The Salty Knitter

About Roundup

I could really care less that my lawn is full of dandelions and creeping charlie, so I’ve never used herbicides to keep my lawn looking lush and green. But (cue up the booing and hissing) Roundup has its place in my tool shed.

Recently I’ve learned that taking the time to bring in loads of compost every year and amend the soil makes weeding easier. I’ve also learned that by sticking to plants that grow well where they live they help choke out weeds and that a few minutes of weeding every day, especially early in the season, can have a huge impact by letting the plants get ahead of the weeds. But there are still situations where I’m going to use an herbicide.

Preparing New Garden Beds

Laying down layers of newspaper or cardboard before planting a new bed probably does help, as does landscape fabric. Neither will completely eliminate weeds from coming up through your planting holes. Also all of those options can make it a royal PITA to add plants or even just to move what you’ve already got around. We tried the newspaper method a few years ago and then I spent hours trying to keep bindweed out of my daylilies. That garden ended up getting mowed down with the lawnmower.

Now when I need to prepare a new bed I spray the area about a week to 10 days earlier, then top dress with compost and plant. Weeding is not my vocation and it’s a bitch to get any weeds out of clay soil. By giving myself a fresh start, all I have to do is stay on top of things.

Rescuing Overgrown Gardens

This disaster was last year’s project. At the time all I had on hand was some very old Killex. It didn’t do the job and even a year later I’m regretting that I didn’t make the effort to go and get some Roundup before I started and here’s why.

This is that same bed right after we planted it.

Here it is again in September of the same year. See all those dull green heart-shaped leaves? That’s Chameleon weed. Usually it has red, cream and green variegated leaves, but mine has reverted to green. You can’t dig it up because every single piece of root left behind will make a new plant and more roots. There wasn’t a trace of it before we planted this bed, but those roots kept on going.

So this spring when it was showing itself before the perennials, I started spraying it.

I will probably be spraying it all summer and maybe next year too. Chameleon weed is just that much of a bitch. At this point, I don’t care if I have to go around with a jar of Roundup and apply it to every Chameleon weed leaf I see with a q-tip weekly, I want it eradicated.

Seriously – never ever plant chameleon weed.

Foundations and Fences

At the very top of this picture you can see Lily of the Valley lurking against the side of the house.

Up close to the house, it’s very hard to maneuver to dig up weeds and get all the root. Worse my house is an old winterized cottage, which means it’s not really a true foundation. Instead it’s a ‘rat wall’, block they added after building the house, which means a lot of weeds are actually growing under the house and sending out runners for the outdoors every spring. Lily of the Valley will grow in a dark crawl space and I’m betting that chameleon weed can too. Now I purposely have a clear strip between the foundation and my desirable plants to make it easier to spray along the ‘foundation’.

Fences make good neighbors, but even the best neighbors don’t always keep up with their side of the fence line, especially if they have a hedge on their side of the fence. For years all of my neighbors were either too elderly to keep up with their yards or too transient (there are a lot of rental properties in my area) to care that much. Spraying the fence line just once a year, or at the most twice, helps keep their weeds from becoming my problem.

Ill-Conceived ‘Ground Cover’ Plantings

When ‘ground covers’ became a hot new gardening trend I drank the Kool Aid. Ground covers, they told us, could eliminate weeds by choking them out and free us from our lawn mowers. Thankfully I didn’t replant my entire yard in English Ivy and Vinca Vine, but I did plant a dark and dank shady corner of it that was difficult to mow. The problem was, they never did choke out the weeds and that area just became even harder to look after.

English Ivy will grow up the side of a building – like my garden shed – and adhere to it so strongly it can pull the siding off when you remove it. Vinca Vine has wiry stems that practically cut into your fingers when you try to pull it. All of it becomes this mass of plant with roots everywhere. Suffocating it by covering it with a tarp (or an old area rug – true story) will get rid of most of it, but not all of it. Rather than see the entire corner taken over again, I used Roundup to take care of the scragglers that were left.

I regret nothing.

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Meteor Shower Verbena

Meteor Shower Verbena is a new plant and a new type of plant from Proven Winners. I’ve seen it here and there at garden centers and the more I see it the more I like it.

It’s a Verbena Bonariensis bred for a more compact habit. Suggested for sun to part sun, it’s still a tall plant reaching 20-30″ in height. I like the way the blooms sit so far above the foliage, almost as if suspended above the plant. It seems to take away some of the gawkiness such a tall plant could otherwise have in a planter.

Meteor Shower in my own yard

Inspired by the planter above, I made the leap and bought one for myself.

