Introducing weeds - on purpose

hey @Selleri you got guinea's too sticking with the weed theme you know you can feed them the likes of Sowthistle, Clevers, Chickweed, Hairy Bittercress, Herb Robert as well as Dandelion

 

Your neighbours are going to LOVE you! Just like I loved my neighbours and their yellow lawns, before I got them to treat their dandies before they blew over and became mine!!

Forget me nots? I have a part of a bed, under a Laburnum tree in fact, that is now carpeted with FMN seedlings, in the Spring/Early Summer they carpet the ground there and I've thousands of blue mini flowers, absolutely beautiful, right alongside a similar carpet of London Pride, stunning en masse!

 

I don't care what the neighbours think. Firstly, I'm planting/sowing stuff in my garden, which I take responsibility for and will control. Secondly, I'm not sowing anything aggressively invasive, and thirdly, if they want to take exception to anything I do, I will politely ask them to tackle their grossly out of control neglected gardens so that I can relax a bit and not have to spend so much time and effort 'defending my border' from their bindweed, brambles, overgrown trees.

 

Apologies clueless1, obviously didn't realise you had that sort of trouble next door.

 

No need to apologise. I don't really have bother from the neighbours, they just don't seem to care about their gardens, and are probably living in blissful ignorance of the effect that neglect of their gardens has on other people's gardens

 

i can never understand people leaving their gardens to go to rake & ruin like that

 

Well, in my case, to one side its not a garden, just a private alley separating my gaff from the church grounds next door. Next door the other way is a lovely old lady who simply can't cope with the garden. Her late husband used to look after it, but since he's gone, she has neither the knowledge nor the physical ability to do it. Then at the far end, over the fence is a young couple who occasionally try, get drunk while trying, and then usually end up setting fire to their bushes.

I don't care too much about the church grounds. I don't get too much problem from that side. Straight out the back will occasionally find some of their foliage turning yellow if they ever bother to check, as I spray the bindweed and brambles that are coming. Its the old lady that I feel a bit sorry for. She is lovely, and if she knew there was a problem I just know she would be embarrassed and ashamed (she has no reason to, she's just from a different generation). I have in the past, more than once, offered to do certain bits of work in her garden for her, but she's always declined because she pays someone to do it, and even though they are clearly ripping her off by taking her money and not actually doing anything, her pride means she'd rather get on his case than accept help from elsewhere.

 

ah its different when its though no fault of their own, its the able bodied who just couldn't be bothered that bothers me, i get that some people live crazy, hectic, busy lives but that's not really a reason is it? a bit of effort now, sort yourself a minimalist garden & bobs your uncle, you wont have to do much of anything else with it for years to come. how can they look at it out the window? are they not embarrassed? especially if the front garden is as bad...i know i'd be mortified!

 

I think for some people, the idea of having a garden to host barbecue parties in or for the kids to play in is a very tempting thing when choosing where to live, but they come from either their parental home, or a pokey little flat that they lived in while they were working up to getting a house, and they have no idea just how much work is involved in looking after a garden. I think they think you do the garden once, and its done for a good while. Much like decorating a room. You do it once and it stays nice for at least a couple of years. If you are brave enough, you can see these people at B&Q on any sunny sunday or bank holiday. They're all in there buying plants that are already in full bloom, maybe buying turf, and of course barbecue gear. You just know they are going to spend a couple hours planting up their new purchases, maybe mow their neglected lawn, and hey presto, that's it done for at least another year

Guilty I'm afraid. In 3 years since we moved in, I've done nothing more than really necessary to the front. Its awful. I've planted up a little bed under the front window, replaced a strip of lawn with gravel where people were taking a shortcut to my front door and had compacted that ground that much that the grass stopped growing there, planted the start of a front hedge and that's it. Other than that, all I do is mow it once in a while and trim the privet hedge dividing my gaff from the old lady's next door. I am a bit embarrassed about it, but its tidier than many gardens round here, and all my focus so far has been on the back. Next year though, I'm hoping to have made enough progress in the back to ease off a bit and have a go at the front. My neighbourhood was once locally nicknamed 'garden city', because before my time it was reputed to have been beautiful. Some of the oldies and even a few newies try to uphold that, but mostly its a bit scruffy now. But, I've noticed something interesting. Whenever I or another neighbour does a bit of work out front, quite often, within half an hour you'll hear mowers/strimmers/hedge trimmers starting up all round the neighbourhood. This makes me think that just maybe, if I do mine, someone walking past may think, 'maybe I should have a go at mine when I get home', and so on and so forth.

 

That sounds a lovely idea to have a mound of wildflowers, two things I do know is that they thrive in poor soil and they are much better for bees than cultivated flowers. You have seen the mess though that my wildflower patch has become in the thread I posted yesterday, can't seem to get stuff to re-seed itself. I will be very interested to see how it goes for you. The comment about sacred dandelions made me smile as 'dandandines' were my son's favourite when he was small too!