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Swamprose
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 04:01 pm EST : |   
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Looks like this forum doesn't get much traffic, but I'll try posting a question...
How would you rehabilitate a large flower bed that has been completely taken over by monstrous weeds? The bed is U-shaped, 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
This bed has always been hard to control. This last summer I completely gave up on it as I just didn't have the time to keep it up, and now it's a jungle. I want to get it civilized again...but how?
There are eight rose bushes in it, dozens of irises, two peonies, several lavenders, lupines, and four large rhododendrons across the far back. All of these get strangled by wild sweetpeas, bindweed, grasses, buttercups, and some kind of mint. It sits at the bottom of a hill, which is where the weeds came from. Taming the hill itself, to get rid of the weed source, is too big a project for me to handle.
How would you handle this problem?
Swamprose
- WA,
Zone "8b"
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Gardenbug
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 04:22 pm EST : |
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Well, to get started, I would pot up everything I love and want to keep. I would be ever so careful and examine the roots so that no bindweed, buttercups, etc got into these pots.
Then I would personally weed it all by hand and garden fork, but I know everyone else does the cleanup with two doses of Roundup followed by weeding several weeks later.
Then I would put down a layer of cardboard or 8-10 sheets of newspaper, water it well, and pile compost and topsoil and ground up leaves on top. I'd insert my reserved plants to this new rich soil.
On the other hand, you might prefer to remove the plants, spray with Roundup, and then put in a layer of sand and cover it with beautiful aged bricks or flagstones and place your outdoor pots there next season for display.
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Gardenbug
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 06:38 pm EST : |
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Oops, I forgot about the hill. Perhaps a beautiful stone wall at the base of the hill, before the flower bed, might help keep seeds and weeds out of the area? Can the hill be kept mowed so that the seeds don't blow about? If not, perhaps this really is not the place for a flower bed.
Another thought might be to make the spot into raised beds.
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Swamprose
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 10:28 pm EST : |
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Gardenbug wrote on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 01:38 pm:perhaps this really is not the place for a flower bed.
I think you might have hit the nail on the head there.
I like your idea of laying down sand and bricks or flagstone. We have a low rock wall in another area that we want to take down, and the stones would be perfect for that purpose. I'd leave the big rhododendrons in the back but pot up all the other plants. It'd be so nice to get rid of this bed. It's such a struggle to take care of it - gardens are supposed to be fun, right?
Thanks for the consultation, Marie. :)
Swamprose
- WA,
Zone "8b"
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Gardenbug
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 11:01 pm EST : |
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Go for FUN!
Sometimes fun is more plants, but oddly enough, fewer plants can delight too and give you time to relax and enjoy the rest. It takes time to realize this!
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Swamprose
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 11:26 pm EST : |
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I think it will showcase the plants well, don't you? And it'll take less water as well...there's no point in watering all those weeds.
It's a deal. I can't wait to start it now...it'll be a fun project.
Swamprose
- WA,
Zone "8b"
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Gardenbug
| | Posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 10:19 am EST : |
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Good to see you excited by a plan now.
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Blue_moon
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 11:40 pm EST : |
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as you may know i am a total hill garden girl and i face your prob everywhere! i have areas like you that have been destroyed by neglect... the deer ate everything in areas so i just said forget it, when i fence you out, i will be back. ok the fence isn't quite done, but the mess is HUGE!
here is how i reclaim garden areas. one area of mine has roses, iris and lavender too. first i weedwhack the 6' weeds that don't belong there, yep i have thistles and weeds that tall and thick! at least i can now see the buried plants... next i weed any easy tidbits that are in sight and then spray a monocut {sp?} herbicide. i can't get it on iris or lavender, but everything else in your area can be sprayed with no harm. it does the hard work for me. meanwhile the garden is all smooth and weed free visually, next i put about 4-6" high of free mulch from tree trimmers to be sure i don't get in this mess again. you have such a forest around you, use your pine needles mounded sky high! to keep the weeds from encroaching at the base, spray a total vegetation killer in a 3' band around your bed, then smoother that with 6" mulch and it REALLY does the trick for years! of course retaining walls and stone paths are much more fun, but ONE shot of chems and mulch will last you many years until you get the hardscapes in place!
please note i am 95% organic, but when i do large areas i learned one spray before planting will give me almost a lifetime of no weeds, the places i am trying to reclaim now are 15 year old beds, pre any thought of using chemicals and i see huge differences from the places i started to treat 5 years go. remember thick MULCH is mandatory though, it weeds and feed for years to come!
Blue_moon
- ca,
Zone "9"
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Swamprose
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 03:55 pm EST : |
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Wow, Jain, I knew you'd have some good methods of dealing with something like this; you really keep the upper hand on weeds. I've never used an herbicide before and it sure is tempting, but I think I'll go ahead and demolish this particular bed and put stones down, leaving the rhodos in the back, and turn it into a sitting area with the existing plants potted up.
When Marie said this might not be a good place for a flower bed, I remembered the photos of your sitting areas, particularly the "Monet in winter" picture, and I decided to do something similar in this spot. It would be a good place to do it, at the far end of the garden in a secluded spot.
I was lax about keeping up the mulch in this bed, hadn't put in any mulch in a couple of years, and I'm sure that would have helped prevent this mess in the first place. That reminds me, I should spread mulch over the rest of the garden too.
On the other side of the garden I have another bed at the bottom of a hill, and I made a buffer space above it to protect it from the hillside weeds and, though it has protected the bed below it, the buffer bed itself is now overwhelmed with weeds. I'll have to try your methods of control there before it turns into another little garden hell. :)
Swamprose
- WA,
Zone "8b"
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