Low maintenance garden-- weeds under the veranda

18 years ago

IÂm hoping to get suggestions for how to manage a bit of a garden in hot Northern Victoria, under the following conditions:

1. IÂm disabled and canÂt bend, kneel or stand.

2. IÂm a pensioner, therefore no money to splash around.

3. I have a husband who has no interest in gardening or domestic scenery but heÂs willing to do the yakka, providing it isnÂt too hard and that car racing, football, The Simpsons, yachting, blah, blah, blah, arenÂt on the television!

4. We take off in our caravan for many months each year.

5. We have no water restrictions and are presently hooked up to a timer and 3 movable spray heads. (Not my choice and I donÂt know how to operate the jerry built system.) This runs off channel water, which encourages weeds to grow like crazy.

6. This isnÂt our house. ItÂs part of sonÂs dairy farm and we donÂt want to do any reconstruction work in the yard. I can get lots of straw and manure though!

I really miss the garden in the house we sold to fund our caravanning. In addition to masses of trees and shrubs, I had annuals planted in 36 truck tyres stacked 3 high, which made a level I could reach easily. Sadly, thereÂs not much point planting annuals now, because IÂm generally not here to see them bloom. This gives the hint that I like flowers, lots of color and perfume.

EAST Under some shade mesh on four posts, I have pots containing a rhododendron, camellia, pelargonium, a couple of ferns, two young Powton trees and a Crepe Myrtle( both cuttings from the old house), aloe vera, bulbs of daffodils, jonquils, star flowers, snowdrops and hyacinths (all from the old house) and various cuttings of things I nick on my travels. ThereÂs also a big pile of interesting rocks, left by the last tenants.

These pots have survived our travels (courtesy of the automatic timer) but the weeds overtake the pots and the ground around them. IÂd like to make a feature of this small area of pots because itÂs in a place I can easily see from the house. Fish fern and variegated ivy are beginning to cover some of the ground and IÂm reluctant to get rid of them but donÂt want them to take over too much. (The Powtons and Crepe Myrtle will have to go into the ground ASAP.)

The rest of the square house has narrow garden beds along the sides, with not a lot growing in them.

NORTH This bed is what people see as soon as they drive in and it looks terrible. I have a soaking type hose which might be good for here??? IÂd like some tallish plants, about 1 metre high, at the back of the bed. (If theyÂre bushy, they could occupy the whole bed.) Suggestions please?? ItÂs in the blazing sun all day, so I donÂt suppose I could have hydrangeas?? What can I put at the front of the bed if the back plants are tall and thin?

WEST The bed on one side of the door is very protected and shaded and can be watered easily. An ugly old cypress provides much of the shade. It isnÂt huge and son doesnÂt want it cut down so...

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Comments (4)

mooquack
18 years ago
Greetings,

I am far from expert compared to the others here who will no doubt wade in soon enough to provide some advice but just a couple of thoughts that came to mind...

1. Geraniums might work on the northern side. They generally require very little pruning and can neatly occupy about a 1m tall x 1.5m width. Constantly flowering you might not have much of a perfume (unless you crush the leaves as you pass them) but you'd have some visual beauty.

2. Given you're obviously not able to bend or stand, could you buy standard roses at the appropriate height which would allow you to do most of the maintenance and then your husband could get involved once per year as required? I'm thinking of the small neat "balls on a stick" effect that it's possible to get through semi-regular pruning. If you bought them at the appropriate height for your wheelchair (easy to judge when you go shopping for them) then you should be able to do 99% of the the maintenance whilst seated? The final height of the plant would be determined already so you'd not need to be concerned they'd be the wrong size ultimately.

3. You might consider eliminating the fishbone fern (hey, you said your husband would help sometimes!) and laying down some serious weed-barrier (even thick newspapers would work) covered by gravel / white stones / woodchips that requires no ongoing maintenance. Your pots could then sit on this area and you'd have them as a feature without the weed problem.

Hope that helps...
paradisi
18 years ago
Hi lauriejay

my neighbours are pensioners and use besser bick blocks (the ones with the holes in them) to grow most things. They can get them knee high or higher and grow most things in the holes.
If hubby is a bit handy he can make a form for the concrete blocks and make them at home or you can buy them a couple at a time ---- check out the square foot forum in the USA part of garden web

I'm recovering from a boken back and have found no-dig gardening a real help - lots of mulch and many low maintenance pants.

for your north bed - try some gevilleas or melaleucas or even the buddleia - butterfly bush (weed haters will denounce me for suggesting these)

west - a wet/shade loving herb garden - vietnamese mint, cardamom, odrinary mint, other ferns, have a look at some of specialist forums in the USA part of garden web

for the east get a large pot and make a fish pond??

