Oxalis Nightmare in Backyard
TILAPIA
19 years ago
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The_Dollmaker
19 years agomorz8 - Washington Coast
19 years agoRelated Discussions
From backyard to balcony shock
Comments (5)Nikki - It's funny but about 30-some years ago, my family almost moved to Texas (Austin IIRC) due to the possibility of my father's job relocating there. It was then decided that his employer would stay put here. One of my BILs has a brother and family in Texas... small world! Thanks for the compliments on my plants. You too can fill up your space so much that it is difficult to navigate from one end to the other. For me, it's faster to go from one end to the other via the inside (I have 2 doors to the outside). LOL But then it's one of my many hobbies and I enjoy it immensely. Since you are using terracotta - you might consider getting the foam equivalent that is terracotta color. Most are painted to look aged to make them look even more like the real thing. However the foam will be able to weather the elements better and would definitely be lighter. The herb wall sounds cool... uh oh.... heh... you are enabling me now. :-p Anyway, wish you luck and if you can post pictures of your progress, that would be great!...See MoreAbsolute beginner overwhelmed by small backyard
Comments (1)Hi, welcome to Gardenweb. Your pics: Since you can't do much now, you can do a few fairly simple things that will give you a great start for next summer. This is probably a blessing in disguise, as the cliché goes, since waiting is probably the best thing for this yard. It doesn't look like anything "good" is growing there, although I certainly couldn't identify everything in the pics. You can lay some newspaper or cardboard where you want flower beds, walk on it a bit to get it flat to the ground if you need to, and cover with 3-4" of mulch. This will smother existing weeds and prevent new weeds from growing. It should be ready to plant flowers next year. In areas that aren't too weedy right now, you could dig a few holes in later this fall and get a few things started. Investigate the term lasagna gardening if you would like to read more about this method. I would lay newspaper in the planter box and fill it with about 3/4 compost then the rest mulch, ready to be awesome next year. If you want something pretty for this year, it's really easy to find something with beautiful foliage, like a coleus and put it in a pot in the shade. It won't dry out fast enough to seem like a chore and the beautiful leaves are cheery every day, no deadheading to do. A pot of impatiens or wax begonias will also keep blooming in the shade without being fussed over. Potted lettuce might be a shade- friendly edible to try in a pot, not much roots to them. In the 2nd pic, it looks like there's supposed to be a grass lawn to the left of the shrub? It looks like the bare spots are in a lot of shade. Most grass will not grow well or at all without quite a bit of sunlight. Since you are about to be too busy to baby a new lawn (pun intended) this summer, I would just keep it mowed and make that a project for next year. The shady spots along the fence would be a good spot for a shade garden. You can trim low-hanging branches so they don't bump people and allow more sun to reach the grass. That vine on the fence is scary, too big and vigorous for a small yard and will probably eventually destroy the fence by harboring too much moisture. Woody vines grow big trunks like small trees and if it does that between the boards they will be damaged. Is it your fence? Your vine? May be hard to tell which side it was originally planted on. It looks like mostly honeysuckle but there's something different to the right, I think. Don't act hastily without considering "ownership" of the vine(s.) Check out Ken's instructions on this discussion if you would like it to go away and don't think this will cause a ruckus with the neighbors. Smothering with cardboard, as described above, is not a strong enough method to control the spread of some things, including a vine like this....See Moreneed help with new backyard - shade and ivy
Comments (5)We had a difficult time removing ivy (in fact, we're still in the process). We hired people to bring in a Kubota and rip out as much as possible. Then, we had to cut the large pieces with a machete and spray RoundUp into the cuts (don't bother spraying the leaves, the waxiness protects them). If you decide to spray instead of rip it up, you need to damage the leaves with a weedwacker before spraying or it will not penetrate. You might not have to hire someone, a pickaxe/shovel would work well. We had about 1/2 acre of the stuff and we're still removing it from our ancient maples. The elderly gentleman next door says that no one did anything with the ivy for at least 60 years. That being said, it was definitely worth it. We found so much debris in the post-ivy areas that could have hurt our dogs or children (broken glass, asbestos tile, etc.). Now there's so much more room to run around. Good luck and happy ivy hunting!...See MoreBest way to cover a large hill in the backyard
Comments (19)I was hoping for better quality pictures, as the new ones are quite blurry. And it looks like instead of pivoting the camera from one point of view, you took pictures as you walked along parallel to the slope. At any rate, I think I detect there might be a subdivision on the other side of the fence ...? The main weed killer used where planting will occur soon thereafter is Round-Up, with the active ingredient, glyphosate. It is not instant acting and takes a week from application to see signs of it working. Within 2 weeks, it will have obviously accomplished its job. However, it does not kill everything. For weeds that it doesn't get, try Weed-b-gone, which has 2,4-d in it. (They can be used in combination to pretty much get anything. Though, if there are tough, established perennial/woody weeds, they may need a 2nd or 3rd spot treatment application. Be thorough in weed killing as anything remaining will actively flare up and start the infestation again. I also have had a good bit of large scale (commercial/institutional) landscape management experience and will caution you against using mass shrubs as a groundcover. This solution can be very difficult or impossible to maintain. Most shrubs become quite large over a period of time and end up becoming jungle (which would seem oppressive so near your open lawn.) It can be a nightmare trying to trim their height periodically, especially on a slope. Some shrubs are large enough that they compete with trees and it's hard to know where one stops and the other begins. "Trees" coming up under larger trees" is not a good look, but a messy one. What would be the advantage of using shrubs as a groundcover, over using groundcover as a groundcover? None that I can think of. The latter is self-limiting in height so there is never a concern about trimming for that. There is only perimeter edge to maintain which, in an instance like this, it is usually a by-product of mowing the lawn. Insofar as matching the neighbors, I would only consider that if they came up with a reasonable, best looking solution ... which one probably wouldn't know for some years hence. I'd be more inclined to strive toward that solution and let them copy me. I asked earlier but didn't see an answer. I'm not asking, Patrick, how you will solve the problem. I'm asking what direction you're trying to take this to, or the "feeling" you want it to have. ... a thick, impenetrable wall of dense jungle? ... a sloping, sunny meadow of flowers? ... an open canopy of large, stately trees? ... a bank of medium size flowering trees? ... a manicured looking, lawn-like open slope of sunny groundcover & no trees? .... Some combination of the above? Try to give some idea of what you're hoping for. Can we presume you want the maintenance level to be as low as possible?...See MoreTILAPIA
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