLA]

15 minutes ago, tomgreen said:

Covering the area with some sort of decorative stones , would not stop the weeds/ bushes from returning.

If you put garden plastic down first, then stone, they won't return, or at least, very minimal and easy to manage.

 

Photo of our soi, between house and garden area, using plastic with stone, coming up on 1 yr, and minimal weeds.

 

 

[Don Chance]

Plant some fur trees.

[OneMoreFarang]

58 minutes ago, tomgreen said:

 

Before and after

 

 

[dingdongrb]

That pic the OP posted can't be of Thailand.....  There's no trash thrown about and I don't see any hoses releasing used wastewater from a nearby house.

[jaideedave]

1 hour ago, Kwasaki said:

Cut all down, put thick plastic sheet wall to wall,  lay large concrete paving slabs.

We did similiar but a smaller area.Cleared everything, sprinkled coarse industrial salt down (cheap) then layed heavy plastic and covered the whole area with decorative rock that we had. Pea gravel would work to.Maybe slabs would be less expensive. No sign of weeds so far.

[Kwasaki]

10 minutes ago, jaideedave said:

We did similiar but a smaller area.Cleared everything, sprinkled coarse industrial salt down (cheap) then layed heavy plastic and covered the whole area with decorative rock that we had. Pea gravel would work to.Maybe slabs would be less expensive. No sign of weeds so far.

Yeah any sign of weeds over the years can be dealt with easy, OP best put his hand in his pocket, save a lot of agro.

[brianthainess]

43 minutes ago, jaideedave said:

We did similiar but a smaller area.Cleared everything, sprinkled coarse industrial salt down (cheap) then layed heavy plastic and covered the whole area with decorative rock that we had. Pea gravel would work to.Maybe slabs would be less expensive. No sign of weeds so far.

That's what I have done behind my house after using weed killer., only 2 meters wide though to boundary fence, roof run off was making it very hard to keep down, thick black builders plastic covered in Hin (stone).

any few weeds growing now, are incoming seed and just grow on top of the plastic easy to pull out, of use weed killer twice a year max. edit; you can always plant wanted, plants through it. 

[tomgreen]

Thanks every one for your comments and suggestions. I had not thought about covering the ground using plastic sheet , so thats the way I think I’m going to go. I have to now cost the price of clear plastic sheet Vs black plastic , and wondering if using clear plastic sheeting would not show through so much as black plastic sheeting. Then cost putting some sort of stones or slabs on top of the plastic sheeting . I have a feeling with stones the two dogs may start digging and then possibly causing some sort of damage. The other thing I’m wondering about if plastic sheeting is used to cover the ground , would that be a problem when it rains as the area in question is know to flood during heavy rain ,  

 

Any ideas of other possible things to put on top of the plastic sheeting appreciated. 

 

.

[Andrew Dwyer]

18 minutes ago, tomgreen said:

Thanks every one for your comments and suggestions. I had not thought about covering the ground using plastic sheet , so thats the way I think I’m going to go. I have to now cost the price of clear plastic sheet Vs black plastic , and wondering if using clear plastic sheeting would not show through so much as black plastic sheeting. Then cost putting some sort of stones or slabs on top of the plastic sheeting . I have a feeling with stones the two dogs may start digging and then possibly causing some sort of damage. The other thing I’m wondering about if plastic sheeting is used to cover the ground , would that be a problem when it rains as the area in question is know to flood during heavy rain ,  

 

Any ideas of other possible things to put on top of the plastic sheeting appreciated. 

 

.

I went the low maintenance route in my small front garden which is around 10 x 10 m.

 

Bought a roll of thick transparent plastic from Homepro and some gravel from the local builders supply. Some cheap blocks around the trees to retain some small bags of fertiliser we occasionally chuck in.

 

Also put in a couple of drains for the excess water.

 

[degrub]

Black plastic sheets should last longer than others since  there are UV inhibitors.

[sometimewoodworker]

What I used under our drive was ½ shade cloth and ½ blue and white building roll it was topped with a few yards of builder’s aggregate, it has some grass growing on it but the grass is sparse and never gets long

years later

[bbko]

Another option is to first use a hoe to clear all the weeds, then lay carpet grass to prevent the volunteer trees and weeds from growing.

 

Bermuda grass and Nippon grass are a good way to go.