I would mow it and deal with it next year. When I moved to this house it had been owned by someone who mowed everything for 2 years. I was pleasantly surprised the first spring I lived here to find lots of flowers survived the mowing.

These can't be mowed. It has paver stones around it and these things are big on the side of the house they are taller than 5ft, not sure if they will be sunflowers or not.

Boiling water.

I will be trying the boiling hot water tonight.

It's a shame to kill it off, since it looks like you have some pretty flowers there. But if I had to do it, I would go at it with a weed wacker, then cover with black plastic - that should kill everything. Or weed wack it, then cover with thick layers of newspaper, water the newspaper to flatten it, then cover with mulch. Cardboard also works in place of newspaper.

I'm guessing that tall thing in the first picture is a sapling from a nuisance tree. You might need a good gardening lopper to take it down.

I'd weed whack it but leave the rose...it won't bother you or anything else.

Are there some good bones in there. Always seems a shame when I see people tear out mature plants because they don't know what they are and don't know what they are doing. My neighbor had her landscaping all grown up and no one had done a thing with it and she was going to cut it all down and I told her "NO DON'T DO THAT, I'LL MAKE IT LOOK NICE" and in two hours I had the whole front of the house trimmed and weeded.

I've bought houses where the landscaping really didn't speak to me. You can accomplish a lot with the lopers. Weeds and annuals get pulled out by hand. Plants with deeper roots, bulbs and rhizomes has to be dug out. I don't use roundup or salt. I will occasionally run water through my coffee maker and use that instead of chemicals

You might want to take this question to the Landscape Design Forum.

You may find you don't mind the look so much if you price out what it would cost to have to replace some of those plants. I hate to see a garden destroyed, esp when it's full of plants that are successful where they are despite however much neglect. It's a sign that something is being done right. If you spent half the time in weeding what's there that you would in trying to destroy it, you'd probably be very surprised at the results. And when you do have the time and ability to deal with it, say with a landscaper, they'd be able to move and reuse many of the existing plants which will save you some $.

I'm a gardener, and I'd try to save or give away the plants, except for this one:

I really hope you listen to arkansas girl, annie d, and mama goose. I think you'd be pretty pleased with it once you weeded and pulled the small sapling and all those cleome. It'd be tamed in no time and your house would look nice. I understand if you don't want to, but maybe you could try it and if it still isn't want you want, then go the craigslist way or kill it? Just a suggestion.

Can you rent some goats? (That's a real thing. However, I understand the males are pretty smelly.) Or invite some deer in?

Looks like you have some lawn there. Mow the lawn, forget the rest until you can deal with it. Don't use Roundup.

How about get a yard crew in once to tidy up?

Skip the boiling water and weed whack it down.

I'd ask the neighbors if they'd like to adopt them, tell them to dig them up if they do.

Cut it all really short. It won't kill everything, but it will be a good start.

Do you think hydrangeas will do well there in that spot? I think most of what you're wanting to get rid of is full sun type plants. I think hydrangeas like afternoon shade.

So now that we've established that you will not use any existing plants and are determined that you will redo the entire landscaping, this is my suggestion: Don't bother boiling water, this will take forever and a pot of boiling water will maybe kill one square foot. Whatever you do, do not use vinegar and/or salt because that will render the soil toxic to anything new you want to plant!!!!! This is what I highly suggest to tide you over until after the renovation of the inside of the house: Rather than making it look even worse by chopping or digging everything right now when you don't have any time. Just work around the large establish plants and leave those alone other than to maybe trim them to a shape. Cut down any errant saplings because you don't want those growing near you home and damaging your foundation. Then just weed eat around the large plants and pull out weeds, if you cannot pull, just cut them to the ground. Then mow the yard and weed eat around the place that needs it and edge around the sidewalks. This will get you through until you can concentrate on the real job of redoing the entire landscaping. This should take maybe a day's worth of work to get it looking nice to tide you over. Much less time than boiling water for days.

If you want it gone, I'd cut it short, layer newspaper and cardboard over that, then some mulch, and leave it until you are ready to work on it.

If you really want to destroy the garden, just keep it mowed. Most garden plants will eventually die off if their tops are kept cut off, whereas grasses will continue to survive. Grasses are designed differently seemingly made for grazing. The growth cells of a grass are at the bottom end of a leaf and not at the top end as many other plants are.

Think twice before hacking everything away. There seems to be a nice selection of plants in some of the borders.

Too bad that we are all so far away. I, for one, would like to come and help you. A challenge like this is a good thing!

I am not sure but we planted a fig tree that had leaves like that ...it did not survive the second winter for us but plan on trying again.

My guess would be a sassafras sapling. But I'm no expert.

Photo of sassafras leaf

Just wanted to add: a great tool to use when you are digging up tree stumps is a corded Sawzall saw with a pruning blade on it. I have one made by Milwaukee and it is light weight enough for me to handle, but powerful enough to cut through roots and large branches.

I think calflowerluver's above post has your solution!

looks like a fig to me, too. You can post your pic on the "Name that Plant" forum and they'll tell you for sure. That and any other plant you may wonder about. It's really hard for me as a gardener to see all those nice plants destroyed when someone likely would have loved to have had them, just for the cost of digging them up. It's a shame, really.

Name That Plant!

yep i agree olychick...just looked at plants at the nursery the other day and holy moly the prices! i estimate i have about $50,000 worth of plants in my yard....hahaha!