Once you get it weeded PREEN is fabulouse to keep weeds out.

You mow or you weed. I'd recommend mowing.

mad -- mow or weed, that's what I am trying to avoid! Maybe I should just get a goat, they'll eat anything...!!

Preen is a good thought.

Any chance you have a picture of the area? It'd help me digest and suggest.

Not chemicals. Your garden is so verdant, I'm sure there are critters who make their homes there and don't need their homes poisoned (per the EPA).

Wildflower meadow, you already have a good start with the goldenrod. Mow or have mowed once a year in the spring to keep the trees out.

6 hrs sun and a heat sink doesn't seem conducive to mosses. Have you looked in to natives that might work there?

FWIW, my aunt in WI has always reserved a portion of her acreage as a prairie/meadow and basically left it untouched for wildlife.

Meadows are NOT a natural ecosystem in the northeast. They are a form of gardening here, and require a fair amount of maintenance. Once a year mowing does not keep the woodies out, and the best local versions I've seen were mowed monthly.

Do you know someone with goats? I know people who have goats brought in annually to keep slopes clear (viewshed maintenance)

Seriously, why don't you want to mow it? A few swishes and it's done.

6 hours of sun and plenty of moisture. And you're complaining? You're not going to find something small and not have weeds. You either grow grass, cover it with something weeds can't germinate on, or grow large things that will shade the area and hog all the water.

Charles - in that general area are borders of daylilies, some hosta, and a few shrubs of medium size which can be pruned to a degree and some other stuff I can't recall. But the majority of the space has become a gigantic weed bed and is both unsightly and of too much square footage for me at my age ( a young-in-spirit 78 years) to weed by hand, even with a very willing helper.

I confess to not having any real "plan" for this area from the get-go. Mea culpa. Karma has found me...

Actually, I am not complaining about the sun and moisture back here, really -- it means that plants here are on their own and I have never had to drag the hose back here! That is a bonus.

mad - I do not know of any local rent-able goats but shall research that! Would have to fence in any good stuff, tho. le sigh.

Also, regarding a lawn here -- we installed very excellent sod 25 years ago in the areas near this section and mowed it faithfully for many years, and still do so. Those spots still have some grass, but now have clover, violets (3 sorts), and black-eyed susans, all self-introduced. Also a terrible fern whose name I don't know that is going to take over the world AND may apple, ditto ( I planted those, originally just 3, from my great-aunt's garden, and they have ambitions of world domination as well). And that is just the lawn back there. Maybe I ought to transplant some of the may apple to the unsightly area??! I wouldn't mind if that took over, altho it does die back in the late summer... Hmmmm.

I love violets and clover, so do the rabbits.

This is an excellent web site, Garden Rant.. Here is one article from it.

https://gardenrant.com/2024/05/realistic-ways-to-reduce-lawn.html

I don't know where you live. Sounds like a good spot for bald cypress trees.

Judi -- sorry! I live in south-central Massachusetts, supposedly zone 6 now. I am not familiar with bald cypress, but see that it is a conifer and that there is a dwarf variety. It is handsome, but probably not a good fit for my English-cottage garden style, visually. Thanks for the comment!

I had to see for far north they could grow. Looks like NE isn't out of the question. They really are beautiful trees.

https://www.co-opliving.com/8230/bald-cypress/

Judi - one problem IMO of bald cypress here would be the cones dropping/clean-up of same. I no longer stoop and recover as easily as I used to be able to do, lol. Also, this area of mine is bordered by mature oak and maple trees, so bald cypress would likely cast more shade than I would wish.

We have a bald cypress and I can honestly say I hardly notice the cones/balls. Maybe because the squirrels eat them? I don't know. They're certainly not anything like pine cones.

Good luck finding a good fit for your yard.

community garden?

Mass planting of Carex grayi? Geranium macrorrhizum? Carex pennsylvanica?

You might have to do occasional weeding.

Editing now--you have full sun so G. macrorrizum would not be happy--suggesting the slightly smaller G. 'Biokovo' or 'Karmina' in place of it. The other two would work.

Roxanna - I found your old thread and skimmed through the pictures. Your yard is beautiful!

A plant that comes to mind for blanketing the area and keeping most weeds/saplings out in those conditions is Rudbeckia Laciniata. It's native, but also very aggressive and very tall, so not sure it's a look you'd want.

"Ditch lilies" - the aggressive orange daylilies, not native - would be another option.

If the area is adjacent to the current lawn, it does seem like the easiest thing would be to convert it to grass.

What ever you decide, please dont apply chemicals to kill the living things.

Why dont you just mow it down and let it be?

