I was just taking a close, long look at our garden. We have a large 25 X 12 veggie garden that I keep relatively clean of weeds as I see fit. Basically I am in the garden everyday to grab a Zucchini, or a pepper or something…and when I spot a weed I snatch it up and chuck it into the woods. However, I also have a wildflower garden in the front of the house that has our bird feeders in the middle of it…This I do not weed at all I let go wild. We have a wide array of flowers in there that provide cover for the birds feeding on the feeders.
How about you? Do you have a pristine garden or do you let it go wild America*
*Or U.K., or whatever country you are in… don’t want to leave anyone out.
My “garden” is an urban wildlife preserve. We have a small walled-in patch of ground which has been left to run wild - there are 6’ high nettles down at the bottom of the patch and most of it is covered with brambles so if we ever get enough sun this summer, I will have a bumper crop of blackberries.
There was a lilac tree at the far end but our neighbour wanted to remove it as the roots were coming up through his path so when he came to ask if we were happy with that idea, we said yes. So now there’s no tree but you can see the state of the fence panels at the far end on that side.
We never bothered to do anything with the garden because we have been slowly doing house improvements. Unfortunately, looking at the state of the house and realising which order I want to do things, I think the exterior may have to be next. Part of that involves redeveloping the garden so we can have a very small conservatory to incorporate the outside door to the understairs storage - this will then be inside the house rather than outside. It will allow us somewhere to store the huge collection of power tools 'im indoors has gathered, and also give us a finish for the area outside the back door. After that, we need to clear the ground for a patio and then decide what to do with the rest.
Our garden is in the middle. We weed here and there but not too much.
My personal belief is that a pristine garden is bad, bad water retention and bad for soil texture.
Too many weeds is bad as well. They compete for nutrients.
I seem to recall that there are gardening methods that encourage letting a certian amount of weeds grow.
The weeds, the weeds… The only good thing about dry, hot summer weather is that the weeds, too, start to droop, and become easier to pull. I won’t use sprays on them, other than vinegar or boiling water.
Attractive weeds, however, I consider “wildflowers”, and tend to let be. I do like to let parts of the yard just be, as I’m sure the butterflies and bees and other critters of the wild have a need for them.
For those of you on the “wilder” side of gardening, Noah’s Garden is a GREAT book. It does get somewhat preachy about environmentalism at points. But it is very informative on how to have a “wild” garden that is very pleasing to the eye, and wildlife.
Heh, Kal, here’s ours. There’s some nice flowers down there somewhere but it’s pretty ratty up high. We were right in the middle of all the Texas rain, 45 days out of 60. Now the temp’s about hades-seven to hades-eight and the only break from the humidity comes from the wing beats of mosquitos. I’m supposed to work in the yard when?
Really? That won’t result in more weeds when you add the compost to the soil?
We have a few weeds in the vegetable garden. We put some Preen down and except for some crab grass, it’s been pretty clean. The flower bed has landscape fabric and bark, so no weeds there.
I don’t mind a few weeds, the short kind, but around here, some varieties get really tall and ugly, and are hard to get rid of. I have a phobia about thistles.
Depends how hot your compost pile is. If you do “hot” compost, it will kill the seeds – if you do a more leisurely, cooler compost pile – yeah, probably a bad idea.
May have mentioned it in a thread or two lately. Mine looks like a garbage dump and I have little more than weeds. I’m proud to announce, however, that all weeds over 4 feet tall have been eradicated.
Ok fine if I must be honest, I try and do a hot compost, turning it every other day. But the compost pile is 100 feet away…the woods is 10 feet away. I’m lazy most days when I get home. So I throw them in the woods. Plus, the compost heap is getting quite full. It’ll be great for next year. Sometimes I think I compost too much. We have a compost trash can with a heavy lid next to our normal trash can. I dump it once a week.
Hmmm…more wild America, I think. I don’t do outside gardening. I do container gardening. That looks nice…but outside, it’s all I can do to keep up with the mowing and try to knock down some of the more aggressive weeds within the fenced yard.
Right now, I have Virginia creeper, lantana and poison ivy growing over and through the fence, and Brazilian pepper and Florida holly growing behind and over the fence, and there are Spanish needle and a hundred other kinds of weeds/wildflowers behind the fence. The butterflies and birds are in heaven.
We don’t have a traditional garden though my wife keeps a very well maintained potted garden out on our deck.
Just yesterday we were at one of our local county parks, one of which allows people to purchase a plot of land in its community garden section.
There the plots are neatly divided and the variance amongst the different gardens is striking.
You have some that are impeccably manicured and we saw a few of the owners there working in their plots down on hands and knees and tending carefully and lovingly to each individual plant.
Others were the result of those who thought that owning a plot seemed like an appealing idea but quickly realized that actual work was required. These consisted of brown, wilted plants hunched over in a sad, overgrown pool of weeds long removed from any chance of producing any viable yield.
Here is a picture of our side yard last year, right around when we were buying the house. Here is that same spot now.
Last year was “get everything moved in”.
This year is “remodel the interior the way we want it” (case in point, last weekend’s project). Next year is “make the yard and garden look beautiful” time.
I discovered something lovely today! The vine I thought might be something noxious like poison ivy is actually passion flower! I looked out the window, saw something weird looking, walked over and found flowers! So I googled, and that’s what they are. So as long as the vines stay on their side of the fence and don’t try to take over my yard, they can stay.
Over time, most wildflower gardens, especially if not mowed at the end of the season or otherwise maintained, will decline due to takeover by aggressive weeds. Having a successful wildflower meadow is not achieved by laissez-faire means.
I don’t spend all that much time weeding (close planting to choke out volunteer weeds and mulch limit their growth). I do go for the cultivated look.
It would help if I could restrain myself from growing things that self-sow rampantly. I think the germination rate of Amaranthus seed, for example, is about 200%.