I had some Success petunias, 3 each of Coral, Pink Vein and Pink Chiffon, and was having a hard time finding a spot that was sunny enough for them. I’ve tucked the coral into the edge of the veggie bed behind. Then planted the Pink Vein and Pink Chiffon with the Meteor Shower along with some Ipomea, or sweet potato vine.

This is a big pot to fill, so for the sweet potato vine I used two. They are the Sweet Georgia series from Green Fuse and much less aggressive than most Ipomea, definitely less vigorous than the Proven Winners variety shown in the first photo. My usual luck with petunia is to have them either die out or get a bit bald at the top towards August, hopefully the foliage from the Ipomea will keep the planter looking attractive.

At the moment the verbena is a gawky looking plant indeed, but soon enough the veggie plants from the garden behind will provide a backdrop and the other plants in the planter will fill in around it.

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DIY Fence Fail

I spent the weekend making these two sections of a fretwork garden fence. I came up with the idea when I saw this really pretty DIY Geometric Fretwork Screen made from 2 x 2 lumber while scrolling through Pinterest.

Last year I put in this cheapy wire fencing that I always think of as ‘granny’ fencing to try to keep the dogs from stomping all over my plants and eating them. It didn’t really work that well, because both dogs just hopped over it when they wanted to graze, or avoid walking in the grass, or (I’m looking at you Louie!) to poop on my plants.

They’ll happily run through a muddy ditch, but wet grass must be avoided at all cost!

Over the winter, cats being cats and dogs being dogs, my retriever managed to get one section hooked in his collar. He was the sorriest looking dog ever standing at the bottom of the stairs with 26 feet of wire fencing trailing behind him.

So that’s gone.

Ever since my perennials started popping up this spring, I’ve been weighing (and pricing) different options to add fencing to my flowerbeds. I can’t keep hollering “Get off my flowers” every 5 minutes, it’s like trying to keep toddlers from eating sand. Except everything is either not to my taste or completely out of my price range. When I saw that folding screen I instantly visualized the look as fencing and worked up a rough plan based on 2 foot increments – one side of the bed is 24′ long, the other 26. Sketching up my own plans was probably my first mistake.

For tools I have a miter saw, an orbital palm sander, and a drill, along with the use of my son’s impact driver (That impact driver is amazing!) and that’s pretty much it, or at least all that was useful for this project. By the end of the weekend it was pretty obvious I really needed to have a table saw and a nail gun. Better plans too.

I did a quick sanding of all of my lumber before using it because 2 x 2’s or at least the cheap spruce 2 x 2’s are usually pretty shitty and they have a stamp in the middle along with blue ends. Once I cut all the pieces, I sanded off any splintery ends.

I swear the next time I have my power washer out, I’m really going to offer to clean my neighbors siding for them. It’s looked like that for about two years now.

Then I started putting it together and I was kind of excited to see it starting to look almost like I had pictured it, until it wasn’t.

It was flimsy, and barely holding together. I honestly couldn’t picture it working at all as it was.

So back to the hardware store, I bought some of those metal straps and corner brackets they sell and spray painted them black. Those straps add up pretty quick and bumped the price of two 4′ fence segments from around $20 closer to $50.

Originally the idea was to pound each post into the ground since they were only 2 x 2’s.

Apparently that wasn’t a good idea either. If that had happened before I stained it, you would be looking at pictures of raw spruce 2 x 2’s.

This was my first time using stain and I know it looks horrible, but honestly I can’t even be bothered to try to fix it. The fence is just not going to work. For now it might keep the 80 lb adolescent German Shepherd from sitting on my sedums, but I can’t see it surviving a winter.

Nor can I see myself using this plan to finish fencing in both sides of the bed. Not only is it too rickety, it’s too tall. I think it would look better if the bottom rail were only 6″ off the ground. Plus if I have to use the pieces of metal all the way along, not only are they ugly (I can see them from my deck) but they’re expensive.

Do I still want a fretwork garden fence?

I still love the idea of how it could look. So I’m wondering if doing a few things differently would make it actually work.

Things like buying say 2 x 6, or 2 x 8’s and ripping them lengthwise so that I’m starting with better lumber.

And things like altering the plans so the top and bottom rails were one single length instead of butting against that vertical piece in the middle or even using 4 x 4’s for the posts and 2 x 4’s for the top and bottom rails.

Definitely every place the pieces cross should have a dado so they can cross and be nailed together. And the spacers should carry through the center of the inside square instead of using the fiddly 3″ pieces I used.

Another thing I would need to do is account for the posts at each end in my measurements or find myself with an odd sized panel at the end of the run. Since I didn’t do that with the first sections, maybe it’s a good thing it didn’t work out enough to finish the garden. I would have ended up with a section roughly 9″ narrower than the rest of the fence sections at the end.

