I am not a good one to answer, if I get it in my head I just go for it. ;o) But the heat doesn't bother me so much. Keep everything watered well if you do. I just spent the whole weekend digging out grass to make a wider planting bed, adding top soil and mulch and in full sun.

I got a great idea, invite Kat over, she will weed her way around your garden! She managed to weed for everyone at the plant swap/tours this weekend. She is one handy gal to invite over (I love ya Kat, you know that!).

Hi Kate,

I would suggest that you water really deep the night before you plan on digging the plants up and pot em. Then store them in a shadey area till their new area is complete.

Its odd, some of the plants seem to really respond positively to being uprooted and moved to a container for a few days while their bed is being remade.

Sounds like katkin IS the answer to hot weather gardening. Wish I had known a couple weeks back!

Good luck with your project, I am sure it will turn out perfect.

Tony

Deep watering seems to be key.

Agree about the watering BUT more important is watering YOU if you undertake this project. Many cooling beverages, frequent shady breaks, etc. I think we all will agree that, given a choice, we'd rather see YOU pretty and nice than a pretty garden and visiting you in the hospital.

What an opportunity for me to jump in here and suggest the lasagna method...AGAIN!!! I just can't help myself. Kate, it is the easiest method and will keep your new bed weed free longer than anything. This is how I would do it:

Remove plants you want to keep, disturbing as little soil as possible. Fill in any remaining holes with store-bought topsoil or Black Kow. Leave plants that you don't want unless they are diseased. Do not dig or till the soil in any way, (the more you "work" things in, the more weed seeds will come to the surface and sprout). Place cardboard or thick layers of wet newspaper (soaked in a large container), over the area that is to be the bed. If you use newspaper, it has to be at least 10-20 pages thick. Any less won't do a good job. Place it over any weeds or remaining plants. Do not attempt to remove these weeds, as it will disturb the soil needlessly and create many more weeds. Add any available organic matter (grass clippings, leaves, compost, coffee grounds, aged manure, etc) on top of the cardboard or newspaper. Black Kow is fine too. Plant anything you want by using shovel to dig hole thru wet newspaper or cardboard. Again, disturb soil as little as possible. Finish by adding a thick layer of wood chips or other mulch.

Alternatively, you can place mulch on top to finish bed, and plant whenever you're ready. Do not work wood chips into soil. Use them as mulch only.

Enjoy your virtually weed-free bed.

Anna

Anna, I keep saying I'll try that method, my friend Ginny, uses it all the time. However my problem is I am taking out thick floratam. I can't plant through it, it must be removed. So I would have to plan ahead of time so that it could be dead when I wanted to plant. And that just doesn't happen for me. But I do think I am going to alter the method some to work for my next expansion. Thanks for the reminder. ;o)

Katkin, that's how I've cut down on my floratam lawn. You need cardboard, tho, and about two weeks before you plant. Just put the cardboard down over the grass, and pile enough heavy stuff on top to about 6 inches. I usually do this late winter, early spring when the leaves are falling, so I can collect many bags of leaves to pile on top, then wood chips. I am cheap and I prefer to recycle, so I don't buy anything. However, you can do it with any organic material available or buy compost, mulch , to put on top. It will take two weeks or a little more for the grass to weaken enough so you can plant thru it easily. Really. Try a small area to convince yourself. Don't remove the grass, it's too big a job and will disturb the soil too much. Just kill it with lack of sun. No roundup. Just cardboard.

Anna

Kate, I think it is much too hot/humid for major outdoor work! The weeds have taken over most of my property, and I don't intend to fight back until cooler days are here. In the mean time, I'm pruning trees and repotting, before it hits over 100 on the heat index.

A word of caution on using cardboard. I think I might be the only one who had troubles after laying cardboard over the soil of a large planting area, then covering it with pine bark. No water got through the thick paper, and until I figured it out and tore it up, my plants were dying. I was watering, but it was dry under the cardboard. I did lose some Citrus and a Mango from them being water-deprived.

My most weed-free beds are those enclosed by stones or RR ties. I used Round-up to kill the grass, then filled the areas with good soil, then covered with a thick layer of pine bark. Very few weeds sprouted, and invasion over the edges by the grass is easy to rip up.

Lisa

The lasagna method always sounds intriguing to me, but I don't often use heavy mulch in my beds. I know it conserves water and cools the soil, BUT...if you plant things that you really want to reseed everywhere, like rudbeckias and coneflowers, or you want to have a ground cover that puts down sturdy roots and spreads over the surface, mulch hampers the whole process. I'm not saying for you guys not to do it, I'm just explaining why I seldom do.

My intention is to fill my beds so full of plants there is no room for weeds. That's how my grandmother did it, and she had the most beautiful beds in the world. (She'd never even heard of mulch in her day.) I have a couple of beds that are already that way, and the only weeding I have to do is right along the outer edge. But sadly, my bigger beds aren't that full of good plants yet, so I have a major weeding job to do in them.

I do top dress them with composted manure or the like twice a year, when I'm able, and that serves as a mulch for awhile, until it breaks down and gets worked into the soil.

What I want to know is, I'm planning to build two berm style beds in my shady front yard which has a covering of very sparse, nasty looking grass right now. Can I put down the cardboard stuff and then dump a load of mushroom compost on top to a height of two feet or so, and plant directly into that? Or will the plants die when their roots hit the cardboard? Maybe I can put down the cardboard or plastic first, kill the grass, remove the cardboard, and then build the mound?

And Kate, back to your original post, I don't think it is too hot for you to do your project at all, if YOU can handle it. If you put your plants in the shade and baby them along until they are ready to go back into the ground, they should be fine. It's not like you are trying to start seeds, etc. But be sure you take it easy on yourself while working. I am planning to TRY to get out there this week one day, and I'm going to turn on the sprinkler to keep me cool while I work!

Marcia

I am eager to try the lasagna method when I carve out the next bed - it sounds like a great way to defeat the grass. But this is an existing bed and the plan is for it to be solidly covered in lovely plants. I don't want it built up much higher than the surrounding beds. And I don't have grass cuttings, wood chips, compost, etc sitting around. Although I haven't tried it, I have heard others comment that the cardboard, if used in very large pieces, can prevent water from reaching the soil. When I do use it I plan to have overlapping sections of cardboard not more than a couple feet square so that water can find it way down. I think I'll save lasagna for the new bed, though, and go with more conventional methods for this one.

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Depending on the weather this weekend I may start. If it doesn't happen soon, it may become a January project. And if I find one more wasp nest in my garden I'm staying inside until it freezes! While prunning one shrub this weekend, I cut to within an inch of a good sized nest. Can't believe I wasn't stung! Lucky, lucky me!

(Kat - if you would like to come help weed, you know you are more than welcome!)

Thanks again to all,
Kate

solstice,
put it off for three weeks... why kill yourself in the heat & humidity? by the end of the first week of october, things will be SO MUCH NICER (we got our first cool, dry blast from the north last year on oct 5...) for you AND your plants.

i agree with tony -- water deeply, pot 'em up, keep 'em shady. most plants will survive, some will thrive.

i'm also a devotee of the lasagna method, but i prefer newspaper over cardboard, except in rear, shady parts of beds. marcia's right about self-sowing -- but in my garden, i have lots of spots (paths, corners, etc.) that are mulch-free. i find more than enough seedlings there (hamelia patens, porterweed, milkweed, alternanthera, basil) to transplant into my heavily-mulched garden.

like so much in life, it's really a set of trade-offs.