weeds
If you want to see weeds, try SW France!!!
Depends where your weeds are. If they are in existing flower beds, get your gardener to weed them well and then mulch the beds as deeply as possible.
If creating new beds, do what the French do round these parts which is to use a weed suppressant material, pegged down over the entire bed and then make slits and pop the new plants through the holes. Grow stuff that acts as a weed suppressant - eg ground cover roses, cotoneaster horizontalis, etc
If you have gravel paths and driveways, make the gravel as thick as you can afford.
Forget "weed free" lawns. Just keep them well cut (could a robot lawnmower do the job?)
Our place is organic and so I don't use weed killer but I have yet to be persuaded that it actually works. Seems to me that the plants die down and then come back even more lushly.
In places I don't even try to be weed free. I tell our guests we are organic and it's part of our biodiversity, so we grow nettles for butterflies and brambles for birds. Elsewhere, I keep weeds down by strimming and mowing.
If you are trying to keep a garden going at a distance, you may need to simplify what you are doing. When we first moved here (the house was just a holiday home) there were only one or two trees and the rest of the garden was basically grass - again, this is typical of this part of France where through our wet/warm springs you can watch weeds double in size in a day.
Depends where your weeds are. If they are in existing flower beds, get your gardener to weed them well and then mulch the beds as deeply as possible.
If creating new beds, do what the French do round these parts which is to use a weed suppressant material, pegged down over the entire bed and then make slits and pop the new plants through the holes. Grow stuff that acts as a weed suppressant - eg ground cover roses, cotoneaster horizontalis, etc
If you have gravel paths and driveways, make the gravel as thick as you can afford.
Forget "weed free" lawns. Just keep them well cut (could a robot lawnmower do the job?)
Our place is organic and so I don't use weed killer but I have yet to be persuaded that it actually works. Seems to me that the plants die down and then come back even more lushly.
In places I don't even try to be weed free. I tell our guests we are organic and it's part of our biodiversity, so we grow nettles for butterflies and brambles for birds. Elsewhere, I keep weeds down by strimming and mowing.
If you are trying to keep a garden going at a distance, you may need to simplify what you are doing. When we first moved here (the house was just a holiday home) there were only one or two trees and the rest of the garden was basically grass - again, this is typical of this part of France where through our wet/warm springs you can watch weeds double in size in a day.
Gardens require regular maintenance (ideally weekly) part of which involves weeding.
Failure to do so weeds will inevitably grow.
If you cannot maintain regular gardening to keep weeds in check the only solution is to cover it with a hard surface such as paving slabs or with artificial turf.
Failure to do so weeds will inevitably grow.
If you cannot maintain regular gardening to keep weeds in check the only solution is to cover it with a hard surface such as paving slabs or with artificial turf.
Keep your powder dry.
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- Location: East Yorkshire
The joys of gardening. Try planting weeds! Well what I mean by that is look at perennial wild flowers often called weeds by many gardeners.
Bugle 'Ajuga reptans', creeping jenny, Basket Of Gold 'Aurinia saxatilis', wild ginger 'Asarum europaeum', Celandine Saxifrage, Lesser Celandine, red and white clover, Common Cinquefoil 'Tormentilla', Cotoneaster microphyllus 'cochleatus', Creeping Phlox, Wood Sorrel, Storksbill 'Roseum', London pride, Common Thyme, Candy Tuft. Wild Strawberry 'Fragaria vesca'.
Excellent for wild life, environmentally friendly and good ground cover keeping out the weeds you don't want.
These are working very well for me
Bugle 'Ajuga reptans', creeping jenny, Basket Of Gold 'Aurinia saxatilis', wild ginger 'Asarum europaeum', Celandine Saxifrage, Lesser Celandine, red and white clover, Common Cinquefoil 'Tormentilla', Cotoneaster microphyllus 'cochleatus', Creeping Phlox, Wood Sorrel, Storksbill 'Roseum', London pride, Common Thyme, Candy Tuft. Wild Strawberry 'Fragaria vesca'.
Excellent for wild life, environmentally friendly and good ground cover keeping out the weeds you don't want.
These are working very well for me
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- Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2018 2:24 pm
- Location: Wales