In its own way, learning how to work with lumber isn’t much different from learning how to sew. You get better at planning and measuring. Eventually you acquire more of the tools you need to do the job better or faster and sooner or later you either learn to sew or build stuff that looks good and works.

Or you find another hobby and buy the things you need.

In the meantime, for what I spent on lumber and hardware this weekend, I could have fenced the whole thing in granny fencing again. Heck, I could have even splurged on the 3′ tall stuff instead of the 2′ tall I used last year.

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Purple and Lime Planter

Purple Prince Alternanthera calls for full sun but happily, it seems to be taking to it’s shady home just fine. While Alternanthera is perfectly suited to landscape plantings, I chose to use it in a planter as the thriller.

A) Purple Prince Alternanthera

Recommended for full sun to light shade, I have it in a densely shaded place and it’s doing fine. It’s also suggested as a spiller in planters, I’ve chosen to use it as a thriller in this planter.

B) Escargot Rex Begonia

Silver and green leaves with a snail-like pattern have a purplish underside. It’s coloring worked well in this combination.

C) Burgundy Wedding Train Coleus

One of the few coleus with a true trailing habit which makes it highly desirable for container plantings. It’s limey colored edges make a nice contrast to the darker colored foliage.

D) Lobelia

I added three purple Lobelia a couple of weeks after the rest of the plants when I decided something was missing. At the time the planter was already so crammed with plants, I ended up ripping half the roots off so I could stuff them in. They didn’t seem to mind.

E) Setcreasea

There are three setcreasea stems in this planter. My mother keeps a few slips at the end of each season to have for the next one. Something to consider for easily rooted plants, it helps to keep costs down. Many of the spillers commonly used in planters do well as houseplants over the winter.

This planter is very full, but the bottom half of the planter is all virgin soil waiting for new roots, so it will hold moisture just fine. In front of the planter is one of my houseplants. A limey-gold pothos, it has exploded in the couple of weeks it has been outdoors. I’m convinced it has already doubled in size.

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Hybrid or Interspecific Begonia

Up until last April I rarely thought about begonias and if I did think about them I was thinking of ‘wax’ or ‘seed’ begonia. Those flats of annuals with their tightly packed fleshy leaves that are usually planted in a line along the edge of a garden bed.

And while those begonia still have a place in shade gardens, especially with the downy mildew issues that have affected Impatiens, these next four begonia are something all-together different.

Dragon Wing Begonia

These are the huge showy plants you’re most likely to see in municipal planters and gardens. And why wouldn’t you? Sun, Shade or anything between they put on a fabulous show until first frost. Dragon Wing begonia are to shade what petunias are to sun, only even better because they have a longer season.

Usually they’re sold in hanging baskets or 5-6″ pots, last year I was lucky enough to find them in 6 packs so I bought a flat of them.

In September they were still flowering like crazy and holding their own against that horrible chameleon weed. Dragon Wing is available in either Pink or Red with green leaves only.

BIG Begonia

Another new to me variety, I tried this one out last year too. BIG begonia are suitable for full sun to full shade and everything between.

With its more upright habit, BIG begonias are perfect for planters and landscape use. I grew it in the lower level of this corner bed.

Santa Cruz and San Francisco top level, Big series begonia in Pink and Rose in the lower level.

By the end of the season, it was as tall as the begonia in the top level and it never stopped flowering.

Flower colors of Pink, Rose, and Red are all available with either green leaves or bronze leaves.

Megawatt Begonia

New for 2017, Megawatt is another upright hybrid begonia, perfect for landscape and planters. From the same company as Dragon Wing, it has those nice big glossy leaves. Initially offered in 4 colors, Pink Bronze Leaf, Rose Bronze Leaf, Red Green Leaf and Rose Green Leaf and recommended for part sun.

I will be trying the Bronze Leaved Pink this year.

Already I’m super impressed with the Megawatt Begonias well branched beefy stems.

Surefire Begonia

Surefire are a green leaved hybrid Begonia in Pink and Red by Proven Winners. They are suitable for sun or shade. In growth habit, they so far seem very similar to the BIG begonias.

Side by Side comparison

Lower Level – Megawatt Pink w/Bronze Leaves. Upper Level – Surefire Red and BIG Pink w/Bronze Leaves

For my own satisfaction, I decided to do a bit of a side by side comparison of the biggest of the big. This bed gets an average of two hours of sun per day, with the front dead center getting three to four. I’m interested to see what, if any, difference there are between these three varieties.

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