Gardening tips?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:09 pm

Well that's stretching it: my interest in planting stuff is limited to roses (pretty + a mild flavouring for tea) and poppies (I think we all know why).

In actual fact, this is about deforestation. The weeds in the back yard are nearly as tall as I am, and the grass could house a colony of midgets. Later today my Mum is visiting with a professional garden-slicer (this is beyond the field of lawnmowers). I want to know the best way to stop it coming back.

No, not a regular maintenance thing. I'm forgetful and lazy and even pushing a lawnmower takes its toll. Is there something readily available that will kill all the green stuff in the yard and stop more growing back? Preferably nothing that could then harm my dog though. Because he's dumb enough to eat grass in preference to his dog food.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:33 pm

Is there something readily available that will kill all the green stuff in the yard and stop more growing back?

The traditional answer is: get a good weed-whacker, gloves, boots and goggles. Spend a few days destroying the stuff. Then mow with a regular mower every couple of weeks. Unless you have a very large yard, and/or are physical handicapped, this is not terribly difficult or time-consuming and can be a decent workout. Even if you do have a big yard and/or a physical handicap, it's quite common and not really cost-prohibitive to hire someone to mow your lawn for you.

The chemical answer is: Round Up kills those plants you need killed and is mostly safe when used properly. However I would not recommend coating a large area where your family and pets may spend substantial time with that sort of herbicide.

Then there's also the urban renewal method which was attempted in some underprivileged neighborhoods around here some decades ago. It will stop green stuff from growing for several freeze/thaw cycles.

But more eco-friendly measures include sheep, goats, or other herbivorous pets.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:35 pm

Short of pouring concrete? Putting down some black plastic and covering the plastic with gravel might be your best bet. I wouldn't recommend regular weedkilling chemicals, especially if your dog eats the grass.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:49 pm

Putting down stone slabs should work fine. You will still get grass between the stones, but that should be manageable (especially with your dog helping).

No clue how expensive this would be though.

Edit: Bark mulch should work fine too, and would be a lot easier to work with. It's less of a permanent measure though.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:05 pm

Go Roman.

Burn them down, tear up the ground, and sow the ground with salt. Then put in a rock garden.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:05 pm

There's weed blocking cloth - use that instead of plastic. Water will pass through, growth won't be able to penetrate to sunlight.

Put perennials, rock, or bark atop it. Basically, the plants you do want get holes through the cloth. There are types of native grasses which only grow so high; when they're established densely, weeds cannot penetrate, either.

Don't use poisons. Ugh. Or plastic, it'll encourage bugs and puddles. And eventually, enough dust and stuff will gather that things you don't want to grow, will grow.

But a basic, electric weed-whacker only costs about $50.

-Crissa

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:17 pm

Crissa wrote:
Don't use poisons. Ugh.
-Crissa

I haven't ever had occasion to use the salt, but I have heard it's eco-friendly and it'll eventually settle or seep into the ground when it rains or gets watered. Either way it wouldn't be poisoning the water supply or fucking with the local wildlife (or, if it does, it wouldn't anywhere near the level most poisons do. I mean, most animals need sodium and the like.)

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:24 pm

Actually, salting the earth does appeal to me. Partly because I'm lazy and it sounds like a quick, easy and long-term solution. Partly because you just don't hear of people salting the earth these days.

And if I ever decide to actually start growing poppies (I haven't bothered because it takes a year for them to grow, whereas going to the chemist for some codeine takes 15 minutes), I'll do it in the front yard. So they won't be affected by the salt.

Thanks, I hadn't considered that option. It's brilliant.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:28 pm

Koumei wrote:Is there something readily available that will kill all the green stuff in the yard and stop more growing back?

Yeah. Cheap, white Vinagre. Find some way to spray it on the area in question, repeat over the next couple of days (for best results - you don't have to), wait until everything dies, and then get some of that yard fabric and put it down. Cover with something like sand or gravel (a zen garden might be kind of cool). If you have a pet, I don't recommend that horrible "beauty" bark stuff - the splinters are nasty, especially in pet hair.

My mom uses the vinagre method precisely because of her dogs. She actually spot-weeds that way - in her gravel, when a weed pops up, she just sprays it and picks up the corpus delicti a few days later. She hates gardening.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:47 pm

The green answer is to put in an actual garden.

Mulch those weeds, chip the soil, let it all dry out a bit, lay down old newspapers and cardboard (good and thick) instead of commercial weed mats then bury it all in mulch. Then plant REAL plants in your brand new rich garden bed to renew the mulch bed with leaf litter and further surpress weed growth.

Find a local nursery or garden center. One where they have a range of nice looking plants NOT one where all the plants are cheap commercial clones and half the plants are dying. Ask for advice about "low maintenance plants", if you are in Australia (I can never remember who is or isn't) plant grevilleas, or other tough plants that need little water and attention and grow to at least shrub sizes. Many of them also flower and act as habitat and food sources for birds.

