On 30/7/08 18:55, in article , "K"
wrote:

"Cat(h)" writes

:-) Some people have too much time on their hands, or plan to use
their lawns for putting practice.
My lawn is chocfull of weeds, including the selfheal in question, a
couple of patches. Lots of daisies, and white clover, the odd
thistle, docks and god knows what else.
But when clipped tight - which weather permitting I try to do every
week end - it looks lovely and densely green, and it is particularly
nice for a kickaround, or even to lie out on on the couple of days in
the year that that odd shiny hot object appears in the sky.
Between clippings, it is lovely and "enameled" (as they apparently did
in medieval times) with white and gold daisies, purple selfheal and
white clover.
Life's too short to be anal about lawns, in my book :-)

On the same day as the OP posted his plea, I was celebrating because my
lawn has just produced its first clump of self-heal, to go along with
the white clover, daisies, et al.


It's certainly horses for courses. As long as ours are cut and look fairly
tidy, I fin it makes the entire garden look tidy. But the joy of a little
patch of 'something pretty' springing up here and there can't be overstated
for me.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

Sacha wrote:

The preoccupation with lawns seems to be an intensely British
passion. That slab of bowling green is essential to some peoples'
peace of mind. In Crete we saw several villas with immaculate lawns
nobody ever sat on because they all sat on the terraces of their
pools. It infuriated the locals, to whom water is immensely precious,
to see it wasted on these meaningless bits of greenery which aren't
even useful to a goat! Our lawns have daisies, a few dandelions,
violets, some clover, and enchantingly, white violets on one of them.
Under a tree we have cyclamen, bluebells, daffs.

I can't understand why people who call themselves gardeners bother with an
uninteresting slab of monoculture. Remove the turves, pile them up, and let
them rot down into decent soil, and rotovate what's left. Then you have a
nice, empty piece of land to turn into something attractive and/or useful.


--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)

Des Higgins,

This is your quote pasted below:

Yer man has selfheal in his lawn
because the lawn is shite not because he has been lax with his
chemicals. If he wants a nice lawn, he has to put some time in.
Spraying it will waste the money and give him a patchy lawn with bare
bits and the weeds will regrow in a while. If he wants a nice lawn he
has to scarify, aerate, feed and mow correctly.

Now, how do you know my lawn is shite, have you seen it, thought not?
It is just your uninformed opinionated scathing arrogance that leads
you to type such drivel.

In my first post I said that I did not have an epidemic of the
prunella vulgaris but said that it was giving me concern. I did not
mention any other detrimental points about my lawn.

For your information I have listed below my general annual routine.

1. March/April, handrake the lawn with a lawn rake to clear all the
winter worm casts and other debris.

2. Apply the correct dose rate of "Feed-Weed-Moss Killer" with a
Scotts spreader.

3. Allow 2 weeks for process 2 above to take effect then mow and hand
rake again.

4. Apply mid summer feed around July

I then keep the lawn mowed each week until November. Every other year
I hire a scarifier in the spring from HSS to give it a good clean up.
The one thing that I have never done is to aerate the lawn with a
hollow tining fork or general garden fork. Sure, the process could be
improved but I am generally happy with he results so far.

As a matter of fact, the lawn is probably in very good condition in
comparison to the general standard of lawns in the UK. My post about
prunella vulgaris was prompted by the lawn of a family relative been
ruined by an epidemic of the plant that got out of control and has
resited the efforts of professional lawn services. This caused me to
place my question on here for advice on how to get rid of this
specific plant.

So Des Higgins, please inform me how you know my lawn is shite having
never seen it.

Regards

On 30/7/08 19:36, in article ,
"Jeff Layman" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

The preoccupation with lawns seems to be an intensely British
passion. That slab of bowling green is essential to some peoples'
peace of mind. In Crete we saw several villas with immaculate lawns
nobody ever sat on because they all sat on the terraces of their
pools. It infuriated the locals, to whom water is immensely precious,
to see it wasted on these meaningless bits of greenery which aren't
even useful to a goat! Our lawns have daisies, a few dandelions,
violets, some clover, and enchantingly, white violets on one of them.
Under a tree we have cyclamen, bluebells, daffs.

I can't understand why people who call themselves gardeners bother with an
uninteresting slab of monoculture. Remove the turves, pile them up, and let
them rot down into decent soil, and rotovate what's left. Then you have a
nice, empty piece of land to turn into something attractive and/or useful.


