GardenBanter.co.uk - start over?

On Sat, 5 Jun 2004 15:41:19 -0500, "minerva nine"
opined:

Greetings -- This rainy spring has brought out all sorts of
stuff in my yard, and I'm feeling really overwhelmed. It seems
like it would just be easier to till up the whole yard and start
over. I've got several volunteer lantana, sunflowers, chili
pequins, but they're all coming up in not-so-great locations,
and I've had bad luck transplanting these. My yard looks like
exactly what it is -- a regularly neglected patch of weeds --
but I'd like it to look a little more tended. Any easy ways to
accomplish this without starting from scratch? Thx -- M9

Well, I have a prairie garden in the back of my property. Right now it is
about 4 feet tall in some spots, taller in others. What I am going to do is go
back there on the next cloudy day and cut all the early blooming perennial
native plants back. I will then trim and dig out some of the grasses. Eastern
gamma grass is very prolific and though it is a wonderful xeric plant, it must
go. Then when I have all of that done, I will take stock in what's left to do.
Do some weeding and collect seeds from spent larkspur and other plants like it.
It makes life easier to have an area where my brush pile is. I can haul all the
larger trimmings over to that, and I have a large compost hill for softer
material.

It easily takes 4 or 5 years in a garden before it looks like a garden meant to
be. Do small sections. Right now transplanting anything is almost certain death
to the plant. Do more of that work in the fall. Right now, make lists of plants
that you can identify and try to draw a little informal map of what you have,
how large it is, etc...

In the fall, through the winter you can plan and do the work when it is cooler.

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