Whenever I wanted to start a planting bed, I'd cover the area with cardboard and then top it with a few inches of mulch. The cardboard is too thick for anything to grow through for a couple months, by which time anything underneath will die off. After a bit longer, the cardboard breaks down, and you can plant again in the bed.

:-)

~Christopher

Good point, Christopher. All of this was (very briefly) a lawn before I did exactly as suggested.

I don't know why I thought those species daylilies were gonna be too hard to kill that way. Heck I just re-ordered the Sunday NYTimes for delivery, so I will have lots of thick newspaper to use soon....

I'd say try it again in this bed. If you see any new shoots, find some dark opaque empty pots or containers to put over them, and weigh down with a rock. Sometimes I had to resort to this when volunteer trees and shrubs needed to be excluded from a new bed. If you exhaust their stored food supply by preventing photosynthesis, you'll starve them out of the bed.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm gonna do exactly that.
Thanks for your good advice.
I can't imagine spending any more time hunched over digging bits of root out while trying not to damage rose roots....not to mention how humiliating and painful it is to try to get back up off the ground after a few hours of sitting on the ground....

Ive yet to see a plant I cant remove with a 5 lb mattock.

However its not a easy tool to wield and requires some umphh to remove stuff, I can do blackberies with it, trees that are less then 12 inches across ect.

The 2.5 lb one is easier to wield, but not as powerful on removing stuff. Its going to take a full motion body swing (think of a overhand ax chop) with enough motion you can really kill anything, I worry about it the most around the kids and usually tell them to scamper off when Im using it, but working in the woods, its the only way I can break ground by hand.

Silverkelt

Silverkelt, you missed the part about my wanting to save the rose and the fig tree. I spent hours this afternoon prying down between rose roots with a screwdriver so as not to damage them. A mattock is a great tool, but I don't think it's the tool for the job I want to do here.

Landlady,

From some one who has done battle with fig trees....I would not worry too much about loosing a root or two. I think figs are next to Zapote with being almost impossible to kill. Round up seems to be fertilizer for them....

I accidentally took our fig to a tall stump today. I was trying to cut the top of our fig out, was cutting the section that was way way to high to reach and the thing split and came down another 4 feet. It was about 15' tall and is now about 7' (oops) I will be amazed if the thing dies and is not even bigger and better in a year or two. Today is it a goofy looking stump with 2 super long branches (those will get trimmed after it starts back from the top of the stump) Beware the sap, that is some sticky stuff.

Zippy you may have done yourself a favor. I have spent the past several seasons working to train my fig so that none of the branches go upwards beyond my reach. They are still high but the tree is finally achieving a nice umbrella shape so that I can stand next to the trunk and have the branches (and the figs) come down around me a bit.

Of course even that doesn't solve the starling problem: they always seem to know when the figs are just one day too unripe for me and they swoop down and .... well you know.

Zippy you may have done yourself a favor. I have spent the past several seasons working to train my fig so that none of the branches go upwards beyond my reach. They are still high but the tree is finally achieving a nice umbrella shape so that I can stand next to the trunk and have the branches (and the figs) come down around me a bit.

Of course even that doesn't solve the starling problem: they always seem to know when the figs are just one day too unripe for me and they swoop down and .... well you know.

oops, sorry....
pre-caffeine double post....

I put bird netting over my fig tree. Birds get zero. If there is an especially prime fig, I cover it with one of those net bags that oranges and apples come in. Birds get zero.

Oh Landlady, I have been doing exactly the same only trying to remove a vicious acanthus. Identical gnarly thick roots which are definately going to keep on returning. I suspect I will spend the last bit of summer cutting the spikey regrowth out then hit the new shoots with round-up before the rose leafs up next spring - although, as it is R.cantabridgiensis, I may have to protect the early foliage by covering it with a black plastic bin bag until the RU has been absorbed by the acanthus. With these horrid thugs, it is a long and hopeless task, trying to get rid of growth and roots piecemeal because the rose will be suffering from the digging and poking. I have no hope of mulching since acanthus just shrugs it off and, like you, there is very little bare earth to lay down thick cardboard since the whole area is densely planted.
Good Luck - next spring, I will show you mine if you show me yours (nice empty space under a revived rose).

So, Camp, prior to posting here I did some reading up on getting rid of (in my case daylilies) invasive/aggressive/unloved stuff and was introduced to a phrase that I had to go and look up: "the glove of death". The gist is you put a rubber glove on and then put a cotton glove over that and then use the gloved hand to apply Round-Up to the leaves that are emerging and that you DO NOT WANT.... I'm saving this for all of the nasty little bits that sprout everywhere in spite of my best smothering efforts, because I do know they will....:-(((

Hoovb, my only attempt at putting bird netting over the tree was completely unsuccessful. I can't get high enough or wide enough not to damage the tree more than I am actually saving anything for myself. And then trying to get it off again? Impossible -- at least for me. I had to cut it to shreds and the bits and pieces seemed to be around to remind me of my failure for a long long time.