I, too, am 70+ and i have been working on making my yard a simple mow and whack yard. I have started to leave some areas without mowing and I have discovered some very nice "weeds". I really mean that. Some of the things that grow on their own are really nice.

i especially have enjoyed the wild violets this year. I took some effort to transplant and congregate them into a decorative border, which I did last year, and I am really enjoying them. They will die back in the cold weather, but that is fine. Some of the clumping grasses have made some attractive clumps and I have buttercups that have populated the lawn in places. I just mow around them for the time. They seem to have a long bloom time.

When it all gets too raggedy and/or the season ends, I cut some down and neaten it up. I have really come to appreciate these "weeds", seriously.

I do pull up creeping charley.

I can hardly grow anything in the lilly family because of the deer who will eat it all down to a nub.

I just wanted to chime here about the issue of leaving lawns unmowed or trying to create "meadows" in a suburban lawn.

The reality is that, when you live in densly populated neighborhoods, there is a need for keeping things trimmed. If you live where you have huge yards or acreage, that is a different story.

But, if you live side by side on small suburban lots It can get complicated.

First off, you are not an island. Whatever you do, or , whatever your neighbor to either side does, will affect all around. If your neighbor planted huge treees, they may cut off the sunshine to your yard. If they build a fence on a hill, it may cause water to dam up in your yard. If they lay down a large area of concrete it produces extreme run off of rain water and prevents it seeping into the ground and may flood down your house and yard. You cant act indenpendtly when you are but one lawn in a line of all your neighbors.

Secondly, there is a level of order and neatness and cleanliness that is needed when you have maybe 100+ human beings, as well as their domestic pets, living down the course of one suburban street. In that situation, you need to be mindful and dont expect to be able to treat your yard as if is were somewhere out on 40 acres and it is all just you.

Encouraging and fostering the growth of native plants has become popular, for good reason.

I am amazed at how much I have enjoyed just having a couple of small areas where wild things grow, as well as those that have escaped from non native plantings.

I have never put any chemicals of any manner on my lawn of almost 40 years with the exception of a bit of fertilizer that I used for one purpose at one time.

My neighbor uses one of those weed and feed chemicals and I can honestly say that thier yard looks no different from my own. So, why?

That is another thing that happens in a densly populated suburban neighborhood. If your neighbor puts down chemicals, it may run off into what ever you have got going. Or if the neighbor has dogs, you may be the one in line to recieve all the wash down from the poop residue and you certainly dont want that if you are also growing something that you will eat, including just simple herbs.

I have been reading up on this subject lately and the suggestion to plant meadows comes up all the time. But, that is a glib suggestion that is not very practical for most of us.

Having said all of this, I do think that we could do better than the atrocious lawn growing that most do. I would have just seeded with clover, instead of grass, if I could evade the ire of neighbors who poision just to kill clover and the HOA. There is another layer of affairs to deal with in suburbia, HOAs and hostile neighbors.

Roxanna if you could post a picture that may be very helpful.

I am having a difficult time trying to picture this in my mind, but I have to agree with mxk - if you want something low-maintenance and the area is damp, perhaps itea or clethra, fothergilla, hollies, cephalanthus, dogwood, maybe a viburnum? Perhaps, depending on how big the area is, a lovely variegated willow? Shrubs take up more space, shade out weeds, and IMO are usually lower-maintenance than a perennial bed.

If you want to go with more, smaller perennials, again mxk has some good suggestions. I would add cimicifuga, astilbes, filipendula, ligularia, bog rosemary.

I'm also a fan of goldenrod. My yard has big patches of it, I guess naturally (the previous and only owner of my house was not a gardener so I'm guessing it is "just there")

Here is a picture of a garden I put in for a customer who had an extremely swampy area in her yard (please ignore the thumbs lol). It was grass, but could not be mowed easily because her lawn guy's ride-on mower left huge muddy tire tracks. I once lost a shoe here, sucked right off my foot lol. Standing water for much of the season.

There are actually two willows in here (one behind the front one) - Hakuro Nishiki - lovely pink in spring. Across the path from it is an itea, and the larger shrub to the right is a cephalanthus

Same bed, over to the right. The large white-flowered shrub is a viburnum; you can see another itea with a Ivory Halo dogwood behind it (to the left of the viburnum)

So, I don't know if shrubs would work for you but with the info I have so far that is what I would recommend. I will say, though, that the garden I planted these shrubs in was in half sun, half shade. But I think most of those shrubs could take more sun/heat, especially if the soil is always moist.

Good luck! Post some pics and give us more info and I'm sure you'll get more suggestions!

