Letting the lawn grow wild, but how do I prevent trees from growing there
Hello, two years ago we moved to a house with a huge clean lawn, which we literaly hate. Our goal is to replace grass with other plants as much as possible, but because the lawn is way too big to be taken care of totally, the solution for most of it is to let it grow wild (this means, no mowing).
Now we've noticed that a lot of trees are growing in some areas. Some patches of grass are covered with baby trees, most of which we cannot leave in place because they are too close to our neighbours or under public electric wires or too close to the paths.
How do you deal with those when you stop mowing? We tried removing some by hands (plucking) but they're not easy to remove like so. Can we just cut them with pruning shears, should be mow (I read once that mowing every two or three years was the way to go to prevent trees to grow, anyone tested it?) Other (tested) ideas? Thank you!
(Edit: reaction to the auto-mod. I live in central Europe but I don't think it impacts available solutions for this problem. Additional information: trees growing in our garden are either from our grown-up trees or neighbours', removing grown-ups is not desired, we like trees, just in a manageable number)