Less than two weeks in my new place and I have comparison photos already. I have tarps over the vegie plots hoping to smother the couch grass while I concentrate on other stuff. I have cleaned out leaves from garden beds (the tree was poisoned by the landlord so I don’t want to compost them), added compost (the stuff I barrowed with me from the other house, yep I’m dedicated! :D) to the garden beds and started planting. I have pruned and weeded and pulled couch grass and vinca major. I have found a path buried under couch grass, raked up eucalypt branches to make mowing possible…anyway, the photos tell the story..taken yesterday, things are actually different again as I spent all day in the garden today (and am rather pink because I forgot the sunscreen).
Bon, when are you coming to visit and see my new place? Whenever, you can guarantee I’ll have dirt under my nails when you arrive if the last couple of weekends are anything to go by!

My landlord was kind enough to leave me weeds and palm fronds to clean up

The plumbago hedge coming back slowly from it’s massacre with the electric hedge trimmer. I have cleared most of the debris out by this stage and trimmed most of the dead ends back. All I have to do now is get the last of the deadwood out, continue along the line removing the suckers to make it a straight hedge rather than a mutant hedge, and plant a little contrasting/complementary something in front.

The poor plumbago ‘hedge’ after my landlord’s efforts to control it prior to my moving in.

This is the pathway before I got to it (well I had raked a bit but nothing much)
Behind Ella (the dog in centre shot) is the mango tree. The bananas are in the left rear corner, all tatty and nasty (not in the second pic!) The grapevine to the left bears great fruit apparently, coming along now so I’ll soon see, and there is another along the rear fence. There are two apples just out of shot to the left, and a peach and grapefruit at the back near the vegie plots.

That enormous lump next to the bin is a couch grass tumbleweed made up from only the couch that came off the pathway

A shot showing the bit of the path that looked like lawn two hours before the photo was taken.

The vegie plots swamped by couch and baby cocos palms, with the chicken run in the background (Needs some renovating, it has no roof or gate) and showing the peach, grapefruit, 2nd grapevine and one flowering armful of mango promise!

Looking better now.

g’day horty
wonderful topic – a neglected garden to work on.
not a bad effort for two weeks.
once the barrowed compost runs out – what can you use for soil improvement ?

Wow Horty , a picture in progress. Fantastic :)
Take care wont you..and keep a tube of sunscreen on ya.

Wow Horty, you have a big challenge there!
I’m sure that in time you’ll turn it into a little Paradise. Nice selection of fruit trees!!
Good luck with it :)

looks like you have your work cut out for you there horty, but boy is your landlord going to love you when you’ve finished with it!!! lol!

Keep us updated !!

pepe said:

g’day horty
wonderful topic – a neglected garden to work on.
not a bad effort for two weeks.
once the barrowed compost runs out – what can you use for soil improvement ?

I’ll make more compost as soon as I’ve removed a patch of couch grass to put a heap. At the rate I’m going that will only be a week or two!(just so long as nobody invites me out on the weekends so I can spend it all in the garden, LOL!) Thankfully we are coming into summer so when I do get the compost going it should come along faster than a winter pile. I will try to source some organic soil conditioner or something for the vegie plots

My new flatmate has been helping – moved in on Friday, in the garden by Saturday, LOL, and he didn’t even regret offering! He did vanish after an hour and a half, but then came back out to help for a couple of hours on Sunday.

Thanks all for your comments, it will definitely keep me occupied for a while but you can expect more photos every few weeks or so while there’s something to show.

Horty, I hope the new garden rewards you heaps:D

Awesome!!!

I’d love to come over and visit BUT… you also have to come to pick up the roses bushes! I wouldn’t have the faintest idea about pruning it, and how much of a root ball to dig up. I can bring the dracaenas though, since they’re in pots :)

hortfurball said:

I will try to source some organic soil conditioner or something for the vegie plots

I recommend the Gardener’s Direct website. I’ve met the people behind it lots of times at Great Gardens workshops, and they’re really nice. I’ve never had any problems ordering stuff from them, and everything seems to be really high quality and reasonably priced. Since my car is so tiny, I love having heavy stuff delivered to the door :D

http://www.gardenersdirect.com.au/

bon008 said:

hortfurball said:

I will try to source some organic soil conditioner or something for the vegie plots

I recommend the Gardener’s Direct website. I’ve met the people behind it lots of times at Great Gardens workshops, and they’re really nice. I’ve never had any problems ordering stuff from them, and everything seems to be really high quality and reasonably priced. Since my car is so tiny, I love having heavy stuff delivered to the door :D

http://www.gardenersdirect.com.au/

Cool, thanks Bon.

This weekend’s effort…
I have installed a fence to section off the last third of garden (don’t really fancy dog pee flavoured vegies, LOL!) so now have a ‘production garden’ zone. Have located more path and have eight potting mix bags of couch grass to dispose of. Have got rid of giant pile of couch grass that was in the other photo (in addition to the 8 bags.) Have fixed retic that was whippersnipped by landlord, just need to add some new bits. Have removed most suckers from plumbago hedge at front and reshaped so it’s looking more like a hedge – still have a bit to do.

