The Start 3 years ago!!!

Well I start this with excitement knowing just how much improvement has been done in the last three years.  After leaving Melbourne when I was in year 9 with my parents after being born in the Angliss Hospital (10mins away from where I live now) way back in '76' to move up to country southern NSW. My parents bought a farm/apple stone fruit orchard, which I helped manage and run for  8 years when i finished year 12. It was here I found a real passion and love of gardening and horticulture. Working in the rambling gardens around our family home on the farm let me escape from the pressures of the day and working with the trees in the orchard was a pleasure. Learning how pruning and nurturing the fruit trees reaped rewards and fruit in spades. I quickly learnt you only get out of plants, fruit trees, farms and gardens what you put into them. Loads of hard work = loads of pleasure and enjoyment.

 The Cypress pines growing up drive

So back to now after getting married while visiting my sister in Sweden back in 2008. My wife and i still living in our separate share houses. Time for us to my our home. We found "our dream" an old house up in The Dandenongs. The garden was non existent. The front garden overgrown with blackberries, ivy, wondering dew, blue periwinkle (which I've never heard) more on that weed later!!!!

And the drive! We arrived with the removal truck, the drive was so closed in with the cypress pines growing up the side of the drive on the boundary the only way to get up was to bring out the saw and cut back the lower branches just to get up our drive!

The wall of weeds taking over the car parking area

Once in our home attention soon turned to the front garden which was literally over run with all manner of weeds imaginable. The parking/turning point below the house was only just usable. We needed to get rid of the weeds and reclaim our parking space.

Blackberries first growing up through and over trees & shrubs. I got my secateurs and started cutting.
Tracing the blackberry canes back to the ground, cutting at ground level and painting blackberry with pure Round Up/Garlon mix proved the most successful. (either a small spray bottle or an old boot polish plastic container with sponge applicator on end is best for cut and paint application.
The pile of black berries once I had chopped them all out was massive. I went and hired a mulcher and put them all through to make mulch from my pile of blackberries.

Getting there! Cutting out The Wall of Weeds

Getting rid of the pile of cut out blackberries

The Wall of blackberries

Then the ivy, and just generally a who's, who of weeds available in The Dandenongs. I mixed up a strong brew of round up. The weeds laughed and continued to grow. I needed something more serious  than common Round Up. I spoke to my father in law who is a dairy farmer heavily involved in Land care. The advice a mix of Garlon, Roundup and Pulse penetrate. 10mls of Garlon, 10 mls Roundup and 2mls of Pulse penetrate per litre of water. Instant success. I was finally winning the war on weeds on our block.  I know chemicals bad hand removal good. But living in the dandenongs unless you are a man of leisure and time is on your side and you have unlimited amounts of it, using chemicals to get the weeds under control is a MUST!  Once under control chemicals are not needed, hand removal is my preferred method of removal.

WOW all gone mulching the last of the blackberries