Yardening 7, March 2014

Muddy, I'm going to try this out. DH is always telling me it's hard to mow around the mulched beds.

I'll check it out--could use something like this--but it is a bit pricey!

I have never seen this kind of edging before...we have the flat ones...

Yes, Gita, the cost adds up when you need to buy a lot, but this stuff lasts forever. I still have recycled rubber tree rings and mats that I bought 20 years ago to use under my kids' swing set.

I have a question about azaleas!

How are your deciduous azaleas doing? What about the azaleas you bought last year from coleup's bargain sale? I think mine were supposed to be semi-evergreen, but they've lost most of their leaves due to the cold winter. Should they be leafing out soon?

Ssg- give them time. None of my deciduous are close to leafing out, they're still sticks with buds on the ends. Evergreen azaleas will bounce back as well.

Thanks, Terp! Deciduous trees/shrubs make me nervous when they're slow to leaf out. My weigela is looking pitiful right now.

SSG, none of our anything is close to leafing out yet. The deciduous azaleas in our yard are as Terp described. I recently got several from Greer and they have broken dormancy already so I haven't planted them yet but they will be going in as soon as weather allows.

Forsythia isnt even blooming yet so everything is waiting. But i am also glad to hear Paul's reassurance.

I just looked out the window. It looks like a blizzard out there!!! Dear L-rd, will it ever end?

Yehudah

We have been getting rain and sleet all day long.

I looked outside about an hour or so ago and the rain looked awfully fat and fluffy!! ENOUGH!!!

Muddy, that is really pretty edging!! At least, it looks like it in the photos - is it really as pretty in person as it is in the pics? =)

Oh, OH!! The Forsythia in the front of the neighbor's yard is heavily budded and looks like the buds want to break open like any second now! And, NO, I am not going out there in this windy rain to go take a picture! =P

Jeff, not sure about the size of that Hydrangea (Ummm, you are asking about the mature size, yes?)

We got that other slot wall up at work the other day; WOW what a difference!!

#1 From this

#2 To this!! =)
Wheeeeeee!!!!!!

looks great speedie!

we had quite a period of'' fluffy rain'' here also- was 37 degrees while we were out doing errands.

It is blustery cold and VERY windy right now.
When I left work around 6:30PM--I had sleet collecting on my car windows.
After yesterday--I thought it was going to break for warmer weather....HUH!

Honestly--this HAS TO end soon!!!! Out yard at HD is filling up--and there was
no one from Bell to take any action to save some of the more tender blooming
plants--like, all the Renunculus are out there--and a gazillion Pansies...
Cold crop veggies too.

Mercy!!!!!!! G.

Speedie, I was wondering what size it was that you'd be getting. Like quart, gallon...

Speedie, I can't call the edging pretty, but I really like not having to rake mulch back up around my trees after every rainfall. I also really like the mowing strip because I don't have to use a weed-whacker. Another advantage of this type of edging is that it rests on top of the ground. There are so many tree roots in my yard that digging a trench in which to sink edging at an even level is practically impossible.

My azaleas look normal, but half of one of my rhododendrons - the one in the most exposed location - looks dead from winter damage. Ironically, the dead-looking branches are the ones from which I diligently shook off snow. I left more snow on the lower half, figuring that those branches wouldn't break from a heavy load of snow and ice, and they look great. The rhodo is at least 15 years old, and this is the first time this has happened. I'm hoping it'll recover.

Muddy--

I checked at my HD today--but did not see the edging you bought.

Many of the bigger, busier HD's get in more Fu-Fu stuff than we do.
We DO have the 8" flat rubber-looking mulch edge. NO edge to it.

We are a low-volume, old HD sitting on Pulaski Hwy (Rt. #40) in Baltimore Co.
VERY close to I-95. Truckers love us!
NO residential areas around us--mostly just a highway between the City--and points North.
If you Google "White Marsh" MD--you will seethe area. We ARE very close to the
"White Marsh Mall"--one of the biggest--and most successful Malls in the County.
Just a couple miles--as the bird flies...

YET! We are the "Gem in the rough"--we have wonderful associates, great customer
service--parking available at the front door--and the neatest, cleanest store of all.
MY home away from home--for 16 years already.

