New gardener here - please go easy on me. We into a home a couple of years ago with a 1/4 acre landscaped lot, with a number of garden beds mostly with perennials, some evergreens, rhodos, bamboo - quite an assortment.

For the last two years all we have done is prune, fertilize and add leaf mulch to the bed tops. We are unsure whether the hoe/turn-over the beds or not. Around each plant there are obviously some shallow root systems and wonder whether we should even bother with this. Is it recommended to turn over the first few inches each year in these non-vegetable perennial beds or not?

Help appreciated...

Larry

On 10/05/2013 21:06, wrote:
New gardener here - please go easy on me. We into a home a couple of years ago with a 1/4 acre landscaped lot, with a number of garden beds mostly with perennials, some evergreens, rhodos, bamboo - quite an assortment.

For the last two years all we have done is prune, fertilize and add leaf mulch to the bed tops. We are unsure whether the hoe/turn-over the beds or not. Around each plant there are obviously some shallow root systems and wonder whether we should even bother with this. Is it recommended to turn over the first few inches each year in these non-vegetable perennial beds or not?

If they are shallow rooted adding a thin layer of compost or leaf mould
mulch and letting the worms do all the work is a lot less hassle.

You can go a long way with pruning out any crossing branches and one
third of anything where you are growing it for ornamental new stems.

A few things benefit from more drastic pruning. I have yet to find
anything that will discourage a budleia but still grow them anyway for
butterflies - same with pink valerian which I keep for the same reason.

Help appreciated...

If in doubt do nowt is a very good maxim until you know better...

You can generate a fair amount of compost in a year off 1/4 acre of
miscellaneous garden. I recommend three heaps well away from the house.

Obviously persecute any weeds you happen to see.

Don't give bindweed a chance to get established in a border.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 10/05/2013 22:18, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Fri, 10 May 2013 13:06:45 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

New gardener here - please go easy on me. We into a home a couple of years ago with a 1/4 acre landscaped lot, with a number of garden beds mostly with perennials, some evergreens, rhodos, bamboo - quite an assortment.

For the last two years all we have done is prune, fertilize and add leaf mulch to the bed tops. We are unsure whether the hoe/turn-over the beds or not. Around each plant there are obviously some shallow root systems and wonder whether we should even bother with this. Is it recommended to turn over the first few inches each year in these non-vegetable perennial beds or not?

Help appreciated...

Larry

Sounds like you're doing just fine. You're looking after your plants
by mulching, feeding and pruning where appropriate. There's no need to
hoe or turn over the surface of the beds; the mulch itself will
improve the quality of the topsoil as the worms take it down. As long
as the plants are all healthy and doing what you want them to, and as
long as you're keeping weeds under control, you don't need to do much
else.

I presume you mean a house new to you and not a residential/care home.
I know when my mother had to go into a home there were a couple of
residents who loved gardening and were allowed a free hand (Within reason)

No, don't disturb the soil when you have perennial plants, because there's a danger of damaging roots. Mulching is good as others have said - one benefit is that weeds are easier to pull out of soil that remains open because of the regular addition of a mulch.

Remember weeds are merely plants that you don't want in that particular position. Don't pull up anything that you don't recognise - it's a good way to start learning plant id, and the small insignificant seedling, although it will probably turn into a dandelion, my turn into something nice. I'm being really careful about the harebells growing in my driveway, whereas one of my most troublesome weeds is being sold by our local garden centre at £4.50 a pot.

Rule of thumb for pruning - prune just after flowering unless a) you want the fruits b) just after flowering = late autumn, in which case you can safely leave pruning until Feb/Mar.

I the garden is looking good, you're doing things right. Best way of learning is to pend lots of time wandering round the garden just looking, and seeing the results of what you have done.

On 2013-05-10 21:17:09 +0100, Martin Brown said:

On 10/05/2013 21:06, wrote:
New gardener here - please go easy on me. We into a home a couple of
years ago with a 1/4 acre landscaped lot, with a number of garden beds
mostly with perennials, some evergreens, rhodos, bamboo - quite an
assortment.

For the last two years all we have done is prune, fertilize and add
leaf mulch to the bed tops. We are unsure whether the hoe/turn-over the
beds or not. Around each plant there are obviously some shallow root
systems and wonder whether we should even bother with this. Is it
recommended to turn over the first few inches each year in these
non-vegetable perennial beds or not?

If they are shallow rooted adding a thin layer of compost or leaf mould
mulch and letting the worms do all the work is a lot less hassle.

You can go a long way with pruning out any crossing branches and one
third of anything where you are growing it for ornamental new stems.

A few things benefit from more drastic pruning. I have yet to find
anything that will discourage a budleia but still grow them anyway for
butterflies - same with pink valerian which I keep for the same reason.

Help appreciated...

If in doubt do nowt is a very good maxim until you know better...

You can generate a fair amount of compost in a year off 1/4 acre of
miscellaneous garden. I recommend three heaps well away from the house.

Obviously persecute any weeds you happen to see.

Don't give bindweed a chance to get established in a border.

All sound advice from everyone. All I'd add to it is that while we own
hoes, they're rarely used. Ray is firmly of the opinion that let loose
with a hoe, some people do far more harm than good, damaging roots and
decapitating emerging plants!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On Saturday, 11 May 2013 09:44:31 UTC+1, kay wrote:


Remember weeds are merely plants that you don't want in that particular

position. Don't pull up anything that you don't recognise - it's a good

way to start learning plant id, and the small insignificant seedling,

although it will probably turn into a dandelion, my turn into something

nice. I'm being really careful about the harebells growing in my

driveway, whereas one of my most troublesome weeds is being sold by our

local garden centre at �4.50 a pot.

If the garden is looking good, you're doing things right. Best way of

learning is to pend lots of time wandering round the garden just

looking, and seeing the results of what you have done.


Two excellent pieces of advice there.
That looking constantly and learning from the results of what you've done is probably the most important and overlooked facets of gardening and not done anywhere near enough.
Also following on from Kay's post and Sacha's - this thing about hoeing, it can wreck a subtly managed garden in a flash.
A lot of very desirable plants will self seed and do better than if you took the seeds and sowed them yourself - OTOH many will become altogether too much so you need to learn which need control (now bring out the hoe if you like)and those which need encouragement (put that hoe away again and learn to identify the desirables amongst the weeds.

Rod