Gardeners!

[Tin Pot]

I’ve been hassling the good folk of Gardeners World forum practically everyday but a few things I thought you lot might have a better answer for;

Wood chips surface. So I’m turning a corner of the garden into a seating area, adding shade with a fence otherwise things grow well there, do I need to mow it/dig it over/lay a membrane before I cover it in cherry laurel wood chip?

@Heltor Chasca
My palm has started going brown just recently, maybe related to the snow, move it, feed it or just pray?

 

[Tin Pot]

Oh! Ok. Make sure the roots are actually severed, not just lines. It stimulates lateral root growth AWAY from the pot bound roots.

I moved the heathers to a planter this evening, and the ones we talked about last year the roots had not grown out since September, the compost just fell away leaving the pot-bound shape from the previous pot.

They’ve lost their colour too and gone an off white, sort of orange colour. Not acid enough?

 

[Heltor Chasca]

I’ve been hassling the good folk of Gardeners World forum practically everyday but a few things I thought you lot might have a better answer for;

Wood chips surface. So I’m turning a corner of the garden into a seating area, adding shade with a fence otherwise things grow well there, do I need to mow it/dig it over/lay a membrane before I cover it in cherry laurel wood chip?
View attachment 402888

Go for it. No need to do anything except maybe at the edge where the fence is. Grass will grow round the edge of the membrane. Use a decent one like Plantex. The rest degrade too quickly.

@Heltor Chasca
My palm has started going brown just recently, maybe related to the snow, move it, feed it or just pray?
View attachment 402887

Seating area: Go for it. No need to do anything except maybe at the edge where the fence is. Grass will grow round the edge of the membrane. Use a decent one like Plantex. The rest degrade too quickly.

Palm: Doesn't look that bad. Seen much worse from wind damage. Leave it if possible and don’t feed. One of my gardens has has two die because of cold this year. Once new growth from the middle has established and there is enough foliage to support the root stock you can cut these out. But don’t do it for many months yet. The plant needs to photosynthesise.

 

[Dave 123]

@Tin Pot give your heathers some ericaceous compost. A good thing to do with the heather is to plant it deep, like bury the bottom half of the top growth. It'll make new roots and give the plant some vigour.

 

[PaulSB]

@Tin Pot re your seating area personally I would make sure strong growing perennial weed like docks or dandelions are physically removed. These can push through the strongest membrane. I would also level it and firm by treading over as low spots could gather water and get very squelchy.

If possible get Mypex as your membrane. This is the product used by commercial growers and is vastly superior to retail products. I worked in commercial horticulture all my life. I use Mypex on all paths etc. before covering with stone, flags, chips. You may be able to source this from a retail nursery which truly grows its own plants. Just ask. Even used Mypex will do.

For future winters consider lightly pulling together your palm foliage and tieing with string. If it’s very exposed wrap with hessian. What you have shown will recover.

 

[Tin Pot]

What I’m likely to do is mow the whole area but for the few plants I want to retain, break it up with a fork, remove what I can by hand, then use my rototiller to dig the whole area over.

Then lay membrane, space for a .3-.4m border around the perimeter, plant herbs and fern, cover with my own wood chip.

 

[PaulSB]

@Tin Pot. That all sounds fine though I would be wary of cultivating it. If you already have a firm, roughly level surface, which the image suggests, it could be simpler to reduce high spots with a shovel and fill low spots with the spoil.

By cultivating you will be able to achieve a very level surface but may find the ground has to be left to settle afterwards and need a lot of compaction to firm up.

Very difficult to say without seeing but I’d fork out tough perennials, mow it, remove the grass as turves about 1” thick before levelling by eye or with a spirit level if the levels vary widely.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

And of course rotovating the soil may just nudge those dormant wild seeds out of their slumber and you may end up with more weeds than you started with.

 

[PK99]

And of course rotovating the soil may just nudge those dormant wild seeds out of their slumber and you may end up with more weeds than you started with.

I'm making a gravel & herb bed at the moment. Top 3-4 inches pf soil removed and raked level - removing previous planting cultivated the area - I'll be leaving that open for a while to allow the now non-dormant weed seeds to geminate, before spraying off and topping with a thick layer of 20mm gravel.

 

[Jody]

And of course rotovating the soil may just nudge those dormant wild seeds out of their slumber .

When I moved into the current house we dug quite a few areas of garden over. We ended up with an abundance of pharmacitical grade opium poppies in our garden. Some beautiful looking flowers but not sure if we could have got into trouble for them being there.

 

[Tin Pot]

Okay, looks like I’ll never unwrap my rotovator from 2015

Is there a trick to lifting the chips and membrane when you need to or is it just hard work scooping it all up?

The tree in the middle is probably dead, but I’m giving it one last chance to show signs of life before I break out the axe. So I’ll likely want to lift the membrane away next year.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

...Is there a trick to lifting the chips and membrane when you need to or is it just hard work scooping it all up?...

Yes. Levitation or sorcery. Either or, but choose carefully.

 

[PaulSB]

@Tin Pot just hard work to lift it. I’d take the tree out now.

 

[Tin Pot]

Yes. Levitation or sorcery. Either or, but choose carefully.

 

[steveindenmark]

21 degrees in Denmark yesterday I got out in the garden to scarify the lawn for a couple of hours. Its surprising how much moss and dead grass you can get out of such a small lawn. I put another bag of grass seed on it. As long as it looks green it will be fine.

Before...