Rebar use in garden
naturegirl_2007 5B SW Michigan
16 years ago
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vaodiva
16 years agoruthieg__tx
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Difference between using obelisk and rebar
Comments (1)comparing the two is like comparing oranges and a tree. An obelisk can be made of many things. Rebar is a rod or bar of metal used for reinforcing concrete, but! you can use rebar in several configurations for roses. In days of old, (Jean brought that idea here which I found very useful), people would use a 4 x 4 of approximate height to rose plus a few feet, which would be placed into the ground. Cement works. Drill holes at various angles through that 4 x 4 and run rebar at various lengths through that and make a lean-to-obelisk. You can build obelisks like the pretty ones in the stores or you can buy them or you can improvise by placing 2 4 x 4s in the ground, bury 2-3 feet of the 4 x 4, then within 6 feet of that place another 4 x 4 and plant roses at the feet of each 4 x 4 and just before they get to the top of their 4 x 4 drill holes (you can do this beforehand) near the top, run chain through it to the other side and let it swag a bit and have the roses grow via the chain from one side to the other. Some climbers need a lot of room, others need height....See MoreRdV a little close to house...still use rebar?
Comments (5)Not to answer your question directly, I don't like to have anything planted within two feet of the house. It's not good for the plant because it is in the rain shadow of the house. It's also not good for the house because of termites. If your house is stone or brick, the termite issue might not matter so much for you. Here houses are usually wood or stucco because we're in earthquake country. My own Reine des Violettes is several years in the ground, and not vigorous enough to need a trellis of any sort. I think it does not care for my soil, or perhaps my climate, but I do like this rose very much. As long as it consents to grace me with its presence, I'm happy to grow it to the best of my ability. Rosefolly...See MoreRedneck rebar
Comments (20)Ha ha, Larry, I meant the bamboo, not the truck! That is a fine-looking vehicle... I often long to be able to haul some bigger things. When we began renovating properties in 2007/2008, the need to drag supplies and tools around increased beyond my little Nissan Altima's capabilities, so when it was time to get a new car, I got a 6 cyl. Toyota Rav4 (mini-SUV) which I love. It's capable of towing a small trailer - not that I ever have - but with the combination of folding down all the seats and removing headrests and what not, I have gotten long countertops, full-size pre-hung exterior doors, storm doors and a whole lot more in it. I hate strapping things to the roof (scares me when I drive, so I creep along like a granny), but I have even done that once. We are slowly taking back the backyard from our bamboo grove, so we pile bamboo canes at the curb each bulk waste day, and most weekly garbage pick-ups have some jammed into the cans, too. Very rarely have I seen someone stop to take a few bamboo canes and I always have an urge to run screaming to the street "WAIT! COME BACK! I HAVE ALL YOU WANT IN THE BACK YARD!" It's BYOM (Bring Your Own Machete) at our house. As big of a PITA as the bamboo is, I cannot deny that it looks beautiful and serves a very useful purpose as a two-story privacy screen around our backyard. I am always kind of shocked at how visitors react first time they see it. I see only hours of hard labor, crumbling retaining wall, tiles falling off the aged pool, etc., etc., but a friend came by yesterday and was like "WOW! I love your bamboo!" and I was surprised all over again. I will need to post a follow-up to our house-hunt bamboo thread to chronicle how effective (or not) the reclaiming of the yard is going. Part of the major difficulty with our situation is that the bamboo had been let run wild for at least a year, maybe more, and it had spread unchecked into the yard and other flowerbeds. As we get it back into the bounds we want it to be within, I am hopeful we will be able to keep it there with minimal effort. I have discovered there are trees growing within the bamboo (an Asian pear and a redbud, at the least), which have grown tall enough that they stick out of the top. As we beat it back, I find a stone edging and those stone "tree rings" like the idea had been to have a nice thin strip of bamboo hedge with a bunch of ornamental trees in front. There is also a few big holly bushes in there, too, and a Yaupon holly. OK, enough hijacking of Larry's thread with my ramblings. Sorry! Back to redneck rebar!...See MoreRebar in the flower garden?!
Comments (12)Thanks, Moni. I will try just spreading some around the stems and see what happens. If I could get the variegated pink/blue like you have I would be ecstatic! That's actually how I remember my grandmother's hydrangeas looking. I remember being so fascinated with them as a small girl because one stem was like a whole bouquet of flowers! Since I generate coffee grounds daily I think I can come with enough for at least a light application for all the hydrangeas and even the front lawn. I had been saving them to go in the compost, but now with summer nearly here I'll have plenty of grass clippings for the "green" in the compost. Dawn, if by "compacted" you mean very nearly impossible to dig in when dry, then yes. The first of the boxwoods we tried to move was so hard to dig we had to quit and water it a bit first. Then, of course, we were digging in mud. After that I watered each bush and the spot it would move to the evening before which gave it about 24 hours to soak in. Then it wasn't so bad. I bought a couple of those little do-it-yourself soil tests kits last year. Most of my yard is plain old Oklahoma red clay and fairly alkaline. When I dug the beds for the flowers in front of the house I added a very little bit of super phosphate at the bottom of the hole and mixed in some Espoma Garden Sulfur with the compost, pecan hulls, sphagnum peat moss, and bagged topsoil I added to bring the bed back up to the proper level. We removed a whole lot of the dirt with the rootballs of the boxwoods. The hydrangea is only just beginning to bloom so the petals are still mostly green and just turning pink. As I recall, they do that first even if they eventually become blue. The only plant that really doesn't seem terribly happy in the front bed this year is that darned lilac. Remember, Dawn, the one that went dormant by early August last year? I had about decided the thing was dead this spring when it began to leaf out. One of the branches off the main trunk is definitely dead, but the others are all putting out new leaves. Of course, it leafed out AFTER every other lilac I know of in the neighborhood had already leafed out, bloomed, and the blooms died. The leaves on it are very small compared with the one in the back yard that I positively identified this year. It had been cut back to just a stump before I moved in. It leafed out and grew last year, but my neighbor didn't think it was a lilac. It had just one flower bloom this spring, but that was enough for a positive identification. I still can't figure out if the new one is just a strange variety, or is still adjusting to its new home, or is just dying a slow death. Ilene, I will look into the milky spore disease treatment. I have a few spots in the lawn that just don't seem to have much of anything growing there, not even the weeds, so I'm suspicious that grubs are the problem after encountering so many when I was digging holes for the boxwoods and flowers. I don't see any evidence I can recognize of underground burrowing except for ants. I don't really mind the ants so long as they stay out of the house and don't graze aphids on my flowers. Plus, I've seen some flickers poking around in my yard, and they like to eat ants (and I like to feed birds!). In fact, come to think of it, I think I am seeing quite a bit fewer ant mounds in the yard this year than I did last year. Sammy, I know about adding aluminum sulfate, but I've read horror stories from people who over did it and killed their plants. Is that something that's really easy to do, or were these people just idiots who didn't follow directions? I've hesitated to get some worried that if more experienced gardeners than I can kill with it I'd be downright dangerous with it. The established one that is blooming this year is also a once-a-year bloomer. It's a Nikko Blue. The two new ones I bought last week are the bloom-on-new-and-old-growth type. Thanks, everyone, for all your help! Debra...See Morebcskye
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