Groundcover Fabric

 One year old budget groundcover fabric

The budget groundcover fabric I put down a year ago is surfacing from just under the soil. It’s not appearing in a complete sheet either as it seems to have broken down into small pieces. It could be the damp or it could be the UV rays but as its polypropylene it’ll probably just keep breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces and never really go away. I put it down so I could plant courgette plants in it and not have an issue with weeds. The courgettes are long gone but the membrane remains.

I shouldn’t have bought it really but I thought it would be a better solution than the cardboard I usually put down.

I have used a lot of different materials over the years to either prepare beds by smothering weeds or covering the ground to stop weeds with differing degrees of success.  Paper and cardboard are effective temporary covers and also give the worms something to nibble on. There isn’t really any such thing as a no maintenance landscape and if you have ever put a foam or nylon backed carpet on the soil then tried to remove it after a few years you could actually be making more work for yourself than hoeing every week. 

I’ve found that using the weed block on permanent planting schemes such as gravel beds makes far more sense than a veggie plot. Landscapers use it at least 80% of the time when doing new beds and borders (that’s a random percentage I picked out of the air but probably pretty close) as most customers want a maintenance free planting scheme. The membrane works well stopping things from coming up through the soil but can’t work for things that fall on top of it. Dust, leaves and other deposits eventually build up and make an ideal spot for weed seeds to get a hold. Tap roots have a difficulty establishing and can be easily removed but most other weeds will eventually take over after only a couple of years if the area isn’t tended to. 

There are some great images where nature has taken over places because of neglect, whole motorways and city buildings soon return back to the wild if left alone and the garden is no different.

I would much rather do away with fabrics or weed cover altogether. I prefer to create living soil planting areas that are mulched and tended rather than being covered and forgotten. However, some areas are simply too large to apply this method to and time is also a factor. 

Pros and Cons

Spraying with herbicide will take care of the weed problem. However, this does nothing for the soil.

Small gravel is difficult to maintain and you won’t be able to use a leaf blower do get rid of leaves.

In many cases this can actually be easier to take care of stone covered areas without a membrane as it can easily be picked up and replaced every few years. This will keep your landscape always looking new and cared for.

If you do use the polypropylene types of material you get what you pay for. The cheaper ones are good for a year or two if undisturbed. The more expensive types can do the job for up to twenty years. I had some mesh webbing on the floor of my tunnel at one time and even after six years of heavy traffic there were no signs of fraying or wear.

You might want to go down the eco-friendly route. 

The cheapest (and some say best) is the aforementioned cardboard and newspaper, then natural carpets with no plastics in them which are both ideal for temporary cover in the veg patch. Then you get onto shop bought items such as the biodegradable, lightweight paper mulch that helps control weeds and is environmentally responsible alternative to black plastic. This can just be dug into the soil the same way as the free paper and card.  

Going up the cost ladder we have a woven mulch sheet which is made with 100% straw fibres, no adhesives or chemicals added. And the latest product comes from a French company called Geochanvre who have developed a  hydro-weaving process, which transforms hemp and other straws using water and pressure only. They use locally sourced hemp grown without pesticides, and the process is free of all adhesives or other additives. Again this will be perfect for areas that only need temporary cover or they could be cut up and used as a moisture barrier on the top of plant pots.

All of these materials are great for providing the initial help we need to keep certain areas under control in the garden. 

Like most things in life though it always comes down to us having to pay attention to it for it to thrive.

Tunnel Shading

 A shady spot in the garden

It’s an ‘in-between’ time for me in the garden this week. One the one hand I am offering my plants up to the sun in the hope they will grow strong and healthy. Then on the other I am putting up loads of shading because the intense heat of the day might shrivel the leaves. 

It was this time last year I lost over 400 chamomile plants because they all cooked in the cell trays I had them in. The dark plastic absorbed the heat and the roots couldn’t cope with the burning temperatures. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again this year so I have taken a few pro-active precautions.

I had some more mature plants in the polytunnel so I have made a space for them in an area outside that gets about 3 hours direct sun mid-morning before trees obscure the rays. That way by the time the real heat of the day hits them they are in shade and keeping cool. The less mature chamomile plants will be staying in the tunnel for a few more weeks yet and I have devised some (I say) ingenious shading methods. 

The first and most obvious is by putting shade netting up. Then I have some white fleece along with a couple of cotton sheets (Taken from the painting and decorating shelf)

I was using some large 8x4 aluminium foil covered sheets of Kingspan floor insulation as a type of reflector of the sun and this worked well over the duller days but now they are acting like spotlights which are heating up the plants even more so they will be repurposed at some point. In their place I now have large rolls of 2mm unused foam and foil undrlay which was left over from a wooden click floor installation. This is lightweight and so I have slotted it under the metal bars and plastic on the tunnel. It runs the whole length of the tunnel and can be rolled up when it’s cloudy and rolled down when the plants need a bit of shade. Ingenious if I do say so myself and free too which is an added bonus.

