The before picture, overgrown nettles and elderberry bushes.

Ouch! I don't care that people say just grasp hold, they still blooming sting!

I saw the second picture first - now I can see what a job it was!

Oooh yes...eek!

lol OH stayed well clear he hates nettles. Keep telling him he is a scaredy cat, but I did wear big thick gloves and they still stung through the fingers. :o(

Yes, they can get through quite a thick protective layer.

That is some job Olive.

Hi Linda...I feel an urge to tell you... My Mum's real name is Barbara! Lol!

Stinging nettles can burst balloons, Barbara - they are like hypodermics!

lol all stings have gone now, think the ants had a field day on me when I disturbed them too. Just hope it stays like this now. Walter dog can see the driveway from behind the greenhouse he sat there yesterday waiting for me to return from shopping just watching and waiting. ah!

So pleased to see someone else has overgrown areas & not just me, lol. I never knew that nettles could grow to 12'high!
A lady I knew once used to pull them all by hand for the compost heap, she'd pulled that many over the years she said they never bothered her now & that they had been good for her arthritis.
I put the Wolf gloves on as I'm a wuss.

Think you get better at grabbing them and pulling them, the only problem I found is if they are tall and you pull them from the base they bash you on the face and that is not nice. Have learned to take the tops out of the tall ones so they cannot get at me lol. I do wear gloves too but they get through the darned webbing somehow.
It's good to have an area with overgrown patch as the wildlife love it, this was just a tad too overgrown. I have wildlife area up by my fishpond with lots of nettles and weeds, even that gets a tidy up once a year though. The frogs and toads like a bit of growth to sit in. I shall try to keep the nettles here under control. I left them originally for the butterflies to lay eggs on but they never used them and so they just had to go.

My 12ft nettles along with brambles come from the farmers field side of the dividing hedge so there is plenty for the butterflies not that I've seen many this year. The nettles stick up above the hedge.

sounds like my drive/lane side - waiting for my farmer neighbour to come and chop them back with his machine that he does the hedgerows with, it will be better for driving up then. It's something we have to learn to live with being out in the countryside, just hard work keeping them under control at times. lol. We have had lots of butterflies this year - nearly all peacocks but have counted 13 different species visiting at one time or another, we are very lucky to see so many though because lots of people are saying they are not seeing many this year. One of the big bonuses of having trees all around us I suppose.

Yep, you are so right - it is hard work keeping it under control & I'm failing to do that. Being uphill it's way over my head & just too physical for me.
I'd love for it to be like Karen's but that would require a man with a chain saw, I think.