hey, i joined today because our task for the year is to fix our garden, now i know you all know what you're talking about and i just dont, first i will tell you a bit about me my name is Chelsea, im 22 and have a 2 year old daughter and 1 year old dog, we live in a rented house in cambridgeshire. the dog is our main offender, he (pretty much) destroyed the garden last year, dug holes everywhere, destroyed the veg plot at the edge of the garden and generally just pulled alot of it up (though it's our fault for not supervising him) we semi-sorted out the grass, put grass seed down but i think we put it down too late in the year so it didnt all grow, so we have bald patches that need fixing (any tips on that greatly appreciated!) we neglegted the garden and didnt weed it often enough so we have got to go out and pull i all up, unless there is a better way? and we need some durable shrubs/trees/flowers etc to fill in the gaps, i did a terrible picture on ms paint of our garden lay out so you can see what the garden layout is
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f9...cle/garden.jpg
we were going to get logroll/picket fencing to edge all the borders and seperate the borders from the lawn. how, if there is a way, do we stop the weeds growing in the stones? i know itse a case of maintenance but they are growing so fast, i was out there 2 weeks ago and pulled loads up at the back plot and about 50% of what i pulled up is growing back! we dont have a tonne of money to sort the garden and i don't want to spend loads because we dont own the house. but it needs doing and i want to enjoy having the outdoor space with my daughter this year, she loves being outside but at the moment i hate being out there.

any help on how to keep i simple but look nice greatly appreciated, i dont know all the technical words or latin names for plants so links and pictures will be useful!

thanks in advance! chelsea

A quick shortcut is to keep the edge of the lawn trimmed - even if the lawn is a bit shaggy, and there are weeds in amongst the plants, neatly trimmed edges to the lawn helps to make the garden look cared for.

You can use a glyphosate based weedkiller on the stones. It's the least problematical to animals, but keep the dog and your daughter away from it when you're spraying or the area is still wet. Use it when the weeds are growing fast. They take the glyphosate into their system, and die about 2-3 weeks later. It'll kill the deep rooted weeds that keep re-growing (dandelions and so on). You'll still have regrowths of weeds from seed to deal with.

If you want to grow veg you'll probably have to fence it off from the dog.

Get all the soil planted up as densely as you can. Don't go for the "bright flowers with clear soil between" look - that takes a lot of maintenance. If you can end up with no soil showing a) the weeds will struggle against the competition b) any weeds that get through won't be noticeable.

Talk to neighbours and see if you can get offered free plants - enthusiastic gardeners usually have spare plants that they don't have room for. Try also freecycle/freegle - though it's probably best to wait to see what's offered rather than to put in a request.

thankyou i will keep an eye on freecycle etc and see what neighbours say, i think we will just use the greenhouse for veg, thats easy to keep the dog out and it seems a shame to have one and not use it!

i'll have a look for that weedkiller too, the one the inlaws bought for us didnt do much but i dont think it was meant for the size of the weeds we have, it's easy enough to keep them both indoors whilst its sprayed or wet. thanks for the help im sure i'll have lots more questions along the way

On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:13:50 +0000, popticle wrote:


thanks in advance! chelsea

Your 'Shift' key seems to be broken, as does the apostrophe key - perhaps
you need a new keyboard?

"Derek Turner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:13:50 +0000, popticle wrote:


thanks in advance! chelsea

Your 'Shift' key seems to be broken, as does the apostrophe key - perhaps
you need a new keyboard?

Ignore him, sadly some sad individuals seem to think you need perfect
grammar to be a gardener. Trust me you don't.

Mike

"MuddyMike" wrote:

Ignore him, sadly some sad individuals seem to think you need perfect
grammar to be a gardener.

I'm in the (long) process of reading Samuel Clemens' autobiography. In a
number of places, he rails against standardized, rigid "book spelling," and
speaks highly of folk who can take the art of spelling to new creative
heights. We colonials even have our own dictionaries, since you folk can't
even spell "civilization" correctly!

