Evening all

Not posted here for ages as I lost all enthusiasm for gardening due to
having to sell the house (and obviously the attached garden).

Now in the new house and today was the first real chance to get outside
(boxes not yet unpacked but you know how it is...)

Garden is about 120' long overall and 60' wide (with a two bedroom bungalow
squatting at the top end). On a slope with most of the garden at the back
of the house facing west down the slope across the valley. To the south - a
row of sycamores (pesky things - I will have to discuss making them smaller
and possibly having less of them when I get to know the neighbours). To the
North fairly open across next door's garden. To the East at the front of
the house an open plan bit which does get the sun for a large part of the
day. This front bit also has the sunny garage wall - I have plans for this.

Soil seems well-drained - apparently we're on greensand. Definitely not
clay, lovely to dig. Not tested the pH yet.

Previous owners were keen on fish and there is a large fibreglass fishpond
(sunk into the ground) - about 20' by 12' by 4' deep with a proper wooden
bridge across the middle. It's fed by a little stream leading down from the
filter system and in turn feeds a second pond lower down via a waterfall.
There's also an extensive wooden deck at the rear of the house, above the
garden.

Lots of little paths - gravel and stone connect the garden at all levels and
split it into little flower beds.

There are almost no plants worth keeping - this suits me as I have brought
about 100 pots with me from the old place! Among the highlights (!) are
three massive clumps of pampas grass (yuk), half a dozen assorted spirea
(not pruned for years), half a dozen assorted boring shrubs (i.e. don't
appear to have flowered and have no autumn colour) and a massive laurel
hedge.

Also unfortunately quite a lot of bindweed.

Today I've dug up loads of bindweed, planted hellebores and primroses and
put in the spring bulbs.

So finally a few questions if I may.

The pond has koi in it as well as goldfish. I do not want to fiddle around
with filters and UV lights. I do want to put plants in my pond. Am I
better off getting rid of the koi to a good home? (people have said to me
"koi don't like plants in their pond". Excuse me - it's not THEIR pond it's
MINE)

Now that it's really too late to put weedkiller on the bindweed, is my best
bet to dig up the plants that seem to be infested with it and then plant
nothing more serious than bulbs in the ground and wait for spring to dose
the emerging bindweed with weedkiller?

Anyone got any experience of making leafmould with sycamore leaves? I was
going to put them all in black bags and stack them for next year. Don't say
mow them first - since there's no grass in the garden I have no mower!

Thanks for listening if you managed to get this far

Heather

Gardening (again) in Wiltshire


--


Spamtrap in operation. To reply to me direct put out the BINs. To save
yourself the trouble, reply to the Group.

Nice read, nice challenge.

In message , Heather
writes
The pond has koi in it as well as goldfish. I do not want to fiddle around
with filters and UV lights. I do want to put plants in my pond. Am I
better off getting rid of the koi to a good home? (people have said to me
"koi don't like plants in their pond". Excuse me - it's not THEIR pond it's
MINE)

Hi Heather

Don't worry about the koi and plants in the pond. My koi live quite
happily in a pond of similar size as yours with lots of aquatic plants,
with no problems to either fish or plants.

Enjoy your new garden:-))
--
Steve Jackson

Heather wrote in message
...
Evening all

Not posted here for ages as I lost all enthusiasm for gardening due to
having to sell the house (and obviously the attached garden).

Now in the new house and today was the first real chance to get outside
(boxes not yet unpacked but you know how it is...)

Garden is about 120' long overall and 60' wide (with a two bedroom
bungalow
squatting at the top end). On a slope with most of the garden at the back
of the house facing west down the slope across the valley. To the south -
a
row of sycamores (pesky things - I will have to discuss making them
smaller
and possibly having less of them when I get to know the neighbours). To
the
North fairly open across next door's garden. To the East at the front of
the house an open plan bit which does get the sun for a large part of the
day. This front bit also has the sunny garage wall - I have plans for
this.

Soil seems well-drained - apparently we're on greensand. Definitely not
clay, lovely to dig. Not tested the pH yet.

Previous owners were keen on fish and there is a large fibreglass fishpond
(sunk into the ground) - about 20' by 12' by 4' deep with a proper wooden
bridge across the middle. It's fed by a little stream leading down from
the
filter system and in turn feeds a second pond lower down via a waterfall.
There's also an extensive wooden deck at the rear of the house, above the
garden.

