Pacific Northwest Gardening: What divides your yard from your gardens, I need a clue., 1 by ButterflyChaser

ButterflyChaser wrote:
Hope y'all don't mind if I join the conversation. Pixydish invited me over, so here I am!

I couldn't figure out how to keep bermuda out of my gardens and it was driving me nuts, creeping into everything. I finally decided to get tough and drastic.

I got commercial-grade Round-up and tons of cardboard and newspapers and set about killing every inch of bermuda on my property. It took several years and lots of diligence and hard work, but eventually I turned my entire yard into a botanical garden--no lawn anywhere. My brother owns the properties on each side of me, and I use Roundup to keep his grass from creeping into my flowerbeds. It works beautifully. I know a lot of people don't like to use chemicals, but Roundup is safe is used properly. Anything used improperly can be unsafe. I couldn't maintain my gardens without Roundup. I buy the concentrate in 2.5 gal bottles at our Farmer's co-op. It only takes 4 oz per gallon and is much stronger than the stuff you get at Lowes. Saves me a bunch of time, frustration, and money.

All my paths are mulched. I like it that way; the paths are soft, not hard and ungiving like concrete. I spend most of my time working in my gardens, and when I had cobblestone paths, my feet and legs hurt terribly. Now, no pain!

One of the great things about mulched paths is as the mulch biodegrades, you then have some great soil there. When I get ready to mulch again, I scoop out a layer of good, black rich soil to put in my soil bin in the potting shed so I don't have to buy soil. Then I add fresh mulch. So my mulched paths are also my compost bins. LOL

Also, I never pay for mulch. I discovered years ago that tree trimmers will dump a load of fresh tree trimmings for FREE. Our landfill charges them about $40 a load to dump there; I let them dump here for free. They save me time and money and I save them time and money since I'm on the highway to the landfill.

But don't think you can't get in on the deal too. Tree trimmers are trimming all over the place. Call a few, tell them where you are located and ask if they'd drop you a load next time they're working out in that direction. If they don't have to go too far out of their way and it saves them money, they're very happy to do it. The tree trimmers here have big trucks, so each load is about the equivalent of 5 full size pickup truck loads. So you'll need a large spot that is accessible for them to dump in.

Also, tell them what you want the mulch for and stress nicely that you need it finely shredded, like when their blades are sharp. If their blades aren't sharp, you'll end up with shreds that are long, entangled, twining, twisted things that you can't shovel or pitchfork. I got a load like that once and had to just set fire to it; it was just a tangled mess.

People will tell you that you can't use fresh tree trimmings (mulch), that you must let it set for a year. And that's just not true. I've always used it fresh, here in the hot and dry Midsouth (near Memphis), and it's never burned a plant yet. I put it on about 6 or 7 inches thick. If I were putting it on about 2 ft thick, it might get hot enough to burn the plants; the big mulch pile gets so hot sometimes I'm afraid it will combust, but it never has. My plants love this fresh mulch.

Around here, we have lots of pine trees, and the tree trimmers I know are aware that I love pine mulch. So they will even call me and say, "I'm trimming some pines off Hwy 1. Do you want all this mulch?" YES!!! It's not unusual for me to go thru 20 commercial truckloads of mulch a year. They pile it up on the vacant lot my brother owns and then I wheelbarrow it where I need it.

Here's a picture of a section of my gardens taken in June of this year.

I hope I haven't bored y'all with my ramblings. If so, I'm sorry!