It depends on what you have available to you, though. If a lawn is your
sole recreational area on which to sunbathe, play, eat al fresco etc. I
understand it better, though not in the pristine, weedless sense. When it's
a square of hallowed green in front of a house and on which nobody treads
other than to mow it or weed it, its usefulness or desirability passes me
by. In those circumstances I'd do what my old grandfather did, pave it and
in his case make a flower bed in the middle - in my case, it would probably
be a water feecha. No way was Grandpa going to sit on a lawn beside a road
which was used by - ooooooh - at least a dozen cars a day 'back then'!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

In article ,
says...
As a matter of fact, the lawn is probably in very good condition in
comparison to the general standard of lawns in the UK. My post about
prunella vulgaris was prompted by the lawn of a family relative been
ruined by an epidemic of the plant that got out of control and has
resited the efforts of professional lawn services. This caused me to
place my question on here for advice on how to get rid of this
specific plant.

So Des Higgins, please inform me how you know my lawn is shite having
never seen it.


Where you made your mistake was in assuming you would get a useful
answer. This ng is for chatting by a select group who decide how your
garden should look. You may not grow it as you wish but must conform to
their ideas. The owners of the ng look down on anyone who has the
temerity to want a weed free garden and the worst crime of all is to use
chemicals. My advice to you is to brown nose the leaders for a while
and lose no oppotunity to tell them what good chaps they are, after a
while you will get to know the chief group and will be able to take
sides with them against others who do not conform. Then you may, only
may, be allowed to have an opinion of your own, but don't hold your
breath.

On Jul 31, 9:32 am, pb wrote:
In article ,
says...

As a matter of fact, the lawn is probably in very good condition in
comparison to the general standard of lawns in the UK. My post about
prunella vulgaris was prompted by the lawn of a family relative been
ruined by an epidemic of the plant that got out of control and has
resited the efforts of professional lawn services. This caused me to
place my question on here for advice on how to get rid of this
specific plant.

So Des Higgins, please inform me how you know my lawn is shite having
never seen it.

Where you made your mistake was in assuming you would get a useful
answer. This ng is for chatting by a select group who decide how your
garden should look. You may not grow it as you wish but must conform to
their ideas. The owners of the ng look down on anyone who has the
temerity to want a weed free garden and the worst crime of all is to use
chemicals. My advice to you is to brown nose the leaders for a while
and lose no oppotunity to tell them what good chaps they are, after a
while you will get to know the chief group and will be able to take
sides with them against others who do not conform. Then you may, only
may, be allowed to have an opinion of your own, but don't hold your
breath.

That's it; you are not being invited to the secret inner cabal get
togethers any more.

On Jul 30, 10:32 pm, tbg wrote:
Des Higgins,

This is your quote pasted below:

Yer man has selfheal in his lawn
because the lawn is shite not because he has been lax with his
chemicals. If he wants a nice lawn, he has to put some time in.
Spraying it will waste the money and give him a patchy lawn with bare
bits and the weeds will regrow in a while. If he wants a nice lawn he
has to scarify, aerate, feed and mow correctly.

Now, how do you know my lawn is shite, have you seen it, thought not?
It is just your uninformed opinionated scathing arrogance that leads
you to type such drivel.

In my first post I said that I did not have an epidemic of the
prunella vulgaris but said that it was giving me concern. I did not
mention any other detrimental points about my lawn.

For your information I have listed below my general annual routine.

1. March/April, handrake the lawn with a lawn rake to clear all the
winter worm casts and other debris.

2. Apply the correct dose rate of "Feed-Weed-Moss Killer" with a
Scotts spreader.

3. Allow 2 weeks for process 2 above to take effect then mow and hand
rake again.

4. Apply mid summer feed around July

I then keep the lawn mowed each week until November. Every other year
I hire a scarifier in the spring from HSS to give it a good clean up.
The one thing that I have never done is to aerate the lawn with a
hollow tining fork or general garden fork. Sure, the process could be
improved but I am generally happy with he results so far.

As a matter of fact, the lawn is probably in very good condition in
comparison to the general standard of lawns in the UK. My post about
prunella vulgaris was prompted by the lawn of a family relative been
ruined by an epidemic of the plant that got out of control and has
resited the efforts of professional lawn services. This caused me to
place my question on here for advice on how to get rid of this
specific plant.

So Des Higgins, please inform me how you know my lawn is shite having
never seen it.

Regards

I am sure your lawn is wonderful and brings you enormous pleasure and
fulfillment.
I was concerned (clearly unduly as I now realise) that you were
stressed over a small plant and that maybe you should try astroturf
for a completely stress free gardening experience. I now realise that
you take your lawn very seriously and humbly apologise for any extra
stress I may have caused you and wish you many more years of spraying
and scarifying.

Des