Landlady, I think our fig is already sprouting new limbs. I told mom if it does, I am cutting in much lower and letting it come back to a reasonable size. I think the birds planted it (and a few dozen more in the neighborhood) because it is only feet from one of our better old oranges. Now to decide if I want it low like a shrub, or tall and like half an umbrella.

The crows were chattering and complaining as I cut it yesterday. They pick the fruit and fly off to drop fig trees in other peoples yards. (the crows can fly to our yard in number that would make Hitchcock jealous)

Landlady.........

I've used two different methods to deal with two very different invasive plants. I did the research over a year ago, but maybe you can experiment and see if my methods will help with your problem.

First POISON OAK: I found that as soon as I cut the stem of the plant, the poison oak emitted a sap that blocked the RU. So, I decided to wipe the stem off with alcohol to get rid of the sap and then applied the RU. It has worked every time.

When I did my research on RU, I found that it is only effective during the active growth stage of the plant. Applying it when the plant is slowing down or going dormant is useless. There are other glyphosate products that have a larger window of effectiveness than RU. You'll have to do a Google search to find their names. I've forgotten them.

The key seems to be to apply the products during the active growth period.

After applying the RU in spring to the poison oak, I covered the stump with a black plastic bag and rocks, so that light would not reach the stump. I left it there all through summer and the next winter. So that it was cooked by the summer heat and frozen by the winter chill. The next spring, the plant was totally dead and never came back.

Second Invasive VIOLETS: The RU treatment didn't even make a dent. I was told to use Preen on them because it would take them out and not harm any woody plants ... roses and trees. I haven't tested this yet, but that is my plan for next spring.

I don't like using chemicals, but there is a time and place for them. The violets smother any plant they get near. Their roots surround the feeder roots of other plants. I like them, but not in the rose beds.

I have even thought of using the Preen mulch material for this fall to see if will make the spring work easier. I need to find out if the mulch material with inhibit basal breaks or cause any other harm to the roses. Also, I still need to do more research overall before I spend any dollars ... lol.

Re: Pruning and training your fig tree so that the fruit is low enough for you to harvest ... I went to a pruning seminar about pruning apple trees. The guy that was speaking was considered to be an expert at rejuvenating old apple orchards. He said it was common practice to train the trees to grow low and wide so that it would be easier to harvest the fruit. Sure made sense to me.

I just thought I would share some thoughts.

Smiles,
Lyn

Kippy - yep, cut it down - hard. There is nothing which will halt the growth of an exuberant fig. I treat them a bit like grape vines in that I do all the pruning in the dead of winter before there is a chance that the sap starts flowing (and bleeding out) You could cut out masses of growth, leaving 2 longer branches which will be the start of a new framework. I have never really dealt with a freestanding fig - they tend to be grown on wires or other restraining structures or, much more commonly, up against a wall. It is much easier to do this as it is possible to keep the tree to a nice flat 2-dimensional form. In England, we only usually get one fig harvest but in warmer climates, 2 or even 3 are possible. Consequently, much fig management in the UK consists of removing all immature figs around now, leaving only the tiny pea sized nodules for next years harvest.
Bird netting - what a nightmare. You could not have put it any better Landlady....and oh yep, I am familiar with the glove (In my case, sock) of death.
Roseblush, quite right about the timing for RU and a few weeks into the new spring growth is a good time to use it. Weirdly though, there is another timing window which works terrifically well for bindweed - if you hit it right now, three weeks or so until it starts to die back naturally, it seems to readily absorb everything into its roots as though it is gathering its resources for next year. A late summer dose of RU can have great results on other twining, leafy growth such as brambles, and even knotweed gets severely dented.
Working on a public allotment (weedpit) I am afraid RU has been my friend since otherwise my whole gardening experience would be a futile war against other people's couch grass, mallow, thistles and bindweed so I use it on all the outer paths as a sort of cordon sanitaire.

Yesterday I started laying down cardboard.

And thanks for the hint on bindweed. A few years back (well, maybe even a big few) I thought I was going to lose the battle against Bermuda Grass, and I targeted it hard. Now it is an occasional pest. Two years ago it was gophers, so gopher baskets became the rule of law: nothing goes in the ground without one, and the older stuff is still being dug up and replanted in baskets.) This year it seems to be bindweed....Something will always move in and become the Pest du Jour !!!!