But low maintenance is not NO maintenance. You MUST look after them, a bit, especially for the first few months with watering and on and off for the first couple of YEARS weeding occasionally and watering in hot spells.

Don't be worried if some things die. That just happens, replace them.

After about two years 'low maintenance' shrubs become just short of no maintenance, and a little bit of light weeding and a watering or two at the height of major droughts may well be all you ever have to do again.

Of course ultimately a really functional garden is a complex garden with lots of potential for labor involved. The best way to renew those mulch beds is to throw lawn clippings and green waste on it, and the best way to get that is to have other plants that produce it.

A good green permaculture vege garden is a great way to eat up back yard space, produce green waste for mulch, and produce vegetables that are far nicer than anything you can easily buy.

Another great lower maintenance ornamental option is to dig a hole in the ground (check for utilities first), line it with plastic and grow water lillies. Or you can put down some big ass cheap imported ceramic pots, plug the holes, fill them with water and grow water lillies in THOSE. You keep the pond full of water you mow around the edges, and you mess with the plants like once every two or three years, it isn't hard.

I AM a professional trained horticulturist of sorts, but as a specialist in the water plant field I can only really give you genuinely in depth advice about water lilies, and a cool place to buy them from if you are in Australia, (WA excepted).

But as someone who gardens full time I am hardly going to accept things like "but I can't get out and weed and water for half a damn hour a week for a measly couple of months" as acceptable either.

Now I'm off to suppress some weeds of my own. For a couple of hours. With a tractor.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:53 pm

Yeah, mulching is better, but unless you're willing to have some plants, fiber matting is slightly better than plain mulching, in that you don't need to recover it every other season but instead every two years.

But yeah, PL's got the best advice here.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:59 pm

PL: fuck the green answer. If it weren't for my dog, I'd have no qualms spraying it with irradiated Agent Orange. My main goal here is to assist my impatience and laziness.

But after this load, I'll give vinegar a shot. If that fails, I'll salt the earth.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:02 am

Koumei wrote:My main goal here is to assist my impatience and laziness.

Then the large patch of weeds is not a problem, but rather your preferred solution.

Weeds are organic, sustainable and a good habitat for wild animals.

And they are absolutely completely 100% zero maintenance.

And hell. It's not like a dog would prefer anything different.

So if you ARE a useless fucker who can't spend a minuscule hour or less a week on your garden you have the perfect solution staring you in the face.

And in that case why you want to go to all that work of tearing it up for no reason I cannot imagine.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:08 am

Hey, I was leaving them be quite happily. I tend to forget we even have a back yard, I go out the front for my exercise, where the walking actually leads to places. But apparently it looked really messy which would be a problem for all those people who don't visit (they don't not visit because of the garden, they don't visit because we never meet or invite people). The decision came from above.

So I have to fulfil the criteria of "Keep it from getting to eye-level" and also "minimum effort on my part" with a sub-clause of "keep the dog safe".

And I'm fine with you caring about the environment. I, however, don't. As an Australian, I accept that the entirety of nature is out to kill me, and only wish the same against them. Even carrying branches out to load onto the truck left me with weals and spots all over my hands and arms that are going to itch for days, no matter what I wash them with, the only relief being coating them in aloe vera gel and consuming vast amounts of codeine. These aren't even the stinging trees or anything, either.

So between that and the fact that I do all the cleaning, I have no intention of spending a moment longer than I have to (and sadly, that number isn't zero) on this. The first sacrifice to be made can be the environment and all those critters living out there. Indeed, if it kills the bees off, I will consider it to be an actual good thing.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:36 am

Environmentally unsafe things will kill all the green in your yard.

Opium (poppies) are illegal to grow without a license, so don't get caught.

Ladybugs are good for roses. They eat the spider mites that destroy and lay eggs in the roses to kill them.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:37 am

Meh, I was actually going to suggest salting the earth before I saw others do the same. It's not like it will devastate the environment, and it's actually probably a lot less harmful than pretty much any chemical.

So, yeah.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:41 am

Murtak wrote:Putting down stone slabs should work fine.

Just beware that there is actually some work beyond just buying stones and laying them on the ground. If you do that they are likely to lay unevenly (and likely get more uneven over time) and not really look too appealing and just wind up tripping people/stubbing toes, and if you're really, really lucky, destroying a lawnmower blade and sending rock shards into body parts, possibly piercing an artery and killing you!
(you may also be fatally struck by a meteorite, equally probable I imagine) =-D

Anywho, next summer I plan to do some sort of paving to create a small patio/grilling area in my back yard, so I had been looking at a landscaping book full of ideas and how-to's. I still haven't decided if I will pour concrete or do paving bricks or stones.