Lots of little paths - gravel and stone connect the garden at all levels
and
split it into little flower beds.

There are almost no plants worth keeping - this suits me as I have brought
about 100 pots with me from the old place! Among the highlights (!) are
three massive clumps of pampas grass (yuk), half a dozen assorted spirea
(not pruned for years), half a dozen assorted boring shrubs (i.e. don't
appear to have flowered and have no autumn colour) and a massive laurel
hedge.

Also unfortunately quite a lot of bindweed.

Today I've dug up loads of bindweed, planted hellebores and primroses and
put in the spring bulbs.

So finally a few questions if I may.

The pond has koi in it as well as goldfish. I do not want to fiddle
around
with filters and UV lights. I do want to put plants in my pond. Am I
better off getting rid of the koi to a good home? (people have said to me
"koi don't like plants in their pond". Excuse me - it's not THEIR pond
it's
MINE)

Now that it's really too late to put weedkiller on the bindweed, is my
best
bet to dig up the plants that seem to be infested with it and then plant
nothing more serious than bulbs in the ground and wait for spring to dose
the emerging bindweed with weedkiller?

Anyone got any experience of making leafmould with sycamore leaves? I was
going to put them all in black bags and stack them for next year. Don't
say
mow them first - since there's no grass in the garden I have no mower!

Thanks for listening if you managed to get this far

Heather

Gardening (again) in Wiltshire



I'd be interested to hear opinions on sycamore leaves as leaf mould also.
Leaves, leaves, leaves at the moment! These trees are a menace, they have
self seeded all over the place, send out numerous shoots and grow too fast.

Soil - sounds similar to mine. Very fine, very stoney, great to dig - the
soil just shakes away from weed roots. This is a dream after the clay I'm
used to but I'm sure there is going to be a downside :-(


--


Spamtrap in operation. To reply to me direct put out the BINs. To save
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"Heather" wrote in message
...
Evening all

[snip]

Anyone got any experience of making leafmould with sycamore leaves?

Yes

I was
going to put them all in black bags and stack them for next year.

That is all you need to do, if they are reasonably damp but not soggy. A
full year later you will have excellent leafmould.

[snip]

Franz

Heather wrote in message
...

[snip]

I'd be interested to hear opinions on sycamore leaves as leaf mould also.
Leaves, leaves, leaves at the moment! These trees are a menace, they have
self seeded all over the place, send out numerous shoots and grow too
fast.

At my previous home, my neighbour had two huge, fully grown sycamores. It
pleased him to let me have the leaves in the autumn, since he did not care
about gardening, except for keeping a huge, immaculate lawn.
After being stacked in a damp state into black polythene bags and kept for a
year, the product was a dark brown, crumbly, sweet smelling leafmould. It
made an excellent mulch and worm diet.

Franz

Thanks to Steve on the koi. I will give them a chance then. I really do
need more marginals to disguise the edges of the fibreglass pond, so they'll
have to learn to live with plants.

Thanks to Franz on the leaf mould. I have made it before in a bigger garden
in a wire mesh enclosure, but that was only about 20% sycamore and they took
the longest to rot. This time it's 90% sycamore, hence the question

Now anyone want to share their bindweed control experiences?

Heather

--



--


Spamtrap in operation. To reply to me direct put out the BINs. To save
yourself the trouble, reply to the Group.

The message
from "Heather" contains these words:

(snip description)

Making a new garden is a lot of fun, and that sounds like a good site.

There are almost no plants worth keeping - this suits me as I have brought
about 100 pots with me from the old place! Among the highlights (!) are
three massive clumps of pampas grass (yuk), half a dozen assorted spirea
(not pruned for years), half a dozen assorted boring shrubs (i.e. don't
appear to have flowered and have no autumn colour) and a massive laurel
hedge.

I wouldn't turf out the boring shrubs until they have been identified;
they might be something special. Maybe winter flowerers :-)

In one of my ex-gardens my successor employed a jobbing gardener who
couldn't identify large specimens of hamamelis, viburnum bodnantense
(both leafless) and garrya elliptica (out of flower), so he "pruned"
them all to 6" stumps :-(

With luck you might find some good bulbs coming up later.

