983zb Close up of "quick garden" technique
This garden was totally weed infested mainly with lots of grass but also with several other deep rooted perennial weeds and lots of annuals. The soil is a very heavy clay and not amenable to my usual hoeing technique.
I sprayed all the weeds in the border 2 weeks ago ,waited for them to die then strimmed off the thich dead top growth using an electric strimmer. then it was a very simple and quick job to add 1-2 inches of potting compost over the top of what was left of the dead weeds and voila, a super quick low effort solution. Any weeds that survived the initial weed killing can be hand weeded out or sprayed.
A 60 litre bag of compost will cover about 2.5 sq metres to a depth of about an inch. i inch looks good...2 inches is better.
As the border was severely infested and it isn't possible to spray the weeds growing very close and among existing plants ideally I would have liked to remove all of those plants completely but the customer didn't want me to do that. So i've sprayed around the plants and will either hand weed the plants that are weed infested or possibly use a paint brush to dab weed killer on the weeds without killing the plants which I want to keep.
Over a few years the compost will be drawn down into the existing clay soil.
When spread to a depth of 2 inches it is easy to hoe the top 1 inch of light compost without touchuing the horrible clay soil at all.
I used this technique on my elderly mother's garden some years ago and it works well. She lightly hoes the compost weekly ( I live to far away to do it on a regular basis) Every 3 years or so I top up the compost
The whole of this border after this technique has been used
www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/25708873233/in/datepos...
More information on this here
www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/26190718881/in/datepos...
983zb Close up of "quick garden" technique
This garden was totally weed infested mainly with lots of grass but also with several other deep rooted perennial weeds and lots of annuals. The soil is a very heavy clay and not amenable to my usual hoeing technique.
I sprayed all the weeds in the border 2 weeks ago ,waited for them to die then strimmed off the thich dead top growth using an electric strimmer. then it was a very simple and quick job to add 1-2 inches of potting compost over the top of what was left of the dead weeds and voila, a super quick low effort solution. Any weeds that survived the initial weed killing can be hand weeded out or sprayed.
A 60 litre bag of compost will cover about 2.5 sq metres to a depth of about an inch. i inch looks good...2 inches is better.
As the border was severely infested and it isn't possible to spray the weeds growing very close and among existing plants ideally I would have liked to remove all of those plants completely but the customer didn't want me to do that. So i've sprayed around the plants and will either hand weed the plants that are weed infested or possibly use a paint brush to dab weed killer on the weeds without killing the plants which I want to keep.
Over a few years the compost will be drawn down into the existing clay soil.
When spread to a depth of 2 inches it is easy to hoe the top 1 inch of light compost without touchuing the horrible clay soil at all.
I used this technique on my elderly mother's garden some years ago and it works well. She lightly hoes the compost weekly ( I live to far away to do it on a regular basis) Every 3 years or so I top up the compost
The whole of this border after this technique has been used
www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/25708873233/in/datepos...
More information on this here
www.flickr.com/photos/31559373@N00/26190718881/in/datepos...