Garden content: I've been cleaning seeds, which I should have been done in
the depths of winter. I believe I could plant enough Swiss Chard for all
of the northeastern U.S. If I could get past the snow still covering the
plot!


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/4 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

"popticle" wrote in message
news

hey, i joined today because our task for the year is to fix our garden,
now i know you all know what you're talking about and i just dont, first
i will tell you a bit about me my name is Chelsea, im 22 and have a 2
year old daughter and 1 year old dog, we live in a rented house in
cambridgeshire. the dog is our main offender, he (pretty much) destroyed
the garden last year, dug holes everywhere, destroyed the veg plot at
the edge of the garden and generally just pulled alot of it up (though
it's our fault for not supervising him) we semi-sorted out the grass,
put grass seed down but i think we put it down too late in the year so
it didnt all grow, so we have bald patches that need fixing (any tips on
that greatly appreciated!) we neglegted the garden and didnt weed it
often enough so we have got to go out and pull i all up, unless there is
a better way? and we need some durable shrubs/trees/flowers etc to fill
in the gaps, i did a terrible picture on ms paint of our garden lay out
so you can see what the garden layout is
[image: http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f9...le/garden.jpg]
we were going to get logroll/picket fencing to edge all the borders and
seperate the borders from the lawn. how, if there is a way, do we stop
the weeds growing in the stones? i know itse a case of maintenance but
they are growing so fast, i was out there 2 weeks ago and pulled loads
up at the back plot and about 50% of what i pulled up is growing back!
we dont have a tonne of money to sort the garden and i don't want to
spend loads because we dont own the house. but it needs doing and i want
to enjoy having the outdoor space with my daughter this year, she loves
being outside but at the moment i hate being out there.

any help on how to keep i simple but look nice greatly appreciated, i
dont know all the technical words or latin names for plants so links and
pictures will be useful!

thanks in advance! chelsea




--
popticle

Some gardening advice I was given over the garden wall when I started was "
Garden by encroachment" i.e. only weed or turn over the amount you can
immediately cover in new plants or mulch, if you work hard all weekend
clearing ground and don't cover it, by the time you next get out there it
will look as bad as before and that's a bit demoralizing.

Dog, you should have trained to start with (but you know that already!) but
persistence pays, better to buy robust hardy plants and protect to start
with and just wait until the dog and children grow up, or perhaps there is
scope for some dog defenses and divide the garden so some of it is out of
bounds, our garden now the football paddling pool and climbing frame have
gone is much different to its beginnings, life is to short to be shouting at
children for playing in the garden.

Children and dogs are perhaps why we became so interested in climbing plants
as it was only the stuff around the edge that stood a chance!!


--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
Holders of National Collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cvs
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk

Ok...thanks for the tip? And the wonderful advice you gave on my garden!

Back to the helpful people, thanks so much! I know we didn't train the dog properly in the first place and it is entirely our fault. So now we are trying to fix it I don't want to add plants that I know are too delicate, because there are bound to be times where I catch him at it too late lol! Someone else I know suggested rhododendrons so it looks like they'll be going on the shopping list, and azaleas (though apparently they aren't dog safe?) I would have thought he will leave the bigger plants alone, it's just the smaller ones that he may dig up. You're absolutely right, life is too short to spend the whole time telling them not to play, I love seeing them play together but know that the garden needs to be presentable and at the moment it's just not, it's totally our fault though, no one else is to blame

The garden by encroachment tip is a good one I hadn't thought of it like that! I'll just divide it into sections and do each section at a time, that makes much more sense!

Anyway I'm writing this on my phone and can't see what I've said above so I'll come back to this thread tomorrow, thanks for all the helpful advice, it's much appreciated.

In article , popticle.8099ef6
@gardenbanter.co.uk says...

Derek Turner;916406 Wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:13:50 +0000, popticle wrote:
-

thanks in advance! chelsea-

Your 'Shift' key seems to be broken, as does the apostrophe key -
perhaps
you need a new keyboard?

