We have been traveling for 9 1/2 months and this was what our patio looked like when we arrived home. We had a volunteer sweet potato vine attempt to overrun it. We carefully dig our sweet potatoes every year, yet they always come back ever though we have never planted them after that first year.
The back yard area has thick layer of wood chip mulch. We have a drip irrigation system back here that only supplies a small amount of water directly to the planting we put in. The bad thing is it going to take some work to clean it all up. The good thing is we will get some serious exercise cleaning it up. Sometime in the future I’ll have to do a before and after post. It really is very pretty when all the plants are growing and the birds are coming to our five bird baths. The overturned clay pots cover the drip irrigation manifolds.
That’s quite a mess. Good luck. Personally, if I were going to be away from the house for that length of time, I would hire someone to come in on a bi-weekly basis to control things like this and to keep an eye on the property which is my investment. Anyway, here’s hoping nothing else got out of hand. Better check the gutters and the roof while you’re at it. Good luck.