just some ideas
cheers and good gardening

paradisi
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Pam - along the side of the house there is a 5-8 foot wide flat walkway of old bark, and next to it, covering the slope are some junipers that have been well-trimmed through the years. Since they are doing their job of erosion control, and I really don't have to look at or maintain them short of an annual trim, I will leave the ones along the side of the house (and throw in a couple arborvitae or similar to screen off the dead wood on the end) but as soon as we get into the actual yard, the bushy scary eating the yard ones will come out. Thanks for your input karinl. I am becoming more keen on including conifers in the landscape. That has been something that I'm getting more and more used to. When I first moved it, I was so against anything non-broadleaf evergreen it was ridiculous. We were going to go with an alaskan weeping cedar (and still may) but at Flower World, we ran into something called a dwarf sequoia, which was SO interesting, and we will almost certainly be using it in the landscape. I've been unable to find anything online about them. It had a similar growth pattern in that it kind of looked Dr. Seuss-y, the branches hung almost straight down, but it was gorgeous. We have 5 HUGE fir trees, one on each corner of our yard, and they ALL belong to neighbors. The people across the street from us are hoping to open up their view a bit and have spoken about wanting to go in on taking down the one uphill of us, but the people that just bought that house are like the Seattle suburb wannabes of Jersey Shore so I do not expect that they will have any interest in spending any money on landscaping. I caught them thinning out a photinia that provided privacy screening between our back yards with a sawzall (.25" thick branches). The people downhill from us are renters and based on the state of various "wear items" around their house, like the fence, I have a feeling the landlord is uninterested in investing any money in the property that they don't have to. Cliffs: It's unlikely either of those huge fir trees are going anywhere. Thanks for the kind words on the back yard. I've spend the last 2.5 years trying to whip it into shape. We have put a huge deck between the 2 decks on either side, the raised veggie beds, defined garden beds around the decks and elsewhere have gone in, I've taken out about 1/2 of the lawn, we put in a fire pit and gravel "patio" in front of the other deck to address the ongoing lawn moss and crappiness issues, and torn out about 1000 sq feet of vinca minor and 3 overgrown rhododendrons. It has been quite a project, and I feel that I've gotten far enough with it that I'm ready to start tackling the front so it doesn't look like meth addicts live here. I'm not particularly tied to nandinas, and after spending $50 today on ONE dwarf variety for vignette #1, I have been seriously rethinking my position. I have a couple more plants to move from the back yard to the front tomorrow morning, but I will post photos tomorrow once I get everything "completed." It looks FANTASTIC.
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I'll give it a shot. Since this is a steep slope, you might consider planting weeping love grass there. The Georgia DOT plants a lot of this along steep slopes on highway cuts, particularly in the mountains. I think it would grow OK in South GA. Low maintenance is a relative term. There is always some maintenance involved, if for no other reason because weeds and trees will always start to invade a planting area over time. However, you could annually burn off the weeping love grass and that should control weeds and trees. Check with your local extension service about love grass and how to plant and grow it. I am sure you have seen it before. You usually see it on steep slopes along highways. It has a very fine texture and long grass blades, giving it a weeping form. It's very attractive. (I grew up in GA, but now live in NC.)
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Agree with all the above: mulch; policing of weeds and groundcovering with plants. I would add that if one HAS weeds, they've already created the conditions that make it hard to overcome. By nature, weeds produce volumes of seeds and some of them do it when they're surprisingly young (2 weeks from seed to flowering!) This is great for promoting their own species but makes it difficult for the person trying to get a handle on their yard. Besides the continuously existing weed seeds, there are roots or bits of roots that remain in a bed after someone has "pulled" the weeds. These, too, pop right back with a fresh batch of weeds.These root must be dug out. As mentioned, Preen (a pre-emergent herbicide in granular form) is a great help at controlling sprouting seeds. In my experience it doesn't seem to help all that much the first time it is put in place. Its help will be much more noticeable after the second application and it's the case that the applications MUST be applied ON THE SCHEDULE directed by the manufacturer. If one "forgets" about it and applies the applications with huge gaps of time in between, Preen will be a waste of time and money. If the weed infestation is bad and in a perennial bed, often it's the case that it's best to dig up the whole bed, reset (and divide if needed) the perennial and clean out all the weed roots at that time. After reinstalling the perennial, apply thick mulch and Preen. Once weeds are under control, Preen, on schedule, does a great job of keeping new ones from sprouting. Still, there will be the occasional rogues so it's important to get them out ASAP. The good news is that once weeds are under control, keeping them that way becomes easier and easier, if the aforementioned advices (mulch and groundcover) are employed. BTW, Preen is sold in a relatively small container for a little less than $20 (2017) and in a large container, which I've found at Home Depot, for about $30.
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mistymorn
18 years ago
Hi there and Welcome to the Forums ... Mooquack above has given you some good ideas so I will just add a few regards plants.

Lavender dont like wet feet so they may do for the north, or what about daisy's only trouble is those both need pruning at times maybe Grevillea. You could have Campanula at the back and Polyanthus in the front or even pigface

Canna lilies for the West, and dont forget there are lots of smallish flowering prunus, what about Daphne, do you like Natives have a look at the link below it may give you some ideas. There are so many plants out there for your area so good luck with whatever you choose.....Cheers..MM.

Here is a link that might be useful: Flora for Fauna
lauriejay
Original Author
18 years ago
mooquack, paradisi, mistymorn,
Thank you very much for taking the time to think out suggestions for me.
There was something in each letter that struck a chord with me and now things are beginning to jell in my head. Sometimes we can't see the wood for the trees when a problem has been going round and round in our heads. (Apt saying in a gardening group!)
The Flora for Fauna site was very handy.
I appreciate your help. Thank you.

Low maintenance garden-- weeds under the veranda

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mooquack

paradisi

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Low maintenance garden-- weeds under the veranda

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mooquack

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