As I understand it, the prep-work is to cut out the grass and a bit of earth matching where the stone will lie (you can kill the grass by laying the stone on top for a few days, and it makes a nice outline for where to cut). Then put a bit of sand to level it off such that you can lay the stone atop evenly and it will be flush with the ground. I don't remember the recommended depths of stuff off the top of my head.

While that kind of project only takes a solid weekend of work, it is work and it does cost money. Almost certainly not the route Koumei seems to be aiming for.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 5:33 am

Koumei wrote:I, however, don't. As an Australian, I accept that the entirety of nature is out to kill me, and only wish the same against them.

Har har. No. Not allowed to joke. Fuck you.

As an Australian you should be ESPECIALLY concerned about the environment.

This is an especially fragile continent and if you fucking literally salt the earth around here your block and possibly your neighbors blocks will not grow anything for decades if not longer, even WITH extensive treatment of the problem you STUPIDLY want to cause.

Same goes for ridiculous chemical applications. And even cement slabs.

In Australia in some regions a cement slab IS the same as salting the earth since our water table and salinity issues mean that if you don't grow SOMETHING in your back yard, preferable some form of TREES you contribute to a problem where your local water table will eventually rise up and salt your earth for you. Or salt the earth for blocks around. Or randomly rise up and salt the earth of the guy three doors down, but not salt yours.

I'm a god damn professional horticulturist. I am also an environmentalist. I've been pulling my fucking weight planting trees and growing things since before I can remember.

GROW THE FUCK UP and start pulling your weight for the environment and society. PLANT A FUCKING TREE and take a TINY amount of time out of your surely vital 24 hour daily work saving humanity or whatever deeply important thing that has been keeping you from this task in order to keep the thing alive.

Put in a pond, save the frogs, feed some birds, provide habitat for some wildlife and most of all GROW STUFF AND DON'T POISON OUR CONTINENT YOU STUPID FUCKER.

edit: wtf...

Indeed, if it kills the bees off

I should kick your ass just for that. Do you even understand the current bee situation? Do you even know what is going on outside your own tiny world.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:01 am

Obviously, PL, she doesn't give a shit.

So fuck off.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:12 am

Oh gee "doesn't give a shit so its OK to poison your neighbours garden, your neighbours, and their kids".

No.

You fuck off.

Social fucking responsibility. Accept it or go and live somewhere without it. Where people hack you up with machetes for a laugh.

Because they don't give a shit. So its OK.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:29 am

PL, there's a really trite saying that applies here... so trite I can't bring myself to quote it verbatim.

But, do you really fucking think anyone is going to listen to you when you're presenting your argument the way you are?

Far be it from me to criticize on account of some foul language, but shouting at people, calling them idiots, cursing them out, and all the rest will not get anyone to listen to you, least of all pretty much anyone here.

It's fucking obnoxious.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:34 am

It is pretty easy to choose shorter grasses to hold the turf and absorb stormwater. PL's a bit tough about it, I'm an apartment dweller right now, so I don't really get to choose the majority of my plants, and just deal with the fact that the 6' square of turf I have is really just designed to absorb the water that comes off the roof.

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:36 am

There is an ignore feature someone on this forum that works wonders because I cannot even see what this person PL is even talking about.

You have added this person to your Ignore List.

It works wonders for saving time reading threads.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:44 am

shadzar wrote:There is an ignore feature someone on this forum that works wonders because I cannot even see what this person PL is even talking about.

You have added this person to your Ignore List.
It works wonders for saving time reading threads.

Yeah but he occasionally says something worthwhile.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:52 am

Prak_Anima wrote:PL, there's a really trite saying that applies here...

Gardening and environmentalism IS a life or death issue you drooling moron.

This dumb kid CAN seriously go buy herbicides and pesticides that will KILL PEOPLE. And not even indirectly in some vague future dooms day scenario but rather through immediate and direct application. And in really, REALLY hideous painful and drawn out incurable ways.

Not to mention the quality of life issues if she just 'accidentally' kills her neighbors garden and makes it unable to be restored without a small fortune in toxic soil removal and replacement.

Or the impacts if she goes and does her pesticides thing like she wants to and kills say, every single fish in the local water cachment overnight. You know the bee thing? Yeah. It sucks that all the other continents are losing their bees, because of morons like you enjoy your world without any honey and with mass flowering plant extinctions, dumb ass.

These things happen. They are real you are a fundamentally bad individual who should be imprisoned if you actively encourage them.

If you own or control land use you have a responsibility to NOT abuse that land. A responsibility to the entirety of society.

If you can't handle that you are a FUCKING CHILD. Grow up and don't be a fundamentally evil parasite on the environment and human society both.