How to Clear Overgrown Easement Land Behind Your Fence

When You Own the Land… but Can’t Get a Machine to It

We recently got a call from a homeowner — we’ll call her Lisa — who had a problem a lot of folks don’t think about until it’s out of control.

Behind Lisa’s backyard picket fence, she still owned a strip of land with an easement on it. A little rocky creek cut through the middle, there was an old wooden bridge falling apart, steep slopes down to the water, and thick weeds everywhere. On paper, it was her property. In reality, it was a jungle she couldn’t reach with a mower, and no brush machines could fit through her fences or the neighbors’ yards.

Her question to us was simple: “How do I clear and maintain this overgrown easement behind my fence if machines can’t reach it?”

Here’s how we think through situations like Lisa’s, and how you can tackle a similar easement on your property without breaking the bank.

Step 1: Map the Area and Understand the Easement

On the phone, we walked Lisa through a quick “mental map” of her backyard: house, lawn, back fence, steep bank, creek, and the land on the far side. That simple exercise helps us and the homeowner see what we’re really dealing with.

Before you do anything, take a few minutes to:

• Sketch the layout – House, fence line, slopes, creek, bridge, trees, and any access points.
• Confirm the easement details – Check your survey or closing documents to see who has rights to use the area (utilities, city, HOA) and whether there are restrictions on clearing or spraying.
• Note the hazards – Rotten bridges, loose rocks, very steep banks, or unstable soil all affect what’s safe to do by hand.

Understanding the easement is important because sometimes there are rules about what vegetation must stay (especially near streams) and what’s okay to remove.

Step 2: Ask the Big Question – Can We Create Access?

In Lisa’s case, every side of the yard was fenced or blocked by neighbors’ new grass. No one wanted machines driving through, and the gates were too narrow for equipment.

Whenever we look at a tough-access project, we like to start with a big-picture question: “Is there any way to temporarily create access for a small machine?”

That might mean:

• Temporarily removing part of a fence to create a 5.5–6 foot opening.
• Using protective mats across turf
• Coordinating with a neighbor if their yard is the only realistic path in.

Why do we push this idea? Because hand-clearing is often 10 times the labor of using a machine. If we can remove and then repair a section of fence for, say, a few hundred dollars, it can easily save a homeowner thousands in manual labor costs.

For Lisa, every possible route was blocked by fences and fresh landscaping, and she didn’t want to open up her ornamental fence. So we moved to “Plan B.”

Step 3: When Machines Can’t Reach It – Hand-Clearing Strategy

Once we know there’s truly no machine access, we shift to a careful, staged manual approach. That usually includes:

• Safety first – Stabilize or avoid rotten bridges, use good footwear on rocky slopes, and consider simple handrails or ropes on very steep banks.
• Start at the top and work down – Clear from your fence line toward the creek so debris doesn’t fall on you while you work.
• Use the right tools – Hand-held brush cutters, loppers, pruning saws, and string trimmers with brush blades are our go-tos in tight, steep areas.

For a homeowner, this might be a DIY weekend project in small sections, or something you hire out to a crew that’s comfortable working by hand on slopes.

Step 4: Think Long-Term Maintenance Before You Start

During our conversation with Lisa, we were honest: one heavy, one-time cleanup is only half the battle. The real savings come from how you maintain that easement afterward so it never gets that bad again.

Here are a few maintenance options we often discuss:

• Targeted herbicide treatments – Once the area is cleared, a quick professional spray once or twice a year can keep regrowth in check. It’s usually the cheapest long-term option, but you need to be mindful around creeks, pets, and any local regulations.
• Physical weed barriers – In one project we did, the homeowner had us clear the area and then install landscape fabric with a layer of mulch or stone on top. That helped dramatically reduce new weeds, especially away from the actual waterline.
• Grazing animals (where allowed) – In some rural areas, people bring in goats for periodic vegetation control. It’s not a manicured look and HOA rules or city ordinances may forbid it, but it can work as a maintenance tool on certain properties.

With any of these, the goal is simple: once the hard work of clearing is done, you don’t want to repeat that level of effort every couple of years.

Step 5: Protecting Creeks and Staying Within the Rules

Because Lisa’s overgrown area ran along a creek, we talked about being careful with anything that might wash into the water. That’s important on any easement with a ditch, stream, or drainage swale.

We typically suggest homeowners:

• Check HOA and city rules before using chemicals or doing major grading in easement areas.
• Use stream-safe practices – keep soil from eroding into the creek and avoid heavy disturbance of roots that are stabilizing the bank.
• Tell contractors about the easement so they don’t accidentally violate utility or drainage requirements while working.

Bringing It All Together

In the end, Lisa realized she had two main paths: open her fence to get equipment in for a faster, cheaper mechanical clear-out, or pay more for careful hand-clearing and then stay on top of maintenance with limited access.

If you’re staring at an overgrown strip of easement land behind your fence, the process is similar: map it, ask if access can be created, plan a realistic hand-clearing approach if needed, and then commit to a simple maintenance plan so you don’t end up back at square one.

And if you’re not sure what’s possible on your particular property, we’re always happy to talk it through, think outside the box with you, and help you find the most cost-effective, safe way to get that forgotten corner under control.