GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

redofromstart

Sun_Addict said:

Just popping in to say glad you started this thread after we all hijacked your diary with garden stuff 😆 The only garden type thing I’ve done today is view Japanese Knotweed in the process of being eradicated at a local park. I’ve never seen it before and was fascinated. It was barricaded off with a warning note 😬

JKW is fascinatingly awful. 

KajiKita

Cherryfudge said:

KajiKita said:

this thing was a thug with thick, tough, roots that needed a machete to remove at times - ran just under the surface, all over the bed.
I never have identified it! 😂

Oh no! That's going to bother me now.  

*Googles* 'thug with thick, tough, roots that needed a machete'... gets crime stories.
*Googles* 'thick tough roots with yellow flowers'... gets dandelions.

Might it be on here?

This is making laugh so hard that Mr KK wants to know what’s going on!! 😂😂😂😂

None of those … (I suspect it was an intentional cultivated planting rather than a ‘proper’ weed, iyswim). I’m going to have to try and find it now aren’t I ….? If I start having neon nightmares tonight I shall be blaming you! 😂😉

KK

KajiKita

@Cherryfudge, structurally, it was something like this:



But the yellow was ACCEEEED!! And the foliage wasn’t blue-grey - it was categorically METALLIC! With the orange of the poppies it was migraine inducing …. 😂😉

KK

greenbee

'Screaming yellow' suggests someone is trying to make a statement!

redofromstart

That made me laugh @KajiKita, one man's weed and all that. A few gardens (and 25 years ago) I was fighting a losing battle against periwinkle  (vinca minor)  and I still cringe when it's suggested as good ground cover for shade. 

Cherryfudge

Crumbs - if it was even yellower than that... eek! 'Screaming yellow' amused me.  

A vague possibility might be the yellow dead nettle, but I don't think it's very likely. 

Perhaps you have uprooted a rare specimen, but if so, you might have done us all a favour. Thanks for all the extra searching.  

ArbitraryRandom

KajiKita said:

But the yellow was ACCEEEED!! And the foliage wasn’t blue-grey - it was categorically METALLIC! With the orange of the poppies it was migraine inducing …. 😂😉

KK

Thermopsis lupinoides comes to mind (some cultivars have flowers described as 'neon' yellow, dark/thick stems with slightly glossy leaves and a chunky root)

 Otherwise, while I know you already said it wasn't a vetch, some varieties like Lathyrus pratensis and Coronilla varia have a glossy or metallic sheen to the leaves. Both are a little more scrambling than upright.

 Sorry, I know you probably want to drop it but we're curious now

SuzeQStan

For the beds, even 6 months covered will help to weaken the few roots under there compared to not doing so, but I am more and more thinking that for the rest of the garden I might need to completely cover with a thick DPM for a few years, perhaps with a good layer of decorative bark over the top, to at least get it surpassed to a manageable level. Such a blanket (if you'll excuse the pun) approach will set me back on getting the garden I want 'finished', but I don't see a practical alternative given how much of it there is all over the garden. Something I don't have to decide about until after I have the patio and new shed base. 

This weekend's chores:
- Try to identify where to put 20 brassica plugs I'm expecting delivered in the next week.
- Try to diagnose what's wrong with my rosemary. Maybe move? 
- Tidy up my allums/herbs and put any decent looking damaged/trimmed leaves into my freezer stock bag.
- Get the area for the new composter cleared (pick where it's going).
- Poke the local gardener and mention the forecast is dry for a couple of days so he can bring his mower if he's got time to cut.
- Patrol for bindweed (Edit: Did a bit of a more thorough look this morning, with it not being so cold and grey out. Lost count at 10 of the blighters. Some just poking through so reasonably since yesterday, but one or two at 6 plus inches so I obviously missed them for a few days. My middle name from now on shall be Sisyphus )

Same but ours is an exhaustive fight against the dreaded Japanese anemone. The GC’s who sell it should hang their heads in shame - along with vinca periwinkles etc.  

membrane over the top for a couple months now. Not a step we take lightly but do object to gentle non invasive plants getting choked out by thugs 

redofromstart

interesting @SuzeQStan, I have a small patch of white JA.  fairly dry and very shady spot under some trees, in the north shadow of the house, and that and elephants ears are the only things that survive but it also doesn't spread.

I made a lot of progress yesterday on the beds closest to the house, ignoring my own plan to work elsewhere. My daily walk round identified that actually  those are the beds I look at most, and that I hate seeing neglected.  I think it was @Sun_Addict who said that Alan Titchmarsh says if you don't know where to start, start at the back door which seems very sensible to me, together with the flylady thing of 15 minutes, set a timer, see how much difference you can make. 

Lots of 15 minute bursts to take out a raft of self seeded bird seed crops, nettles (the only big ones left in the garden I think), creeping buttercup and some straying ivy.  I also pruned a tree peony to put some light and shape back in at the shady corner of the lawn.  I did hoe off the polytunnel weedlings, but I still need to do the veg plot ones.  Both green bins are now nearly full but I am starting to be able to see the difference.  

Once my anti H have kicked in I need to find a plumb line (or two sticks and some string) and see about re-instating an edge before I poke the boys to mow the lawn later.  

Hope you can rescue your rosemary @ArbitraryRandom, I checked mine after you said and it too has died.  It was just a cheap one from the supermarket.  I think it mostly drowned last week.  I have more success with the supermarket mint.

kiss_me_now9

Wonderful idea for a thread! 

I am hoping now the weather is brightening up and my LO is in nursery on a Tuesday morning I can dedicate a couple of hours each week to deeper house cleaning and gardening tasks without him getting upset/under my feet. 

I have a greenhouse, which needs a decent sort out - I did some this Tuesday but there is still a way to go. I'm waiting (im)patiently for my first early potatoes to be ready to dig up as they are taking up a lot of ground space in the greenhouse. I have a very long list of gardening tasks as we are very lucky to have a bigger than average garden. I'd really like to get on top of it this year and make it a nice, safe and open space for my little boy to play in but also us to enjoy and get some produce out of.