Taking Back the Land: How I Reclaimed a Neglected Yard (Without Drama)
- nvilu7
- Mar 31
- 8 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
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I had pushed my urban garden as far as it would go and I wanted more. One of the biggest reasons for buying a single family home was to get a yard where I could garden. My new home’s yard was in abysmal shape but had fabulous garden potential. Here’s how I started to claw the yard back from decades of neglect.
The Front Yard Was Full of Expensive Problems
My neglected little ranch house was well-placed in the center of a fairly flat lot, with about equal space in the front and back yards for gardening.
However, the yard was a horticultural train wreck, a victim of decades of bad decisions and indifference, with what I came to think of as “no one gives a fuck” style.
The grass had surrendered to weeds. The biggest tree on the property in the center of the front yard had an 8’ x 10’ mass of English Ivy growing underneath that was over four feet high and rapidly climbing up the tree, intent on murdering it.
The English Hawthorn tree at the bottom of the driveway had grown around the utility lines. There were four large trees planted in the front yard within 10 feet of the house, their roots threatening the foundation. In addition to the foundation- and utility line-killers, the front yard also held three more large trees (all over 30 feet tall) and two small, sickly fruit trees.
That’s a lot of trees, especially around a less than 1000-square-foot house.
In addition, there were two huge tree stumps less than five feet from the front door. The stump closest to the driveway tripped up every delivery guy—and me—if I wasn’t paying careful attention.
The only landscaping that looked deliberate was a scruffy spotted laurel shrub trimmed into a huge ball, planted right in front of the bedroom windows, blocking all sunlight from entering that room.
The landscaping that drove the home inspector the craziest were the brick planters built on the house’s front porch. They had recently been filled with soil and planted with a flowering annual. Because the plants were under the porch roof, they received no sun and had died.
The inspector couldn’t believe that the previous owners had deliberately done something so dumb. It wasn’t the dying plants that pissed him off, though. It was the fact that the owners were pouring water into what was essentially a trough next to the house, where the water could sit, freeze in the winter, and crack the walls and foundation.
The Backyard Wasn't Much Better
The back yard backed up to the featureless, beige-siding-covered back wall of a 7-11.
Weirdly, when combined with the 6-foot-tall fences that ran from the 7-11 to the house on either side, the back yard felt like a large, serene outdoor room.
Planted in the deep shade against the 7-11 wall were four very unhappy, balding camellia shrubs.
The back yard also included a partially uprooted tree leaning against the fence, a lot more English Ivy, three diseased fruit trees, a stand of a dozen saplings, and a healthy crop of Himalayan Blackberry. There were two random plantings in the middle of the yard, one a mystery shrub and the other a single flowering plant I finally identified as Liriope.
It was clear I had my hands full.
What Needed Immediate Attention—and What Could Wait
Immediate Priorities
My first priority was to get the house renovated enough to make it safe and comfortable for a late Fall move-in, which left me with no time for yardwork. I decided to focus my efforts on getting the yard somewhat presentable and making a few short-term fixes:
Cut out the hawthorn branches currently threatening the utility lines
Cut down the front ivy and get it the hell off the tree
Remove the awful, terrible laurel and replace it
Remove the leaning Chinese elm tree in the back before the fence collapsed
Remove the sick fruit trees and the forest of Chinese elm saplings in the back yard
Remove the dead plants and soil from the brick plant beds and replace them with…something that didn’t require water
I wasn’t worried about the lawn’s grass/weeds. It was September and the grass was dead due to not being watered, so I had a respite from making that decision until spring.
None of these fixes were exciting. None of them made the yard more beautiful. But sometimes the best thing you can do is simply make something less dysfunctional.
Long-Term Objectives
Of course, virtually anything I did short of setting the yard on fire would be an improvement.
That said, my long-term tasks were:
Remove the trees on the property that threatened the utility lines and the house’s foundation
Grind out the enormous stumps in front of the house to remove a tripping hazard and make way for landscape plants
Put the poor sick pear trees out of their misery
Remove some or all of the remaining Chinese elms depending on how problematic they turned out to be
Plant a formal garden in the front yard composed of flowering perennials and annuals so I could once again have floral bouquets throughout the house in the summer
Plant vegetable and flower gardens in the back yard and set up the patio for relaxing and entertaining
I resolved to start executing my long-term plan in the spring. Based on my experience with my yard in Pittsburgh, I knew I could do it, but I also knew how tough it would be.
Would it be worth it? Growing flowers to display in my new home? Eating vegetables I grew myself? Having an outdoor oasis to relax and entertain in?
Hell, yes.
