How do you cope with a larger garden?

I'm guilty of that too. Comes of being too eager.

 

Many thanks to you all. When I first posted this I was feeling dead miserable, but it's funny how sharing my dispair has lifted the old spirits !

 

I've just had another look at your last photo, Kazzie. Wouldn't be great to have lots of bendy slides going down that hill. You wouldn't have to weed 'em.

 

Rhododendrons are low maintenance - you don't have to deadhead them and they don't need to be pruned unless you want to prune them for shape

Don't know how practical it would be but how about turning part of the garden into a wildflower meadow? Low maintenance, pretty and the flying insects will love it.

 

Sometimes you don't, especially when all of the work is done by yourself.

I'm tired and had enough. My joints are worn out and so am I. Today was a mega bad day, as I snapped at my 13yr old daughter. I've never once had to tell her off, but one wrong comment today about the garden was enough to make me flip. Don't let it get to that stage.

It is also all well and good saying look at what you achieved, but this isn't a great deal help when you wish that you hadn't started.

I haven't really been bothered to take many after photos, but this is just a very small selection over the last 4 yrs of work.

 

When you think about it, there are never any "after" photos, as gardens are always developing and hopefully improving. So there can only really be "before" and "during" photos.

 

Crikey Eddie... lol, and I thought I had problems! You have done really well... keep your chin up x. I did do a complete garden make-over at my last house... it involved a flame thrower because the industrial strimmer couldn't cope with the brambles lol. However, in a way it was so much easier because the land was flat. I did take some before, during and after photos.

Mandy... I hope my son doesn't see your slide idea.

As for the meadow idea (sorry, because the page has turned I can't look up who posted it... Merle I think)... anyway, I do have a meadow bank... it looked lovely earlier this year, but strimmed it all back about a month ago because it started to look messy. About 40% of the garden has been left wild (mostly trees).

 

Wouldn't be so hard on yourself,garden looks great considering you're flying solo.
My advice would be limit your objectives,gardening is about going with the flow of nature not fighting it.
No point stressing about what you can't do,better to take satisfaction from what you can do.
Keep up the good work.

 

WOW!!!! what a transformation!! you should be very proud. a lot of hard work and effort has gone into that. hats off to you

 

Sometimes you don't, especially when all of the work is done by yourself.
I'm tired and had enough. My joints are worn out and so am I. Today was a mega bad day, as I snapped at my 13yr old daughter. I've never once had to tell her off, but one wrong comment today about the garden was enough to make me flip. Don't let it get to that stage.
It is also all well and good saying look at what you achieved, but this isn't a great deal help when you wish that you hadn't started.

Aaaaw Eddie, those words are so poignant but so harshly real. I think the majority of us end up moving because, where we are is no longer fulfilling our dream.
You see Eddie, I look at your before and after pictures with enormous admiration but your current weariness tends to tarnish it a little.
So, the hardest question for both you and Kazzie. How long will you stay before you move on?
Sorry to bring my opinions to this thread and DO tell me to mind my own business if you want to. I will not be offended,
sincerely,
Jenny namaste

 

Maybe I'll consider moving next spring Jenny... it will be a bit of a tug and there isn't really any rush, but I'm quite a practical person and know I can't stay here in the long term... I simply can't cope too well with the slopes!

 

Then enjoy what you have while you are there Kazzie. Make it work for you- not the other way round. All that wonderful wild life and bird life - just soak all that up. They love it just the way it is,
Jenny xx

 

I have a large garden, some thoughts in no particular order:

We live out in the country. Weed seed blows in from round-about. I am a stickler for two old sayings "One years seed = 7 years' weed" and "never let it see a Sunday"

First get the bed clean, then keep it clean (hoeing is quickest), certainly before anything seeds, but if within 7 days of sprouting the pervasive weeds will be progressively weakened until its root system is unable to throw up a new shoot.

