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melanie
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| Posted: June 24 2008 at 5:23pm | IP Logged
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Not sure where to put this topic, but these seemed the best match! 
We bought a house with a huge double lot yard with big flower beds that wrap around most of the house...plus a few others besides. I love the idea of having nice flower beds and all, and I enjoy working in the yard, but this is our first "real" house...we've always lived in apartments or little rental places with postage stamp yards. And I don't have a whole lot of time to work in the yard. The flower beds have become a nightmare over the last couple of years. They are all overgrown now with weeds and scrub, I don't even know where to start to clean them up again, much less actual plant something pretty in there. Any gardening gurus out there? What can I do that's easy and idiot proof? I'm up for good gardening books or websites that'll help too,,,for beginners, mind you! :) And what's the easiest way to keep the weeds down? I've seen these "carpet" things you can throw mulch over. Do those work?
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 24 2008 at 5:49pm | IP Logged
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I'm more in your position than a gardening guru 
not that the flower beds are huge but it's hard to get to at times.. I find that there are certain beds (the ones right outside my front door) that I enjoy keeping up.. and then some that I just don't get to.. and we've been letting the one under a tree out front get mowed and the grass move into it.. it's just too much.. and the one across the front of the house not by the front door but across the part that juts out (so you can't see it from the front door.. it's around a corner) is getting "lost".. that one I'm giving to my 11 yr old daughter.. I'll teach her how to do some stuff there.. and then she's going to plant an herbs and flower garden. And with luck we'll also figure out how to dry the herbs so that she can harvest them. I think after the initial outlay of my time that it's something she could manage quite well.
Then in the backyard we have a bed along the fence.. with one mature lilac in it.. that's great for the little boys to play with their cars and trucks in the shade in the dirt.. we're putting in a sandbox area.. and more lilacs.. probably need to put something around the little lilacs to protect them.. but we'll give that whole area under the lilacs to the little boys and I'm quite sure with all the dirt they'll dig and move that no weeds will grow in there 
Soo anyway.. I would look into something like bushes that are lower maintenance for some of the areas and only keep the beds that need more work for those that you want to work in.
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melanie
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| Posted: June 26 2008 at 6:44am | IP Logged
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Thanks Jodie,
i have an 11yo daughter too, and we have talked about giving her a bed to take care of...I'd forgotten about that!
I may have to do some bushes...I had visions of beds full of gorgeous wildflowers, but I guess that's too high maintenance for me right now.  Another season in life I guess!
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 26 2008 at 9:07am | IP Logged
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well remember.. there's tons of flowering bushes too.. lilacs or daisies or such.. you can always do bushes and leave a small row at the front of hte bed for flowers.. majorly reduce the work but still have the flowers.
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Mamamoon
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| Posted: June 26 2008 at 9:56am | IP Logged
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this is what i would do. i am an obsessive flower gardener.
take one section at a time. maybe the spots closeset to the house. get some good gloves, and a good weeding tool (have a cool japanese knife that works wonders).
start pulling up the weeds, by the roots so they don't come back.
i personally don't like the weed mat, but it may be helpful to you. add in some compost ir some sort of amendment to the dirt, and plant!
i like to mostly put perennials in the beds so they come back every year and you don't have to do anything but enjoy. in the front of the perennials, i put colorful annuals, and throw in some bulbs. daffodils make for the most delightful treat when they pop up in february.
give a section to your kids and they will be at your side in no time. there is an incredible amount of learning that goes on when gardening from bugs to botany.
have fun!
mamamoon
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melanie
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| Posted: June 27 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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Ok, thanks for the advice! I'm hoping to start tackling the couple of small beds out front this weekend. And I think I will order a couple of shrubs, at least to help out front...that way during times when I can't get to weeding, at least the front will look ok.
Can I ask what you didn't like about the weedmats? I've never used them before,,,I've also read you can use newspaper to do the same thing, but that breaks down pretty quickly I imagine.
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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Mamamoon
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| Posted: June 27 2008 at 8:55am | IP Logged
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well, i am the sort of person that just wants to shove plants in the ground, and with the weed mat you have to stop, cut a hole or an X, and put it in nice and tidy. also, the weed mat inhibits the plants from spreading too much.
i like a wild sort of rambling look, but that is just me~
lisa
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 27 2008 at 12:05pm | IP Logged
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You can fill in places you really don't want to deal with with flowering shrubs -- they are good space fillers and offer a lot of satisfaction for the buck.
My yard tends to have a kind of "nature center" theme . . . last year I had a goldenrod bed, because, well, there it was, and I just let it grown and bloom (ragweed, I have read, is the allergy culprit, not goldenrod). Ditto things like honeysuckle and wild trumpet vine.
I have also planted a number of native species, bought at my local nature center's wild-plant sale, which tend to be invasive . . . which I like. Buy a few well-selected things that will overpower the weeds. Vinca, actually, will do that in shady areas (there's the small-leaved vinca minor, or larger vinca major; both are readily available at places like Home Depot and come in variegated forms that are especially pretty under trees). In my part of the country (TN), things that grow well and spread in the sun include obedient plant, blue sage, shasta daisy, swamp sunflower, bee balm and blackeyed susan. Lilies and iris also propagate quickly and have foliage that stays attractive even after they're finished blooming.
Again for shady areas, hostas are great space-fillers -- they can get really big, depending on the species, and the foliage adds lots of interest. For sun and shade, ornamental grasses are low-maintenance. You can mix something like fountain grass with stands of blackeyed susans and purple coneflower for a very pretty, low-needs border.
HERBS can also be great flower-bed fillers, and they have the added attraction of being useful. I have big stands of culinary sage (purple spike flowers in May), chives and oregano. They spread easily, again choking out the weeds, and are very pretty.
I love gardening, but I'm not good at upkeep and weeding, and these kinds of things work for me. Either the plants bully out the weeds, or else a little sprinkling of weeds among them doesn't show as much. It just all has a kind of meadow-y cottage-garden effect which looks good but requires little from the gardener.
Sally
PS -- most of my most successful plants came from other people's yards. I just keep my ears open for news of anyone's dividing perennials. I put in a little one year, and the next year either it doesn't come back, or I have tons. I once rescued about a dozen azaleas off the curb by my mother's house, where a neighbor had ripped them out -- about six of those actually survived and are gorgeous. Beg, borrow and not-quite-steal gardening works for me!
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melanie
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| Posted: June 28 2008 at 10:27am | IP Logged
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Thanks, Sally, this is great!
We have these two little beds around a couple of baby dogwood trees out front, and I cleaned them out in the spring and threw some wildflower mix down around the beds. Well, I was so irritated because all these weeds started sprouting up. Then, lo and behold, flowers came. Turned out they weren't weeds after all, lol. But they are *really* tall, taller than I realized, some as tall as the little trees, so it still looks pretty weedy. I just think that wasn't a good location, not with the trees there so small. I'll have to try them in another bed and plant something tiny around the trees. But I do like the "cottage garden" look too.
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 28 2008 at 8:18pm | IP Logged
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I'm a real trial-and-error gardener -- I can never make plans for the garden, only experiment and then not do again what didn't work. Go for some simple ground cover under the trees (vinca also flowers in the spring), and maybe some impatiens for color in summer, if you feel you need it. Then try the wildflower mix another place -- great that you know next time what to look for!
Sally
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SallyT
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Also, if you like the cottage garden look, check out Cottage Living. Their website has a whole garden section -- up recently was a list of tough, grow-anywhere flowers which might be useful as you consider a "plant-and-ignore" scheme.
Sally
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Our Lady's Garden??