Pampas can be a fine architectural plant in the right setting so I
wouldn't rush to get rid of that either; have you seen Beth Chatto's
gardening books where she uses pampas in shrub groups?

Janet.

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...

[snip]

I wouldn't turf out the boring shrubs until they have been identified;
they might be something special. Maybe winter flowerers :-)

no sign of any buds. However you're probably right - It's just difficult
not to crash in and change things....

[snip]
With luck you might find some good bulbs coming up later.

I don't think so - the people living here were NOT gardeners... But I can
live in hope!

Pampas can be a fine architectural plant in the right setting so I
wouldn't rush to get rid of that either; have you seen Beth Chatto's
gardening books where she uses pampas in shrub groups?

Janet.

I haven't seen the book no - any idea which one? I agree they can look good
in the right setting - in fact of the three clumps I will definitely leave
one. the others are both right next to the pond, trail their leaves in the
water and make it very difficult to get to the rest of the poolside planting
area as they are so huge and vicious - I fear they will have to go. However
I intend for some of their replacement plants to be grasses (smaller clumps)
so all is not lost.

Thanks for the thoughts

Heather



--


Spamtrap in operation. To reply to me direct put out the BINs. To save
yourself the trouble, reply to the Group.

"Heather" wrote in message ((snip))
..

So finally a few questions if I may.

The pond has koi in it as well as goldfish. I do not want to fiddle
around
with filters and UV lights. I do want to put plants in my pond. Am I
better off getting rid of the koi to a good home? (people have said to me
"koi don't like plants in their pond". Excuse me - it's not THEIR pond
it's
MINE)

Koi love plants in their ponds, attracts intsects etc for them to eat, that
statement you heard probably came from some Koi nuts that keep their fish in
clinically sterile ponds to avoid any parasite infections where the fish,
which are intelligent for fish**, get bored to death. I've met lots of these
so called fish lovers, it's why I gave up belonging to the BKKS years ago.
[**they will get to recognise you if only you feed them and will come to you
and you alone.]

With big koi you would have a problem with plants in the bottom of the pond,
like Water Lillys, which they will delite in ripping out to see whats there,
I cover the half dustbins with netting close to the soil so the plants can
send their shoots through but the fish can't get at the soil to suck it up
and blow it out. The books say use gravel, but for a big koi (30inches+)
that's not even a challenge, they'd move a housebrick easily. :-)
Oh, and if you have Koi in your pond it is THEIR pond, you are just the
staff, you will need to understand that. A bit like when you think you own a
cat. :-)
Without filters it is doubtful you will ever see much in your pond unless
you plan to clean it out on a regular basis as the koi act like underwater
pigs and will root around in the detritus to find food and stir it up,
indeed Goldfish, being a member of the carp family, also do that but being
tiny in comparison it's not such a problem.
Your call, but I suspect from what you write, and if they are big, you would
do better to get rid of them. You might get a local fish retailer to take
them for a few pounds, unless they are something special but then the
previous owners would have taken them.


Now that it's really too late to put weedkiller on the bindweed, is my
best
bet to dig up the plants that seem to be infested with it and then plant
nothing more serious than bulbs in the ground and wait for spring to dose
the emerging bindweed with weedkiller?

I have some in our front garden and this year I have checked every few days
and pulled it up as soon as it comes up. This certainly reduced it's
strength by the end of the season and I rekon could be a way of getting rid
of this weed eventually without getting so drastic.

Anyone got any experience of making leafmould with sycamore leaves? I was
going to put them all in black bags and stack them for next year. Don't
say
mow them first - since there's no grass in the garden I have no mower!

Leaves usually take at least 2 years to rot down, it's a fungus breakdown
not bacterial like a compost heap, and the sacks will need holes for air and
the leaves should be wet.

--
Regards
Bob

Use a useful Screen Saver...
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
and find intelligent life amongst the stars, there's bugger all down here.

