Greetings from Germany II

I noticed there is already a Greetings from Germany started by @Black Dog, so I decided to create a new thread to avoid confusion. I was amused by the welcome email I received from GCHQ. I assume this is the Gardeners Corner Headquarters, but it has a different meaning to me, in a Cheltenham sort of way.

My name is Mike, and my wife and I live in Gernsheim, Germany, which is between Darmstadt and Mannheim. I retired as a civilian with the U.S. Army in 2019 and am enjoying my retirement as best as is possible given the current environment. My other hobby is woodworking, and I am a Moderator on a UK woodworking site. As an American living in Germany and participating in a UK-based discussion board, I hope the members here will be understanding if I stray from your favourite spelling from time to time.

I was searching for advice on the proper amount of iron to use for controlling moss, and most of the Google hits pointed to the Gardeners Corner, so here I am. My yard (garden) is about 400 square meters, and lately has been a challenge to control the weeds, moss, and couch grass. Our house is adjacent to a large cultivated field with rotational crops, so we receive a lot of uninvited weeds.

Two years ago, I noticed a small patch of strange grass growing in the otherwise uniform lawn. I didn't react fast enough to this one square meter of what I later learned was couch grass (Elymus repens), which the Germans call Quecke. By the time I was motivated to do anything about it, the small patch became about 50 square meters and was beyond my ability to control.

At this point, my options were limited, as we cannot buy Glyphosate. I started digging up the lawn by hand, but after several weeks of this, decided to pay the company that initially did my landscaping years ago to solve this. I'll post pictures later, but the solution cost over €3,000 and resulted in removal of all the affected soil to a depth of 30CM. New soil was brought in and reseeded. Now the lawn looks great, but I assume it will take a few years before the new patch blends with the existing lawn.

I neglected the care and feeding of the lawn for a few years aside from regular mowing and watering, and this year finally found the motivation to dethatch and scarify the lawn. The moss had taken over large areas, and we removed thirteen 120-liter bags of thatch and moss. I bought an electric scarifier, so there will not be any excuses for failing to do this again when needed.

Those are my confessions...for now. I have a LOT to learn about lawn care and hope the experts here will be patient with my questions.

Best regards,
Mike

 

Welcome to the forum @MikeK ! Over here, we call it quack grass and yes, as soon as I see it, the knives come out. Nasty stuff. That and crab grass.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the forum. Everyone here is very helpful and never ever troll over spelling or typos. So have fun

 

from Portugal.

I can't help with grass problems as it is too hot to have it here but I am growing Tropical plants in a sub-Tropical climate, my specialty being Hibiscus rosa-sinenses.

I am sure you will get good advise from the UK however.

Enjoy!

 

Welcome to GC Mike

 

Welcome Mike to this friendly garden forum

I am a member of the UK woodworking site that you mention

 

Hello and welcome to GC forums

 

Thank you for the welcome, everyone!

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Mike.

 

Welcome to gardener's corner @MikeK
I was rather confused after reading your thread title for the first time but it made me smirk in the end.

Regarding your lawn, I don't think you are alone in this. Mine looks like a toddler played mix and match with different puzzles and I counted at least four different grass types. Haven't found the motivation yet to change that either because I prefer to use my energy in other areas of the garden.

Hopefully you and your garden survived the stormy last days we'll enough to keep up the good work

 

A warm welcome to Gardeners Corner, @MikeK!

Nick