Jungle garden..... where to start?

A question about : Jungle garden..... where to start?

ok, take a look at how our new garden looked like when an agent took some shots years ago. The second photo shows what it looks like now It's hard to know where to start, but I think the grass growing through the shingle (yes there actually is still shingle under all that greenery!) is the priority (along with the fence). Surprisingly there is an undersheet to prevent grass growing through, but the grass has just blasted through it.

What's your opinion on shingle? Once I realised that grass and weeds still grow through it, I wondered what the point is. Shingle prevents you simply running a lawnmower over it, so you have to get down on hands and knees to deal with it? I don't know, does the underlay usually prevent weeds?

Depending on opinions given, maybe I should get rid of the shingle. I'm tempted to concrete the lot over or pave it for a maintenance free surface that I can use in any weather. It's only a small area anyway.

What's the best way to deal with this jungle right now? Spray it with weedkiller or slowly pull it all out by hand? I'm not looking forward to it......

Best answers:

• Why don't you smother the weeds out of existence?
  Put down one of those weedproof membranes (the thicker type). Alternatively, a low/no cost solution being to put down layers of newspaper and/or cardboard boxes.
  Once the "covering" has been down several months - then it will be much easier to just pull up those (by now) dead weeds.
  I would imagine it wouldn't take too much doing to do a couple of "asks" of a supermarket for cardboard boxes, put them down for few months, then remove and pull the weeds. After that, that shingle should re-emerge.
  You could keep any weeds that tried to re-emerge after that under control with natural methods like vinegar and/or salt.
  No point in thinking of turning it into one of those horrible concrete gardens - weeds have a tendency to pop up in the cracks in between those horrible paving stones anyway. Also...come the time you sell the house on, a garden as per original garden (or a "proper garden") will help sell the house on more readily than a concrete garden will.
• Or you could use a membrane called Terram, which weeds won't come through, and then spray later with glyphosate every 2 months or so in the growing season, because there will always be weeds in gravel after a few years once organic material (leaves etc) gets in, rots down and gives them nutrients.
  Terram is more expensive than ordinary woven polypropylene, like Phormisol or Mypex, but gravel is less likely to skate about on it. The latter are perfectly good though. What you had was probably spun-bonded stuff, which is what I'd use if just selling a property!
  As for using salt or vinegar, it's not a chip shop and glyphosate is a very safe weed killer if used correctly. With a backpack sprayer you'd do that area in about 5 minutes.
• Vinegar is frequently recommended as safe for killing weeds. There is quite a range of safe natural ways of killing weeds (even not including "Is it going to take that long to just pull them up manually?" method).
  Glyphosate, on the other hand, is a commercial weedkiller that lots of people won't use, due to suspicions its not as safe as the manufacturer tells us it is (well they would wouldn't they?).
  When I put some Mypex fabric down for a couple of months over weeds I found they were just pulling up no trouble at all afterwards.
• I have a small patch like this in the front of my house, there was initially a black sheeting then stones, i have added another layer of sheeting and stones on top but you still get weeds. I don't know if I can use weedkiller as there are other plants there that I want to keep, so I use a trowel to remove the weeds and drop the stones back into place. Although with a huge patch like that I would probably use weedkiller. or just dig everything up and put astroturf!
• Excellent advice all, thanks. I'll try covering it over and pulling it up. And I might add some vinegar or salt underneath the covering to really finish it off.
• i have the exact same thing in my back garden but it is such a huge area¬ its a complete nightmare and looks horrific! we often use the strimmer through the summer to cut the tall down and I have covered it in weedkiller numerous times but that doesn't seem to work! I might try the covering it with cardboard/membrane trick though...
• I do the newspaper trick. cardboard is probably better if the extra height is not an issue.
  I unfold the newspaper in the middle and put it down whole, A good 15 - 20 sheets thick and overlap them by at least 1/4.
  If its a bit windy, Just wet the paper slightly to stop it blowing away. Then i stuck weed barrier over the top. Then shingle on top of that..
  The only weeds so far are near the edges, I use salt for those.
  Biggest bag of the cheapest salt the shop sells.
• Please, please do not use salt or vinegar. Speaking as a biologist, they are not 'eco-friendly' whatsoever.
  Salt is incredibly toxic and will draw the water out of any living thing in your soil which does not have a waterproof membrane. So unless you want to annihilate everything...
• You might get the materials you need quicker if you ask local supermarkets for spare cardboard boxes.