I’d eventually like to get one of those polytunnel covers that has a green mesh at the bottom and when you can roll up the bottom metre when the weather gets warm. This improves ventilation keeping the air flowing through the plants reducing the chance of fungal diseases. The extra air also helps to give some resistance to the plants leaves, firming them out and helping to keep them compact and less likely to go leggy. 

So far my improvisations seem to be working. I do need to water a couple of times a day when the sun is out a lot, but at least last year when I watered the cells, I swear I could hear hissing noises as the water was evaporating with the heat.

Shady

There are a couple of areas in the garden where I am happy not to have much sun at all as the display of shade loving plants looks wonderful. It’s a simple display of just three plants but they really complement each other. At the back I have the feathery leaves of a fern, in front of this I have a lime green hosta just about to flower and underneath them I have Ajuga reptans 'Atropurpurea' with its deep purple leaves. It’s a great combination and totally unplanned which is sometimes the best way to go. 

Catnip Capers

My Catnip venture is on a go slow at the moment. I did grow the mint from seed and thought about putting it for sale but I wasn’t happy. The plants were just long, single stemmed plants and looked a bit weedy in their 4cm plugs. I made the decision to chop them all back to near ground level so they now have a chance to bush out on multi stems. I’ll be a lot happier selling something more substantial and sturdy looking so I will now need to wait a few weeks for them to mature. 

Catnip is extremely popular and is widely available in pet shops and supermarkets. I have it on good authority that it has fallen under the ‘Psychoactive Substances Act’ which bans anything psychoactive other than alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, so therefore, since catnip has mild psychoactive properties, it has been banned by default. 

I’m not sure if anyone will take the time and trouble to track down and arrest gardeners who supply their cats with the dried leaves, but it’s just another reason why gardening is such an exciting hobby.

Hide the catnip plants in a secluded spot next to the also banned St John’s Wort.

Wildflower Meadow - Maintained by Hand

Sarah’s wonderful wildflower meadow

Wildflower areas are becoming very popular in gardens.  We realise the importance of biodiversity and helping the nectar gathering insects. 

They don’t have to be huge expanses of ground either, even a square metre of wild flowers will help to bring loads of beneficial creatures into the garden, who will in turn help you keep pests to a minimum. It is possible to have an ecosystem in the garden devoid of any pesticides or chemical feeds.

I was chatting to Sarah in the Isle of Wight this week who has taken the wildflower patch idea to another level and painstakingly worked an acre and a half field into a wildlife paradise. 

How did the meadow idea come about Sarah?

“We had a horse/donkey/goat/sheep field that was no longer being used so I decided to make it into a wildflower meadow six years ago to do my bit for the environment.  I did a lot of research into how best to set the system up beforehand.  I can now say that I now have ignored and adapted to my own rather quirky, but effective land management.”

How does that differ from regular ideas about tending to meadows?

“Most guides suggest you cut the grass once or twice a year to stop trees growing and to deter more prolific weeds from seeding.  I never mow the meadow, as I found that this destroyed a lot of plants I wanted to keep. My way of picking out individual weeds is extremely labour intensive, and involves strange looks from passers-by as I weed by hand!”

What type of seeds did you plant?

“The original seeds came from a company in Liverpool, but I collect my own each year now. I have poppies, cornflowers, corn cockles, corn marigolds, oxeye daisies, foxgloves, flowering chamomile, yellow rattle, yarrow (a bit of a pest), self-sown evening primrose (no idea where that came from), also others such as Californian poppies and, strangely, wallflowers, presumably dropped by birds. There are vetches and a few little broad leaved hellebores (very excited to find them), and loads more that I’ve probably forgotten!”

Was it a big job getting started? You do have over an acre and a half to work on.

“Yes. Our soil is wonderful, sandy loam, and is probably too fertile for wildflowers. It was always used for animal grazing, so had to be cleared of grass and weeds before we began. I hired a local contractor, but as I have a keen eye for detail and put in the time that a contractor couldn’t I’ve done it all myself since the initial clearing.”

Did you add grass seed to the mix?

“The seed did not contain any grasses. We haven’t put animals on there either, because they’d eat a lot of what I want to keep and some flowers, such as the corn cockles, are poisonous. I have a mixture of annual and perennial flowers, surrounded by hazels, beeches, walnuts and sweet chestnuts for our numerous red squirrels. I even have a few buddleia bushes in there to keep the butterflies happy. There’s another acre at the back of the meadow which is left to its own devices, with thistles, nettles and brambles for the caterpillars. I have painstakingly got rid of the weeds and it’s a constant job keeping on top of things. It is time consuming but very rewarding and enjoyable!”

