My front yard

What is your climate like? Is it mulched?

Till in a couple inches of seasoned cow manure, then seed or sod. Happy lawn!

Watch out, Van. Those snakes hibernate in the winter—under rocks and debris and under steps and inside your foundation! But almost any you have will probably be non-toxic.

Takele one space at the time, starting with the entrance you use the most, or the front yard, or the smallest yard. But choose!

Begin with an ax and a rake. Use the ax to chop off both showing ends to roots, cutting out the middle. More of the roots may come out if you pull really hard on the roots to expose more from underground. Cut them off as far as you can see. Then rake the part of the yard you are working on. Rake leaves, weeds, roots, old plants, pots, loose bricks, bric-a-brac, etc. Okay, You might want to save whole bricks, but nothing else. Use doubled up black trash bags to shovel all the trash in. Then use the shovel to pry up and remove the bricks and pieces that are imbedded in the ground. Stack the good bricks; discard the rest.

Once the yard is clear, draw a design for what you want this yard to be. Where do you want the walkway to be? Can you afford the have a concrete walk? Do you want to blend old and new bricks? Would a boardwalk be more practical? Do you need to attach the walk to a ramp, a set of steps, a sidewalk? When you have the walk sorted out, decide if you want to plant any small trees or shrubs. Draw them into your plan, as well as a three foot border in front of you want to have a flowerbed in front of the shrubs. If you have any yard left, do you want to plant grass seed, did, leave it basically bare, use artificial grass, or some other idea? Do you want to add more shrubs, flowerbeds, plant racks, yard art, or something else creative? Do you need to have any overhead trees cut back, steps rebuilt, or plumbing repaired?

When you have taken all these steps to design this yard, you have two options. You can start cleaning out the next yard, and making detailed plans. Or you can start the reconstructive work on the first. Whichever you use, best wishes to you. ☺️

Are the trees that belong to the roots still alive in the yard? If you cut out all the exposed roots, you are taking away the only way that they will get nutrition and moisture and if they become unhealthy, they will get bugs, infections or even diseases that may kill them. I would talk to an arborist before you cut off roots. You may have to work around them. Clean up the yard, check out what you can do with the roots, then you can plan out what you want to do a bit easier.

I had a garden that looked like that. I added about 3 inches of mulch and it looked fantastic. Easiest thing to do and a lot less time consuming. Also, this time of year there are lots of sales on mulch. Good Luck!

The roots belong to a tree that is very much alive, i'm surrounded by trees . I thought about soil,mulch ,and concrete around the area ,or just maybe in the front walk area and make a little garden area .

Something I'm working on this summer is just cleaning up the garden areas (and I use the term "garden" loosely, lol). It is making a big difference to clear out leaves, sticks, old growth etc. It looks a lot better already! Perhaps having a goal to get your yard all cleaned up later this year will give you some ideas as to what to do with it.

If you have trouble growing grass, get some local advice on what kinds of groundcover would be a good match for you, and use some evergreen and deciduous foundation shrubs.

You could add a cement slab in the front area by the stairs and ramp (removing the walkway bricks). Clean and paint/stain the ramp and all rails the same color.