Tending our garden
Brian has a pretty big backyard for metropolitan Detroit. The previous owner was a big-time gardenig fanatic, so Brian inherited an elaborate landscaping setup that no mere mortal can maintain, even with an industrious roommate (me). The flowerbeds are huge and haven’t been tended to properly in about five years. Nature, of course, is tending to itself instead and has created its own chaos. It was a reasonably warm 45 degrees (Fahrenheit) today and the snow is finally gone, so I decided to get out there and survey the how a particularly nasty winter compounded the situation back there. Click any picture to see it larger.
The trashcans are in a muddy mess; possible rats’ nest nearby. The palettes against the bushes are a ghetto fix for the dog having figured out he can hop the fence behind them. The back was a huge bed for the entire width of the yard that is now completely fallow, save for a few shrubs that were planted there as a mini-nursery by the previous owner.
A white statue is a mini-monument to what was. The beds in the back corner of the yard are beyond help too.
The reeds all have to get cut down so they can grow back in. The boards on the bridge buckled during winter.
The bush in front of my bedroom window has outgrown its britches.
A stream flows into the pond once the thaw is permanent and the pump is switched back on.
This is shaping up to be quite a project for the spring. My goal is to get the entire mess under control and salvage what is possible. I started tonight by cutting down the reeds, trimming the bush outside my window, and starting to untangle the humongous, overpowering vines from the bushes all along the back of the yard. I think we’re going to have to call 70% of the beds totaled and just tear them out and plant grass.
Do any of the gardeners among you have any helpful suggestions? I’m especially sensitive to cost; I have the time, but not much money. Do any of you have your own gardening projects for spring? 
First of all cultivate a good scope of really good friends.
Make sure this group contains at least one person wih a passing interest in gardening. (That is, they can tell a root from a branch....!
Suggest a spring Garden warming party. Everyone should bring a spade, fork good gloves and plenty of humour.
Set aside the weekend...Which will still not be enough, incidentally....!
Plan first of all, what you want the garden for.
Plan next, which direction is which...Although it looks pretty 'open plan' and succeptible to all kinds of different conditions.... is it shadier in some parts more than others....?
Then decide what kind of maintenance you're going to want to invest in it...
Even a low-maintenance garden needs some maintenance....!
Make a bonfire and get rid of all burnable stuff.
What's the shrub under the window?
If you want to keep it, cut out all the dead wood, and trim back the healthy wood to a good healthy bud. or ask the keen gardener (see above) to do it....
If all you want is a field, buy a goat.
Saves cutting the grass.
Remove obvious ratting dens, and use the bins for either recycling stuff, or get rid of what you don't need.
make sure the garden is secure. A wandering dog is a worrying dog.
(I can help you on that too, as a dog behaviourist!
Gardeners are wonderful sharers.... They'll happily give you hints and tips, and even divide plants up for you and give you a bit, for your own patch of land.
Try growing your own vegetables. Not potatoes. They're a waste of energy and effort, unless you plan to go commercial....but your own tomatoes and fresh beans and courgettes, are lush....
Gardening is enormously therapeutic too... let's you vent and get crud out of your mental sysytem, and give's you a day's satisfaction of work well done.
Watch your backs though.
And don't think anything that looks easy, automatically will be. If you're in need of help, say so. A heavy job is better done in two.....
What wouldn't I do for a bit of garden, even half this size!
2 take heart - our little garden was a miserable place when we moved here, then a building site for a year while the house was gutted and re-done but now it is quite respectable.
3 make sure you take lots of tea breaks!
Remodelling the garden into 'outdoor rooms' kept my wife and me sane while she was going through the nasty process of dying. The process gave me an enthusiasm that continues to surprise me and give me great joy - as well as blisters and an aching back.
I now have a meditation space, a wild-life pond, some specimen trees, and places to sit and watch the birds, frogs, toads, etc. Whatever the weather or the time of year there is something to see on my morning stroll. Each year brings new ideas, new struggles, new delights.
As I contemplate the idea of moving house, only two things are vital for me in a new place: a big kitchen and a garden big enough to engage me. I can no longer entertain the idea of being without outdoor space in which to work at the long compromise between my ideas and nature.
How do we post something so that it will automatically appear on the Home page?
If we intend to post an article, how do we make sure it goes where we want it to go....?
Do we just start a new thread here, and it's automatic, or what....?
How do we post something so that it will automatically appear on the Home page?
If we intend to post an article, how do we make sure it goes where we want it to go....?
Do we just start a new thread here, and it's automatic, or what....?
I'm happy to say that I've gotten started. I trimmed the hedge outside my window down to size, cut the reeds (who in turn cut me), and started the process of removing the vines from the bushes. I was to continue today, but weather intervened - more snow! I was hoping the thaw would continue all week so I could get a jump start.
I've been beavering away at the backyard steadily. The hedges are nearly half their size, and I've extricated 90% of the vines from them. Still have to get a taller ladder to get the rest of the vines out of the trees, though.
I've been beavering away at the backyard steadily. The hedges are nearly half their size, and I've extricated 90% of the vines from them. Still have to get a taller ladder to get the rest of the vines out of the trees, though.
For the garden of your daily living
Plant three rows of peas
Peace of mind
Peace of heart
Peace of soul
Plant four rows of squash
Squash gossip
Squash indifference
Squash grumbling
Squash selfishness
Plant four rows of lettuce
Lettuce be faithful
Lettuce be kind
Lettuce be patient
Lettuce really love one another
No garden without turnips
Turnip for meetings
Turnip for service
Turnip to help one another
To conclude our garden we must have thyme
Thyme for each other
Thyme for the family
Thyme for friends
Water freely with patience and cultivate with love
Lovely!!
Compost heap in general... while I like the idea, the dog would have a nightmarish field day in it every day.
Compost heap in general... while I like the idea, the dog would have a nightmarish field day in it every day.
Sounds like you need a shredder, Matt. I try to burn as little as possible - perennial weeds and so on. The rest I shred for mulch.
If you have a wood stove and shred your twigs and branches, once dry, they make good fuel too.
Clubbing together is a good idea (or buying a really good one and hiring it out)
Brian mentioned that shredding the vines that are tangled in it all may turn into a huge weed problem if I spread it around. There are a LOT of vines mixed in - at least a third of it, I think. I suspect it is grapevine, but I'm really not sure.
Think you can do that?
I know it's technical, but try....
Filled 7 garbage cans full of yard waste just from clearing in/around the pond the last 3 days!
I went to the store and bought liner and pea pebbles - I'm tearing up all the flag stone and going to put the liner under it and then fill between with the pebbles. We have a terrible weed problem between them and a lot of the stones are covered with dirt entirely. I tore up a third of it today. Back-breaking! It's definitely going to be worth it, though.
Brian and I were discussing ground cover for the far side of the pond today. Next to the pond is a gravel bed surrounded by large rocks, but beyond that is bare dirt which will turn into a weed field soon. There used to be a path back there, so we're using that as a starting point, but not sure beyond that.
So we burned it all away, the fire lasted several days, but when we were left with ash, we rotivated it all into the ground, so it acted as a good fertiliser as well.
The Glory of the Garden
Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of
all ;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the
planks.
And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the
birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further
orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to
harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and
pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!
Kipling