On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:52:45 -0000, "Heather"
wrote:

~Thanks to Steve on the koi. I will give them a chance then. I really do
~need more marginals to disguise the edges of the fibreglass pond, so they'll
~have to learn to live with plants.
~
~Thanks to Franz on the leaf mould. I have made it before in a bigger garden
~in a wire mesh enclosure, but that was only about 20% sycamore and they took
~the longest to rot. This time it's 90% sycamore, hence the question

I have three overlooking my front garden and have a
leafblower/shredder which makes life a lot easier at this time of
year. I did without it for the first three years I was here, and the
solid unshredded sycamores take about 2 years in a bin liner to rot
down nicely (though I do keep them in the garage). I'm hoping the
shredded ones take less time, but only did those for the first time
last year.
They are a lot tougher than a lot of leaves, sadly, so do take extra
time to rot. Franz, if yours rot in a year you're a lucky man...

I find that the other advantage of the leafhoover is it gets a lot of
the seeds up too, so I don't have nearly as many wretched long-rooted
little trees in spring.
~
~Now anyone want to share their bindweed control experiences?

Sit on ground crosslegged, preferably on a kneeler. Get out small fork
and start sifting. Follow root clumps as far as you can downwards and
remove whole. Break off soil carefully. A sieve is a good idea.
Remove every little bit. Repeat until bed is weeded. Be prepared to do
it again next year for the bits you missed.
I have an orchard/fruit area at the allotment that is a) full of flint
and b) has lots of gooseberry bushes. The bindweed has sneakily set up
home in their roots. You can barely dig (cos of the flints) and so a
lot of reachable roots aren't, and the rest are guarded by the
pricklebushes from hell. I just pull them out when they get long
enough to grab... hopefully one day they'll be weakened enough to
snuff it. It's also in the rhubarb. Yuk.

Meanwhile, good luck and happy gardening. I wish I had a garden that
big, even with sycamores!


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!

"Heather" wrote in message
...
Thanks to Steve on the koi. I will give them a chance then. I really do
need more marginals to disguise the edges of the fibreglass pond, so
they'll
have to learn to live with plants.

Thanks to Franz on the leaf mould. I have made it before in a bigger
garden
in a wire mesh enclosure, but that was only about 20% sycamore and they
took
the longest to rot. This time it's 90% sycamore, hence the question

Now anyone want to share their bindweed control experiences?

Use Glyphosate, frequently sold as Roundup.

Franz

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...

[snip]

In one of my ex-gardens my successor employed a jobbing gardener who
couldn't identify large specimens of hamamelis, viburnum bodnantense
(both leafless) and garrya elliptica (out of flower), so he "pruned"
them all to 6" stumps :-(

A jobbing gardener did exactly that in my present garden to a Rosa
cantabridgiensis and R. rubrifolia. I managed to stop him just before he
tackled the rest of my species and shrub roses.

[snip]

Franz

Heather wrote:

Thanks to Steve on the koi. I will give them a chance then. I really do
need more marginals to disguise the edges of the fibreglass pond, so they'll
have to learn to live with plants.

Thanks to Franz on the leaf mould. I have made it before in a bigger garden
in a wire mesh enclosure, but that was only about 20% sycamore and they took
the longest to rot. This time it's 90% sycamore, hence the question

Now anyone want to share their bindweed control experiences?

Chemical: treat with ususal weedkillers at during active growth.

Organic. Dig out and control.
Juice growth or 'pressure compost' (in homemade squisher) or in a
lightproof barrel to extract nutrients.

Use output as repellent/tonic, and then compost waste.
/
J

"jane" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:52:45 -0000, "Heather"
wrote:

~Thanks to Steve on the koi. I will give them a chance then. I really do
~need more marginals to disguise the edges of the fibreglass pond, so
they'll
~have to learn to live with plants.
~
~Thanks to Franz on the leaf mould. I have made it before in a bigger
garden
~in a wire mesh enclosure, but that was only about 20% sycamore and they
took
~the longest to rot. This time it's 90% sycamore, hence the question

I have three overlooking my front garden and have a
leafblower/shredder which makes life a lot easier at this time of
year. I did without it for the first three years I was here, and the
solid unshredded sycamores take about 2 years in a bin liner to rot
down nicely (though I do keep them in the garage). I'm hoping the
shredded ones take less time, but only did those for the first time
last year.
They are a lot tougher than a lot of leaves, sadly, so do take extra
time to rot. Franz, if yours rot in a year you're a lucky man...

I had no problem. I have just looked up my old garden diaries and I am now
reminded that I have to confess to adding about 20 cc of Garotta to each
bagful, and to making sure that the leaves were thoroughly damp. Mea culpa.

[snip]

Franz