Weeds, Weeds and MORE Weeds!
As I write this, we’ve had 269 days of this year, which means that 6, 456 hours of it are done. And of those hours, I spent precisely 25 of them weeding my 8m (26ft) x 4m (13ft) herbaceous border. Not bad, heh?
I must admit that I’m really pleased with this particular statistic because it means that all the hard work invested in the border last year has paid off and it now means that the garden fits into the time that I’ve got to look after it. I cannot tell you properly what a relief and pleasure that is.
This is what I did to achieve such spectacular results (well, I think they are spectacular). Over the past few years, I found myself becoming increasingly busy with the business and my family which meant that I had less and less time for the garden. It broke my heart to see the way the weeds took over but there were other things that took priority on my time. When I did find time to go into the garden, there was SO much that needed doing, all at once, that I felt overwhelmed.
Drastic action – do it once, reap the benefits many times.
So last year we took ALL the plants in the border out and put them in the compost bin. That was a very difficult decision but it was the right one because the roots of every single one of them had been invaded and infested with couch grass, making it almost impossible to get rid of.
So then we dug through the empty border several time, in different directions, to get the area as clear of weed roots as possible. At the same time we incorporated well rotted organic matter. Then I replanted it.
The hard work has paid off
Last year it looked great. This year it looked amazing. I did not mulch it so, yes, there were some weeds in amongst the plant
s but it took so little time to get them out, it was a pleasure to do. Looking at the border today, in late autumn, it is still full of colour and interest, with the odd weed in there too, which I’ll be getting to work on later today, being as what it’s sunny today.
My mental approach has changed too.
It makes such a different to how I approach the weeding and care this border requires knowing that I am not fighting an invasive tide of weeds I can’t hope to get out in their entirety. Of course, being realistic, those types of weeds, by their very nature will attempt to come back and some will arrive through air bourn seeds or other means but even they start off small. And when they are small, they are manageable. In a very real sense, the work we did last year has done more for my mental approach to the care of the border than it has to the physical one.I understand that this is a drastic approach and not possible for some but I’ve found the rewards, having taken this step, to far outweigh the inconvenience, effort and time it took to do it. On that basis, you just might want to consider whether this is something you might want to do too.
Have a think about it for your garden
I understand that this is a drastic approach and not possible for some but I’ve found the rewards, having taken this step, to far outweigh the inconvenience, effort and time it took to do it. On that basis, you just might want to consider whether this is something you might want to do too.
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