The contractors love us--as they can come in at 6AM--park by the lumber door--
get their orders--and be gone off to do their jobs in a flash.

AND--it is ONLY 4 1/2mi. from my house...

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=White%20Marsh&state=MD

Muddy, that edging looks pretty sweet! I'm picturing it in my head with well trimmed grass up to the edge and it's going to look beautiful!

One of my Rhodis has suffered some winter burn. I think it will be ok though, hopefully the buds didn't burn out. All our other Rhodis are just as or more exposed than this one and they look fine. Weird.

Yes, I like that edging, too. I use different types of edging but I try to make it flush with the ground so we can mow right up on in and not go back with the weed eater. You could use it in conjunction with another type of edging.

mowing strips are excellent. and some sort of edge defining the beds really does make things look sharper. Especially when one's grass is so crappy and beds so 'carefree' that the line gets blurred easily...ask me how I know....

I don't have grass, just mowed weeds. LOL

Haha...I use natural stone to line our borders and when I first put it in, I began to weedwack around each one and it was so time consuming. My solution is spraying Roundup 3-4" out from the rocks and this way I don't have to get so close to the rocks when trimming. It works for me anyways.

I wondered how you dealt with all the white stones around the new Aronia.

My garden seems very small until I have to redo the edging on all of my beds. Then it feels impossibly big.

I have zoysia grass in the back which I hate with a passion. Zoysia creeps along and gets into/under/beyond/over any border, including natural stone which is my favorite border material.

I don't use any herbicides (except on poison ivy, which is gone now), so I've been digging a deep trench between the rock border and the grass, and mulching it with fresh wood chips. This has stopped the grass from encroaching, but the trenches need to be re-dug repeatedly to stop the zoysia from creeping over. I'm excited to try out this edging!

I think I have a patch of that grass in our yard. It gets larger every year.

I think zoysia works IF you have the labor to do that trenching repeatedly. It cuts and makes an edge of sod.

When I was a kid, we had a patch of zoysia in the yard. It was so soft and full and cushiony. It was the ONLY grass I ever felt like going barefoot in. I don't think it needs to be mowed as often either??

I think the zoysia was mowed 4 times last year. The problem is that the weeds grow faster than the grass, so it's hard to convince DH to mow the lawn when it's still short, and meanwhile the weeds are blooming and seeding everywhere.

SSG: If he's a beer drinker, tell him beer tastes better when the grass is nicely trimmed :)

I love to mow the grass, no one would have to ask me twice or even once for that matter! It's all about the lines...

Sequoia, my husband loves to mow our (tiny) yard as well. The problem is that I want a turn!!! The hubs and I are both picky about the lawn but in different ways.... :/

Haha...that's pretty rough then. I've got it really easy with my wife as she could almost care less as to what I do with the yard. Two caveats are: no more trees :( and I have to discuss with her if I want to make any more new beds : / She's noticed that the yard has gotten smaller in the last few years....LOLs

hahaha I think your wife and my husband must have conspired against us. Same rules here. I try to tell him that if I just join these two beds to make one big flower border, it will mean less mowing for him. I don't understand why he's not buying that? Makes perfect sense to me....

Also he has declared that he cannot be held responsible for weedwacking flowers/plants that creep out of the boundaries of the bed.

Wow...good to know that someone else has to live by the same rules! When I had to cut down our White Pine sapling, I had quite a fun time finding a replacement but she wouldn't go for it and I couldn't understand why. She just kept saying I had too many trees as it was...

You should to tell your husband that he needs to pick up the plants hanging over the beds and mow under them...that's what I do! Add some of the green chicken wire, you shouldn't have any issues then.

DH is not at all an outdoor/gardening person and *really* wants to get a lawn service. It seems a lot of my neighbors use the same service, which does an okay job with mowing down grassy yards that have a few foundation shrubs. But there is NO WAY I'm having someone else mow my lawn! It's often hard tell where the bed ends and the grass (weeds) start. And my lawn is always littered with pots, rocks, hoses, tools, etc.