I would not/could not do entirely without RU, but I try to use it judiciously. Maybe today I will go out and target the bindweed that is trying to topple my Dainty Bess....I know that what I pulled down/off yesterday is only going to come back even more viciously for my inadvertent 'pruning' in the waning light.

Well, two days later and isn't that a lot better already? It's not done. I ran out of cardboard and mulch and energy all at the same time, so it will take another day to finish, but....I'm quite pleased with what it's gonna look like.

It looks great already. If anything manages to poke through in the spring, repurpose those black pots by inverting them over the shoots and blocking the light. If you want to make it look more decorative, you can put another pot on top of it, sort of like using the black pot as a pot stand.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm gonna name this my Christopher garden....:-))))

And, although I think these hosta will stay in pots for another season until I determine that this bed really is gonna "work", there are plenty of black pots....

As to using the pots as stands, look right on the other side of the walkway and....voila...pots on pots....

There ya go! And if you REALLY want to name that spot after me, here's another idea for those rocks. Get some soil and use it as a sort of "mortar" between the rocks (this would mean having to remove the rocks and rebuild the pile, though). In the crevices, stick some creeping sedum and sempervivum (hen-and-chicks). I love sticking plants in tiny nooks and crannies. It kinda makes things look more "lived-in."

:-)

~Christopher

Cool idea. The rocks really are just piled there to be out of the way until they go back to being a border, but the idea of putting soil and sedum in them is great. I've got some .... somewhere....just waiting to be put to use.

Susan

Wow, the way they're placed, I thought it was intended to look that way. I remember a nice selection of interesting ones at Bluestone Perennials, if you want something to contrast what you've already got around the garden. Then again, I've often found quite a variety at local nurseries. This time of year might be a good time to snatch some up on sale.

:-)

~Christopher

Oh yeah, the hosta are where they probably will stay. It's the rocks that are "just piled waiting for me to put them elsewhere".

I should not buy any more hosta (which doesn't mean I won't), but my source of choice is Naylor Creek usually via the Hosta Library Auction:
http://www.hostalibrary.org/cgi-bin/auction.pl?category=hosta
I went looking for the link, but I am NOT looking at what is on offer. I'm too easily hooked....
I think I did pick up a few last year from Bluestone, though.

:-P

I meant the rocks...I actually like the corner piles as they are. And I meant that Bluestone has some interesting sedums and sempervivums. Sorry, I looked back at my post and saw I wasn't clear.

:-)

~Christopher

Ahah.....now it all makes much more sense. Off I go to look at the Bluestone site....sigh....

Susan

Looking around outside I see that I have an abundance of semps that are not being well utilized. Now, looking more closely at the pile of rocks, do you think that I could take a bag of potting soil and sort of pour it over/through the rocks as they are and have it settle between the spaces well enough to plant the semps in there?

Maybe erodium would be good in there, too....hmmmm....I love getting unstuck from my usual stuff.

I think it'd be best to remove the rocks and rebuild with soil between them. If you just pour soil on top, you could be left with big spaces in between that don't get soil. The next time it rains, it could wash away, and leave plants without soil at their roots. You might not even realize it happened until the plant suddenly dies.

:-)

~Christopher

See? here's one batch of semps that can be transplanted into the rock pile....

check out 'scree gardens' - a posher term than gravel garden and definately more stylish than rock gardens. Mine has been a joy throughout the entire season, requiring the least effort for the most pleasure.

Good morning and thanks both of you. I see that as usual my nemesis "planning" is important. It's never been my strong point, but I will try to build this right.....more when I make some progress. Today I really really need to roast some coffee so the garden may have to take a rest for a day....not that my body will really mind....:-))

Oh you have enabled me.....yippee....an excuse to buy more erodium from Robin Parer at Geraniaceae.

My first introduction to Robin's gorgeous plants was a few years ago at the Celebration of Old Roses in El Cerrito. She always has a great selection there, at an excellent price, but it looks like I'm going to have to do an interim purchase...too bad.....LOL.

Here is a link that might be useful: absolute favorite source for geranium and erodium

Landlady, Oh Noes, addiction warning! Erodium chrysantha, a joy all year.

Just in time....
I added it to the four I have already ordered and will pick up on Friday....

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: looks lovely

Well that's that and I will be very interested to see how this patch fares. The part where the rocks are doesn't look so different, except that now it's interplanted with sempervivums, and all of the part that is covered with bark and hosta used to be daylilies....the big double one that may be called Fulvia?

In any case it's time to move on....

Oh dear, I can see that I would have done better to have taken all of the pictures from the same angle and distance, but...consistency has never been my strong point....

That is going to look awesome as they fill in.

:-)

~Christopher