"K" wrote in message
Farm1 writes
Even in my very big garden, I still only use herbicdes as a very,
very
last resort after every other organic alternative has failed -
perhaps
once or twice a year on one or two plants. I hand weed and mulch.
Overall, I've been quite surprised at how few organic gardeners
there
are in this forum.
'Gardening' and 'organic' doesn't really go together here ;-)
LOL. I'd noticed, but after I thought about it for a while, I thought
I may have come up with an answer (and yes, it does have [partly] to
do with garden size but not the reason you hyposthesized}.
Most
gardening books exhort you to use fertiliser at regular intervals
and
pesticides for preventative use, let alone cure. GC and DIY shop
shelves are heaving with bottles for growing things and killing
things.
Same thing in the GC and DIY shops too but the Aus garden list (which
is not as active or seemingly as full of people who know what they are
doing as this one) seems much more focussed on organic solutions then
urg (at least that is the impression I've gained over reading it for
some years) and I know that none of my many and varied friends is into
anything more than the odd drop of herbicide. The other thing is that
as I live in the country, the standard of gardens would never be able
to be featured in the Brit garden mags I buy ("the English Garden" and
"Gardens Illustrated")- not high enough maintenance standards (eg
no-one does edges and in a drought a lawn is a thing of the past.
We have one or two organic gardening gurus, but they are exceptions.
Prince Charles is viewed as decidedly odd by many for his organic
views.
Yes, I'd noticed that. Personaly I think he's rather a decent sort
(family background notwithstanding).
Faced with all this as a newbie gardener, it is quite hard to go
against
the grain.
Perhaps it's the garden size thing again? If you can't ever stand
more
than 10 ft away from the rose bush in your garden, it's more
important
that there shouldn't be a single aphid disfiguring it. Organic
gardening
can give you healthy plants - what it finds more difficult to
achieve is
totally pest-free plants.
I suspect that rather than a mere garden size issue, it is more to do
with having close neighbours and being in a fairly crowded land (IIRC,
the population of both the UK and Oz is about the same but what a huge
difference there is in land size).
If near neighbours splash all sorts of nasty crud around, then it is
unlikely that there is going to be much biodiversity in the entire
area as both beneficial birds and insects move around without regard
for human boundaries and the chemical crud simply decimates them.
I don't want fully pest free plants and never would for a number of
reasons - mainly (but not exclusively) birds - I have a husband who is
keen on birds (avian variety!). Every year I get aphids on my roses
but they are gone within a week because the Superb Blue Wrens clean
them up totally.
http://birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=3
I can sit on my back verandah watching these tiny birds cleaning up
the aphids with no fear at all from we humans. I can see no reason to
cause myself work by dragging out a nasty to spray to kill the aphids
if these wonderful little birds are doing the work for me and giving
me entertainment at the same time.
I also have a lot of "Blue tongue Lizards" and skinks in my garden and
these eat snails but are poisoned by snail bait. They give me a shock
every now and then when I see then because I sometimes mistake them
for snakes but they too are more than welcome. They are preyed on by
the raptor family and I get to see them too.
I think of my garden in a titheing sense. Some for me and some for
the insects, small vertibrates and birds. I won't have kangaroos in
the garden though. they are not tolerated.