Getting started

Putting in the time to create an area of practical beauty such as this can be daunting, but if you start small and build up slowly at your own pace it will remain manageable. Sarah knew that she had the interest and determination to convert the whole acre and a half but it’s not for everyone and the square metre might be enough. 

Even on small areas it’s important to get out the perennial weeds and reduce the amount of weed seeds in the soil. The first thought is to plough or rotovate the soil. This isn’t always the best solution. Turning the soil will only flip the weeds over and will not kill Nettles, Dock or Couch Grass, no matter how deep you plough. Attention to weed control is the key to helping the wildflowers establish and you need to be very meticulous at the start. 

If you don’t have the time or interest to do this, how about just working with what you have?

Simple method

The simplest route to this is not to abandon your lawn and mower but to learn how to move the mower’s blades up, so the cut is higher than 10cm.Hold out for your first cut until the end of June, then leave a month between each cut until autumn. If you need a route to the washing line or shed, mow just a path. The wildflowers will adapt and bloom to your cutting cycle and as you only cut the grass once a month you can spend more time admiring the flowers and the wildlife they attract.

Garden Magazine Survey Reveals Roses are a Garden Favourite

We have birds nesting in the garden this spring. 

They have arrived about four years after the box was put up, even the housing market in the bird world is running on a go slow. I’m pleased to see the soft fluffy materials being taken into the box. Their beaks are full to bursting with all sorts of materials to make it cosy for the chicks when they come.

Wildlife is important in the garden and a new survey just released has confirmed this. Although it’s not the number one priority for the garden, it comes close.

The survey was conducted by The Irish Garden magazine and Mr. Middleton's Garden Shop this year and they asked customers a few questions about their gardening habits. There were only 1500 people asked in the survey and there were specific questions, so it’s not a huge amount of customers being asked but it’s given the industry a bit of a pointer about where the latest trends are going.

The survey revealed that we are a fairly romantic bunch. Surprisingly for me the rose is still the most popular flower in Irish gardens with 24% giving it their vote. They might have lovely flowers but the thorns jump out at me so they wouldn’t be my first choice.  I prefer to admire them in other people’s gardens or large amenity displays than have them in my own garden. There’s no denying that the colour, shape, long-flowering, fragrance and romance are a bit attraction.  The next most popular is the Sweet Pea (20%) and Daffodil (15%) probably because of their ease of growing. Next came Peony, Lily and Clematis.

The survey also revealed that our favourite things about the garden are beautiful flowers and vibrant colours (77%). The second favourite thing was the ability to support wildlife (60%) which I’d put equal top of the list as biodiversity of plants and flowers will attract the wildlife. I think if I was doing the survey I would ask about edibles in the garden as that doesn’t seem to get a mention.

Other favourite things the garden brings are entertaining friends and family, fun for children, somewhere for pets to play and a feeling of satisfaction working in the garden.

‘Sitting relaxing’ came up pretty high too which I totally agree with, emphasising that we truly appreciate the sense of wellness that a garden can provide.

I’ve not been relaxing much this week though. I’m doing my best to dig up the wild garlic in the beds before they set seed. The flowers are out in force and are attractive enough (in a white bluebell sort of way) but the plants are really invasive. I’m still not sure where they came from but it must have been seed. We haven’t introduced the plant into the garden to my knowledge.

They do have their virtues as the whole plant is edible, from the flowers to the bulb. They have a milder taste than conventional garlic and the green shoots can be used like spring onions. I have filled four large compost bags with them so far and as yet none of the remaining ones are setting seed. I doubt I’ll get them all out this year but at least I’ll be on top of them. I’d be a bit wary of even putting small clump in a pot too as the seeds seem to get everywhere. I doubt very much this plant will make it onto the Irish gardens ‘favourite flower’ list anytime soon so I think the rose will stay on top for a few more years.

There are other more relaxing things to be getting on with in the garden this month.

• Plant out summer bedding at the end of the month but watch out for late frosts. The garden centres love a late cold snap as it will mean you buying twice as many plants to replace the ones you lose.
• Regularly hoe off weeds to stay on top of things, catch them before the flower and set seed (I learnt the hard way with my garlic) Maybe put a bit of mulch down too.

• Open greenhouse and polytunnel vents and doors on warm days. Open up propagators too to get some air flowing.

• Mow lawns weekly if possible as this makes it easier throughout the season. The mower is less likely to clog up with wet grass if you are only taking an inch or two off the top each time.

• Check for nesting birds before clipping hedges.

• Lift and divide overcrowded clumps of daffodils and other spring-flowering bulbs.