:)

Dee

yes,

my thought is that like me, you are getting older and, like a few of us, are facing the dilemma of a huge complex garden and diminishing physical resouces to deal with it. but you already know that. i occasionally find myself reading about others’ who are staring at the same challenge and try to take courage from their experiences. Sydney Edelson write a book about her experience. Changing one island bed brought her some peace of mind although it didnt solve the bigger challenge if a too large garden.

when i find myself panicking about garden upkeep i often find the garden is standing in for my body…the parts that changing out of my control. then there are moments of clarity of what must go or change. i wonder whether i should just remove the annoying part if the scenery,mulch it and leave it empty for a year, as i did when we first moved here until the answer presents itself.

an example: the deer discovered my taxus and every spring for 3 years have denuded a small hedge i planted to back up 3 Little Lime hydrangea. The last two falls i bought Plantsydd with yhe intention of spraying in November to keep the suckers from browsing them. As i surveyed the damage this spring i admitted to myself i was never going ti that far corner in the cold to spray. The obvious solution is take down the taxus and relieve my conscience and get rid if the eyesore. why didnt i think of it before? Im pretty sure it wasnt about esthetics or a failed plan but facing my lack of desire to traipse out in cold with a sprayer that makes my knuckles ache, because neither my hands or the rest of me are what they used to be.

Try moss phlox for the sunnier areas and tiarella cordifolia for the shadier areas. They're both pretty close to evergreen (nothing looks good if it's been very cold with no snow cover and harsh winds), native groundcovers.

If you like the goldenrod, but not its aggresiveness, there are a ton of goldenrod types.

Maybe consider wild geranium. It spreads slowly and this year mine is spectacular. No maintenance at all. And It's thick enough that no grasses have come through it. This is about 1 foot tall. It enjoys the sun.

I've started to plant moss, creeping thyme and other creeping/spreading plants to my garden to lessen the weeding I have to do. Just be careful of what you pick, last ownder planted Wintercreeper and I finally got rid of it in the front garden bed after years of just having black plastic and mulch there. It's now all over the backyard and spreading. It digs it's roots into my big oak and damages it. I really have to watch it. I'm hoping to eventually pull it all out, although, not sure if I'll ever be able to get rid of all of it before I die. It damaged the brick on the front of the house before I finally got rid of it. Busy life for years, so I let it go.

My go-to for "easy", German Bearded Iris. In the Fall mow them to 4" tall, nothing else. Or Shasta daisies, Painted Daisies or Rubeckia or peonies....are ALL pretty care free.

What I've seen...is ....sitting areas with herringbone brick pavers. Then staging a firepit or fireplace in the middle of a few chairs....that will not get used....just looks cute. (no weeding) Maybe another pergola over the sitting area.

One of my neighbors bought a battery powered lightweight mower and likes it. There are self-propelled models as well as manual push.

Depending on the size of the area, you could have a few clumps of easy, reliable and attractive plants with a deep layer of dark bark mulch. Minimal weeding.

I suppose I couldn’t interest you in MY plague — cypress spurge, self heal (Prunella vulgaris) and ajuga. The cottontails eat the dandelions.

A big plant, that covers the ground well, and grows close to tree, is winecups. Callirhoe involuctara. If it gets too big, I just cut it back some and it's perfectly fine. Covers a large area pretty easily, it looks like geraniums only five times larger. Because it has a long tap root, it does very well, without any care. It handles my clay soil, which retains moisture well, in addition to thriving under trees. So it's very versatile. And... It's a native. You couldn't get easier than this plant

I have loads of these catastrophe areas all round the allotment. My greatest ally is my lightweight battery strimmer...which I use A LOT. If I squint a little, the unkempt wilderness resolves itself into a lush velvety lawn (entirely of weeds but who cares).

To cover every inch of bare soil would cost an absolute fortune (and this isn't even my own garden) but empty spaces are just an invitation for colonising by thugs so yep, a vaguely grassy weed garden is totally acceptable if it stays at around 3 inches tall. With no chance for seeds to develop.

Embrace the goldenrod! It is considered by some to be a weed, but I think it's a lovely wildflower.

I have just read Claudia's post and cannot agree more (as a veteran of various 'meadow' attempts in an urban environment) - long, uncertain and very problematic. Too tedious to list...but nevertheless, even in my strimming sprees, I do manage to strim round some of the more robust and rewarding wildflowers (huge knapweeds, scabious and achilleas)...but mostly, I am resigned to a sort of hybrid spring bulb 'meadow' (in my old (ahem) 'meadow' and a regular chop from mid May. onwards, everywhere else (apart from those areas which I have managed to...manage. For me, a weedy, grassy space with tough bulbs which will naturalise in grass but can be kept to a decent length once the grasses and weeds REALLY get going, is a pragmatic compromise...but I find a lot of gardening is finding workable solutions rather than pursuing a show-garden perfection.