I have built in family (grin) lawn service for mowing and weed wacking the grass around the pond and dam - it is at least a 6 hour job. The younger of my husband's brothers (Richard) lived with us for about 5 years and found it very therapeutic. Even now, he comes up on his days off just because he likes it so much. When Richard doesn't do it, the older of my husband's brothers (Lowell) is living with us now and he does it. Good with Mike because his asthma kicks in when mowing and good with me because that dam is STEEP :)

I use different types of edging in my back yard; you all might like some of them.

I love natural rock edging, so I bought flat stones of various sizes, shapes and colors to make a mini-path about 12" wide around my pond area - not uniform pavers, just random stones from 25 cents/pound bins at local garden centers. Whenever I have a chance to buy more stones, the path gets wider! Grass doesn't grow well in that area anyway, but if it did I would put landscape fabric under it to keep it from growing.

I also have an area with scalloped red brick edging from HD, held up and in place with matching red bricks, which function as mowing edges.

I use groundcovers that can be mowed as transitions between beds and lawn in some areas; vinca minor works well.

Finally, I use the flat rubber edging Gita mentioned in another area. It's not doing too well at holding back the dirt and mulch (it's on a steep slope, so I'm asking a lot of it), so I might add more of the rubber edging I'm using in the front.

I mow our lawn because my husband wants to pay a lawn service to do it, and I don't because when they mowed our shady, hilly, often muddy back lawn their huge mowers left deep ruts that I then had to re-seed. I started leaving notes for them asking them not to mow the back when it was wet, then realized it was ridiculous to pay them full price to mow the easy half of the lawn while I mowed the hard part.
When I got tired of mowing the top of the hill in our backyard, it became a shrub bed. I didn't like mowing a small area near the front door, so that's now a flower bed. The amount of lawn keeps getting smaller and smaller!

Muddy, I like how you solve problems!

Too bad I'm not able to use the lawn mower. :( I got a reel mower from freecycle, but it doesn't do a good job on the zoysia.

I use scalloped edgers but the zoysia grass got under/between/over them, so I had to mulch the grass in front of the edgers -- which obviously defeats the purpose of the edgers!

I sanitized the pots today to get ready for spring repotting. I was *this* close to using bleach but decided against it. I ended up using rubbing alcohol and disinfectant wipes, but now my pots have that fake "citrus" smell.

SSG my abelias, both the Kalidascope and my large old glossies were fine thru the winter, but that last really cold stuff got them. and my azaleas. Wish I could find the study I read about why plant leaves and tissues freeze when they do, not always degree of cold but also the amount of moisture present in the tissues which when it freezes breaks the structure of the tissue as the water expands as it turns to ice....Anyhow, all of the branches I have scratched have green beneathe so I think they will come out fine. I think Critter and Catmint got Kalidascopes, too so we can all keep each other posted on progress.

DID NOT WANT TO COME INSIDE!!!! Was out til after 7pm uncovering my winterized plants. Bleeding Hearts are up. Christmas fern finally looks ratty. Snow Drops are going to seed. All of my Naked Lady/Rain Lilies are up which seems quite early! Looks like a good crop of garlic. Must remember to feed it this year. No Ostrich fern fiddleheads showing yet. 4 lone forsythia blooms and finally some daffodils bloomin. No buds yet o any of the daffs from ADR Fall buy.
Signs of life in my Rue plants.

No lawn, no mowing, no edging! Plenty of leaves to shred.

Finally got the Milorganite out! I was so happy to be able to come home to not only the sun out but no snow, no rain, no wind and no freezing temps and it wasn't even a Saturday. I love that stuff because it doesn't burn and its cheap. I just sprinkle a generous amount over and around the plants I want to protect and that's it. I don't even bother to dig it in. G-d willing this will stop those pain in the tush four leggeds that are eating my crocus and tulips til I can net them.

Took a short walk around cause the grounds so wet. Artichokes made it through, so did the figs and holyhocks and all of the tree peonies and regular peonies and roses and hydrangia all my favorite plants. Oh and I only lost one orchid so far. I can't tell you how happy I was to see those little tufts of green leaves. Now to replace all my markers that got heaved and knocked down by the man who came to fix the roof over the winter.

Now to get out the round up and kill the grass where I'm putting in the new bed before all the new plants come this month. Perfect time to start my weight loss program so I look good in my son's graduation pictures.