We try to leave Bindweed wherever it appears so we can treat it with Glyphosate weedkiller, rather than pulling/hoeing it up. We did the same with Ground Elder at a previous property, with an equally large garden, effectively. We have a few areas of Marsetails here that I do the same with (using Ammonium sulphamate rather than Glyphosate). The amount has reduced dramatically over the last 4 or 5 years, and now we only have a few shoots each year, hopefully the end is in sight.

It takes years to reduce and eradicate indigenous weeds, and if they blow in from all around that doesn't help. I don't think planting thickly helps much, it just makes the weeding task harder, so I avoid planting ground cover until I am sure the bed is properly clean.

We use quite a lot of woven mulching fabric, covering it with bark chippings - but weeds still establish in the bark ... so it still needs some attention, just not so often. I do use that for hedges, but reluctantly for beds. For beds I want to mulch with rotted manure [annually] to improve our [clay] soil, and putting plastic down would prevent that. A really good mulch of well rotted manure helps suppress the weeds anyway, and at the least it keeps the soil most which makes pulling them up much easier. I also have the benefit that things will self-seed and I can bulk-up in that way.

I look for, and will invest in, labour saving devices. You need the fastest mower than you can afford. I don't know what is available for steep banks, but if there is a Flymo twice as wide as the one you have, for example, [and assuming it doesn't weigh a ton!] then buy that.

Or get a JCB in and re-sculpture the bank into terraces (and then you could make an amazing series of "rooms" on the terraces). Lot of work initially, but a self drive JCB is not hugely expensive to hire, and great fun to use if you are reasonably practical. Get a big one though - the smaller they are the less "umph" they have. My norm would be a 6-tonne 360-degree tracked digger. (Don't mix the topsoil with the subsoil: you need to scrape the good stuff off the top, put to one side, sort out the shape / levels of the subsoil, then put an even layer of topsoil back on top of that).

Use 3/4" hose rather than 1/2" - you'll get a lot more water through it, and spend less time standing around watering things. Install a water "main" around the garden so you have taps within one hose length of anything you need to water, rather than having to lug hose to the far end of the garden.

If you have things that need regular watering - containers, or areas of new planting - then install drip irrigation rather than walking backwards and forwards with buckets, or standing over a hose.

Those are the sorts of investments I have made to "spend some to save some".

I raise plants in pots - I have an area of "standing" for them, round the back and out of the way. My aim is to plant things that are bigger than I can buy in the nursery but that don't cost a fortune and are not starved and pot bound. This means that when I plant a new bed I already have plants that are a decent size and establish a year sooner than otherwise. That helps get from "Building" phase to "Maintenance" phase more quickly. Once at "maintenance" phase the amount of work is dramatically less.

I definitely use Glyphosate weedkiller wherever possible. I kill the edge of the lawn next to all young hedges, for example. The grass otherwise grows sideways from the lawn into the hedge and then has to be weeded - because its outside the "reach" of the mower. If killing an area is going to be an eyesore then my approach would be to either live with it or to do it immediately [2 weeks to give it time to kill] before hiring some heavy equipment to then tame the soil. Either a JCB or a large tractor-mounted rotavator - I don't want to be wrestling with a small rotavator that can't make a dent into hard packed soil that has not been tilled recently/ever.

But ... there are still never enough hours in the day to water the few extra things that could really do with it, or spray the roses for Blackspot on-schedule every 14 days, or feed to a schedule, or deadhead all the Dahlias to make them flower to the maximum of their potential ... but the closer I get to maintenance, and the less "building" I take on, the more that becomes a reality.

Have a look at my blog, if you like, to see what we are trying to tame - it might give you heart that it is doable and Good Luck

 

Kristin, I feel exhausted after reading your blog. The project you have taken on is huge and requires so much vision (something I lack). My garden is tiny (just under 2 acres) compared to yours... it sort of makes me feel like a wimp saying I'm struggling to cope!

 

2 acres on a slope, right next to wild woodland is no mere walk in the park Kazzie. Not many of us damsels are built for that type of gardening,