I haven't read through all the responses, but I planted clover in one of my yards. Soft on the feet, doesn't need mowing often, stays green and most importantly for me at the time is not affected by dog pee.

roxanna where are you lol? You've gone radio silent on us! :)

If you are still reading this thread, I had another idea, although to be honest I'm still having a difficult time both envisioning this area and trying to understand exactly what you want.

But I'm going to go from shrubs to groundcovers lol!

Out in my yard I have extensive patches of what I think I've identified correctly as haircap moss. It looks like teeny tiny little pine trees. It's about an inch to two inches tall, and is lovely to walk on in bare feet lol - like a soft plush carpet. Every once in a while a weed gets through, but very rarely in my yard (which is full of weeds!) I believe it's native (at least to CT) and it takes absolutely no maintenance. The only thing is, it can dry out, and you say this area is very hot, but if it is damp as well it may work. Otherwise you can hit it with the hose every so often if there are prolonged dry spells. Mine IS in a shadier spot (half sun, half shade), so I'm not sure how it does in full sun, but again maybe just some watering to keep it green in the heat.

I have no idea if you can actually buy this or not, but it might be worth a look. Here's a link - lots of pictures that look nothing like what I have but you can sift through for info if you are interested.

:)

Dee

Hi Dee - I'm waving at you during a break from potting up myriad lovely things that jumped into my car and came home with me. Lots of pretty containers and some huge hanging baskets are being filled, and the infamous pot ghetto on my driveway is shrinking, to DH's delight. (Over the decades, I have been know to over-buy and then have to toss the poor unloved plants on the compost heap.. It drives him crazy, but i am still allowed to indulge in purchases. It is my sole expensive habit, as I cut my own hair, do not go to nail salons, don't request pricey trips to foreign shores, or expect to shell out shekels for cruises [with or without HIM}, lol.)

To each of you folk who have responded to my thread here, I thank you and apologize for not (yet) addressing all of your ideas. I appreciate all the thoughts! And there are good ones....

Dee - My hideous messy area, that so far has had me scratching my head, already HAS several kinds of moss, which is fine and dandy IMO. The original allee was set up with brick edging and was a gravel pathway. It lasted a few years in its pristine aspect, but NOW is entirely filled from edge to edge with the moss you describe just above this post. It is gorgeous, and very happy to be in the full noon-to 5PM hot sun. Did I mention that this whole area is very moist throughout the season? LOL. Hence the moss being so happy. I may dig some plugs of it from the allee and transplant to the weedy area... Once again, Mother Nature has provided me with pleasing plants --- in this instance.

I may have to embrace the other things Mother Nature has "gifted" me (gad, I hate that term!). To wit: running buttercup (a thug, albeit pretty, of epic proportions), a horrible fern that only Mother Nature could love that has world domination ambitions, oriental bittersweet (ye gods -- I must deal with that dreadful thing - it's everywhere - up the mature trees, in the lawn AND some of the gardens). I shall tolerate the various yet-unidentified goldenrods and wild asters as they provide benefits for insects.

My little acreage is replete with wild critters -- yesterday I had a meaningful conversation with a tiny red eft as I was weeding one bed. And last evening just before dusk a full-grown deer sauntered up the allee and exchanged a pointed look with me as I stood on the deck... Life is good!

I do hope/plan to continue my thread of 25 Years of Gardening -- so I tell myself!! Maybe over the next few days which are going to hellish with temps around 90. I shall not be outside for the duration, believe me!!!

Roxanna

There are a lot of long posts here, that right now, I don't have time to read. But I'm at that age too, where I am trying to make the property attractive to us without creating more maintenance and work. There are a lot of suggestions that can be made, that require a LOT of work, both removing what is there and putting something else in. To me one option is a compromise between re-vamping the whole area with a lot of effort and expense, or doing nothing. How about keeping what is growing there on it's own....at least to a degree. Whatever you enjoy the most. Any plants that attract pollinators, butterflies, hummingbirds or birds of any kind. Start to replace plants you really dislike with something you really like that is easy. Just when you have time, dig up one plant and add one plant. Strategically hopefully. And how about clearing a small area around the edges of the area and sowing seed of clover. Then do another small area. Over time, you could accomplish more than you think without a huge effort all at once. Callirhoe is a good plant, someone else mentioned that will fill in nicely. Something like ajuga around the edges. In other words, you have some plants that are spreading and reseeding on their own, just add some competition of plants you like and let them all fight it out. lol