Ok...thanks for the tip? And the wonderful advice you gave on my garden!

In a busy group it's in posters own interest to create messages that
are easy to read; with headers that give some clue about the question
asked. That makes it more likely to attract answerrs from people with some
interest/ knowledge on the subject.

Someone else I know suggested rhododendrons so it looks
like they'll be going on the shopping list, and azaleas

Depends on your local soil. Rhododendrons and azaleas must have acid to
neutral soil; they won't survive in limey soils. They are also quite
expensive, if this is a temporary rental.

Janet

that's fine but my post isnt particularly difficult to read, my grammar is just a bit off.

how do i know if the soil is acidic? we're not sure if it's temporary or not, we have been here 18mths and there's no indication that they want us out and we are't planning on moving, we need to fill in the gaps somehow so we wont begrudge paying out for them since it's our fault anyway ) i did look for an edit button to correct the missing capital letters etc but i couldnt see one?

In article , popticle.80a47b7
@gardenbanter.co.uk says...

that's fine but my post isnt particularly difficult to read, my grammar
is just a bit off.

It sends a message you really can't be bothered. This is not a winning
tactic when you're asking others to make some effort to help you.

how do i know if the soil is acidic? we're not sure if it's temporary or
not, we have been here 18mths and there's no indication that they want
us out and we are't planning on moving, we need to fill in the gaps
somehow so we wont begrudge paying out for them since it's our fault
anyway ) i did look for an edit button to correct the missing capital
letters etc but i couldnt see one?



Janet

"Janet" wrote in message
...
In article , popticle.80a47b7
@gardenbanter.co.uk says...

that's fine but my post isnt particularly difficult to read, my grammar
is just a bit off.

It sends a message you really can't be bothered. This is not a winning
tactic when you're asking others to make some effort to help you.


What a pity the OP has entered the sacred hallows of urg via gardenbanter. I
feel sure that had the OP found urg direct and bowed to the 'Holier than
thou' owners in the first place, that last posting would never had had
happened.

Mike




--

....................................
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
....................................




how do i know if the soil is acidic? we're not sure if it's temporary or
not, we have been here 18mths and there's no indication that they want
us out and we are't planning on moving, we need to fill in the gaps
somehow so we wont begrudge paying out for them since it's our fault
anyway ) i did look for an edit button to correct the missing capital
letters etc but i couldnt see one?



Janet

In message ,
Janet writes
In article , popticle.80a47b7
says...

that's fine but my post isnt particularly difficult to read, my grammar
is just a bit off.

It sends a message you really can't be bothered. This is not a winning
tactic when you're asking others to make some effort to help you.

Bad grammar etc. doesn't really bother me, but I did actually find the
post difficult to read, primarily because it was mostly one long
paragraph. Lack of capital letters and full stops makes it worse. In
fact I didn't read it, first time round, my news groups reading time is
limited. Things that are harder work are more likely to get ignored

how do i know if the soil is acidic?

you can get a soil ph testing kit for a few quid, or soil ph meter in
the garden centre, or online from gardening suppliers or ebay.

i did look for an edit button to correct the missing capital
letters etc but i couldnt see one?

Probably because Gardenbanter, whilst looking like a web forum, isn't
actually one. It's a web interface effectively to something called
uk.rec.gardening , which is a newsgroup. They've been around long before
the web. I'll not bore with the details,but when a message has been
sent, it's like an e-mail, you can't then edit it
--
Chris French

Hi Popticle, Just a thought, i had a customer once who said that everything they planted was dug up by the dog ? Then the penny dropped with me, some kind soul had advised them to add some bonemeal when they planted anything ! not a bad thing but alot of dogs can smell this in the ground, which is why they dig and once they get a taste for it, it then becomes a habit, just a thought ??
Lannerman

popticle wrote:
how do i know if the soil is acidic?

You can get a soil acidity/pH testing kit from any local garden centre, I
think.