But first, I needed someone who owned way more landscaping equipment than I did.
Yard Reno: Round One (AKA Controlled Chaos)
Wanting to stay focused on the house renovation, I asked my awesome real estate agent for a referral for a landscaper. He introduced me to Tom, who met me at the house to view the property two days before closing.
Tom and his team’s primary role was to chop back the overgrowth, remove the uprooted tree in the back and the spotted laurel in the front, and replace the laurel with the dwarf Oak Leaf Hydrangeas growing in pots on my condo porch.
Tom agreed to be at the house with his crew the Friday after I closed on the house.
The Friday after close, Tom and his crew didn’t show.
Two weeks passed. While in my condo, the team working at the house called me to let me know Tom and his crew had shown up.
I was pissed, of course, but during the drive to the house, practicality won out over fury.
I hadn’t found anyone else to do the job other than Tom, and I needed to get a head start on getting the overgrowth under control before the Fall rains started.
Now was not the time to teach Tom a lesson and fire him on the spot. I would use his services for the day, pay him, and hire someone more reliable in the spring.
Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth because finishing today's work matters more than winning today's argument.
I swallowed my pride and gave Tom my to-do list.
Tom and his team seemed to have a complete disregard for safety.
His team started swarming the hawthorn tree with ladders and hand saws. Despite the wicked thorns, they wore no protective gear. Tom pulled a chain saw from the depths of his truck and disappeared into the back yard to cut down the leaning tree and the fruit trees.
A few minutes later, I heard the chain saw’s whine and trotted to the back. Tom had no safety gear, either, but he had already cut down the leaning tree and was working on the sad fruit trees.
I went back to the front yard. Since the crew had cutting equipment out and warmed up, I asked them to take out the spotted laurel and the mystery plants next.
The crew cut down the laurels and dug out as much of the root system as they could. I pointed out the potted Oak Leaf Hydrangeas I had brought over from my condo and the crew set to it.
I trotted to the back yard. The leaning tree and the fruit trees were down and cut into logs to take away. Tom was walking among the stand of Chinese elm saplings, swinging the chain saw to take down the biggest ones. He called to me to ask me to send the crew to the back. I hurried to the front yard to do Tom’s bidding.
The crew went to the back. Saws in hand, they swarmed the remaining saplings. It did my heart good to see them level that skanky mini-forest.
Next, the crew took the logs and tree debris out of the back and threw everything in their truck. I went in the back yard. It still looked bad, but now it was just a square of dying grass, weeds, sapling stumps, and one forlorn Chinese elm tree.
Progress.
One ugly problem remained—the giant piles of Rank C nuisance English Ivy. Tom and the crew put away their saws and loppers and pulled machetes out of the truck.
I liked the idea of tackling the ivy with machetes. It just seemed appropriate. Very Kill Bill.
Not surprisingly, the ivy took the longest to remove because there was so much of it. The biggest challenge was ripping the ivy off the tree itself. The team persevered and got the ivy hacked down to a 1 foot height.
Ivy grows fast, but the dry summer heat would slow it down, and the winter would turn it dormant. I would figure out a permanent solution in the spring.
The only item left on the list was the built-in planters. I decided to take that on myself in the next weekend or two.
By the end of the day, the yard’s most obvious signs of neglect were gone. The utility line was no longer threatened by 3-inch thorns. The back fence was still standing. All in all, a good day. I paid Tom and waved good-bye as he and his crew drove away, weapons, logs, and dead ivy on board.
Two days later, I stopped at the house to admire my transplanted hydrangeas and found that they didn’t make it.
I kicked myself for not supervising the crew more closely. I found the “empty” pots in the back yard, each with a substantial set of roots still in the pot. Sigh. Having no watering equipment as yet, I watered both plants using a bucket I found in the garage in the hope that they would revive.
The following day I went back to the house to find them deader than the day before. So, I made a trip to one of my favorite plant centers, selected two three-year-old Oak Leaf Hydrangea plants, and arranged for them to be delivered and planted because 1) they were having a promotion, and 2) I couldn’t fit them in my car to get them home.
Over the next few days I dug up the dead hydrangeas and gave them a decent burial in the yard waste recycling bin. I’d have the new ones planted next week.
Onward and upward.
Tools I Use to Tackle an Overgrown Yard
Safety Gear
Everyday work gloves
Safety work gloves
Safety glasses (please don't be Tom)
Tree and Brush Removal
Heavy-duty pruning loppers
Folding pruning saw
Shovels & digging tools:
Mattock (for roots and stubborn plants)
Next Up
In Part 2, I clear the front planter beds and discover the hidden menace in my yard.
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