emilbrett

You don't happen to have the address to that land fill do you? Having a hard time finding it online.

To avoid water resting on the open wound, you can make your prune cut at an angle. Other more experienced gardeners can chime in if I am off-base. I attached a picture to help illustrate this.

In reflection, I might have let the glyphossate work for a week before I covered the beds with the black plastic. Ah well, next time! Good call on the tree. You are just seeing the bottom of the branches and a fuller picture will show a small tree about 12" tall. I will take back that black plastic a little. Cricket, thanks for that tip on the bedding edge. I was lucky to inherit all of those rocks when I bought the house. I actually have about 2 more wheelbarrows of rocks like that, just waiting to be used. dcsmith, I was going to plant perenials in those beds. For this year, I will only buy a few perennials and let them grow in. This way if I made a mistake I didn't buy the entire bed's worth of perennials. The buds are already opening, so I will push back the plastic today.

Hi Gardeners! Janet mentioned a good place to buy mulch near Plymouth, MI, which supplies other local nurseries. I am trying to locate the place she mentioned. Any ideas? Is it the Plymouth Nursery?

On the Roundup, I did spray it only on the weeds that have already shown themselves, which are plenty. The beds are already covered with weeds. Thanks for the tip on the Meijer brand, I will do that next time! How long do you find you need to cover the bed with the newspaper, cardboard, etc. before you feel comfortable planting? Great tip on the rock edge, because it really is just for looks. I moved forward already by spraying the round up on any weeds that I saw and covered the bed with a black plastic.

That middle area was right where a tree was removed and the stump was ground, so thats why I don't think any weeds really took hold there. Hmmm, I will have to look into the "English edging." I bought some of that plastic edging and will try it out for now. If it heaves, then I can get another solution. I kinda took your advice and went with a black plastic option to act as a barrier instead of trying to solarize with clear plastic. I am hoping that by spraying Round Up, covering with black pastic until Early May, and then tilling, I will be ready to plant.

Great point on the slope issue, I will make sure to do that before I set that bed with the annuals that I want. I appreciate the advice in different ways to add nitrogen or prepare the bed for planting. I do have a bagger and did that all last year with the beds. Eventually I want to get a compost going, but for now I just dump the grass clippings into the beds. Now I need to research sloping issues. Thanks again! Brett

Good point about the nitrogen issue.. I think I may be able to spread out the uncomposted wood into the other beds on my property so there isn't so much in this bed.

Hello everyone, Hoping to get some ideas for dealing with a tree recently removed. Last year I had a very large tree removed and the company left grounded root and a large pile of wood chipping. Unfortunately, I don't have a compost pile going so I am really not sure what to do with all of these raw wood chips and grounded root. I want to turn this space into a bed with plants. Any ideas on how to remove this? Will I just need to get a truck and take it to a local land fill? Thanks! Brett

Hi Community, I had a wonderful opportunity to hear Janet speak at a recent Master Gardeners Class and she mentioned using the forum here as a way to get advice. I have zero gardening experience and bought a foreclosed house that has several established beds already designed, but are full of weeds and no established flowers, trees, shrubs. etc. I attached a picture of the bed, outlined in rocks. I have two questions: 1. I want to prepare the bed by clearing out any "weeds." I am considering using the clear plastic method. I would cover the ground inside the bed with a clear plastic. How would it take for this method to kill the weeds so I can then plan flowers, shrubs, etc.? 2. I want to prevent the grass from slowly creeping between the rocks and entering the bed. I plan on mulching the bed after I established the bed with the plants I want. In addition to the existing rock outline, is there another border I could establish to prevent the grass from entering? Thank you for your help! Brett