The tarps over the vegie beds are not successfully smothering the couch so it looks like time to toddle off to City Farmers for some Urea to burn the living daylights out of it.

Piccies soon, I have to run away for now.

thanks for the update Horty, cant wait for the Pictures.

hortfurball said:

This weekend’s effort…
I have installed a fence to section off the last third of garden (don’t really fancy dog pee flavoured vegies, LOL!) so now have a ‘production garden’ zone. Have located more path and have eight potting mix bags of couch grass to dispose of. Have got rid of giant pile of couch grass that was in the other photo (in addition to the 8 bags.) Have fixed retic that was whippersnipped by landlord, just need to add some new bits. Have removed most suckers from plumbago hedge at front and reshaped so it’s looking more like a hedge – still have a bit to do.

Horty, what will you do if the suckers keep coming back? This is the problem I have with my neighbour’s plumbago… I just keep cutting them off, but they come back so darn quickly… Anything else that can be done??

bon008 said:

hortfurball said:

This weekend’s effort…
I have installed a fence to section off the last third of garden (don’t really fancy dog pee flavoured vegies, LOL!) so now have a ‘production garden’ zone. Have located more path and have eight potting mix bags of couch grass to dispose of. Have got rid of giant pile of couch grass that was in the other photo (in addition to the 8 bags.) Have fixed retic that was whippersnipped by landlord, just need to add some new bits. Have removed most suckers from plumbago hedge at front and reshaped so it’s looking more like a hedge – still have a bit to do.

Horty, what will you do if the suckers keep coming back? This is the problem I have with my neighbour’s plumbago… I just keep cutting them off, but they come back so darn quickly… Anything else that can be done??

Not without poisoning the whole plant, no. Mine will come back too, so I’m going to get down and dirty, LOL! I mean dig deep! I reckon if I basically get everything out down to 50 cm or so I’ll have it covered and then just keep on top of it.

hortfurball said:

This weekend’s effort…
I have installed a fence to section off the last third of garden (don’t really fancy dog pee flavoured vegies, LOL!) so now have a ‘production garden’ zone. Have located more path and have eight potting mix bags of couch grass to dispose of. Have got rid of giant pile of couch grass that was in the other photo (in addition to the 8 bags.) Have fixed retic that was whippersnipped by landlord, just need to add some new bits. Have removed most suckers from plumbago hedge at front and reshaped so it’s looking more like a hedge – still have a bit to do.

Couple of months on GA they showed how you use grass to make a nitrogen fertiliser. I think it was basically just keeping it in a bucket of water until it ‘dissolved’. Not sure if it had to be certain type of grass; but would that be an option for your couch?

hortfurball said:

bon008 said:

hortfurball said:

This weekend’s effort…
I have installed a fence to section off the last third of garden (don’t really fancy dog pee flavoured vegies, LOL!) so now have a ‘production garden’ zone. Have located more path and have eight potting mix bags of couch grass to dispose of. Have got rid of giant pile of couch grass that was in the other photo (in addition to the 8 bags.) Have fixed retic that was whippersnipped by landlord, just need to add some new bits. Have removed most suckers from plumbago hedge at front and reshaped so it’s looking more like a hedge – still have a bit to do.

Horty, what will you do if the suckers keep coming back? This is the problem I have with my neighbour’s plumbago… I just keep cutting them off, but they come back so darn quickly… Anything else that can be done??

Not without poisoning the whole plant, no. Mine will come back too, so I’m going to get down and dirty, LOL! I mean dig deep! I reckon if I basically get everything out down to 50 cm or so I’ll have it covered and then just keep on top of it.

Ahh, OK. I think the only thing I could do is drive a barrier down under the fence, but the problem is it would have to be done on the neighbour’s side – too much cactus in the way on my side! Can’t even stick pavers on top of them as there’s a citrus tree in the way =/

SueBk said:

Couple of months on GA they showed how you use grass to make a nitrogen fertiliser. I think it was basically just keeping it in a bucket of water until it ‘dissolved’. Not sure if it had to be certain type of grass; but would that be an option for your couch?

I tried that! boy is it smelly :)

Wouldn’t mind doing it again but I’d need bigger buckets – too many weeds!

bon008 said:

SueBk said:

Couple of months on GA they showed how you use grass to make a nitrogen fertiliser. I think it was basically just keeping it in a bucket of water until it ‘dissolved’. Not sure if it had to be certain type of grass; but would that be an option for your couch?

I tried that! boy is it smelly :)

Wouldn’t mind doing it again but I’d need bigger buckets – too many weeds!

Can’t be as bad as the bucket of B&B in water that I forgot about LOL. I read somewhere you could make a great concentrate fertiliser by missing B&B in water. But I forgot about it. PHEW! It was BBBBAAAAADDDDDD. I ended up throwing it all on the dead patch of garden. I’ve since put my cucubit tub over that area. If the roots of the cucubits hit the bottom they’ll got crazy!

SueBk said:

Couple of months on GA they showed how you use grass to make a nitrogen fertiliser. I think it was basically just keeping it in a bucket of water until it ‘dissolved’. Not sure if it had to be certain type of grass; but would that be an option for your couch?

I also tried this – it was pretty rank. You are apparently supposed to stir it regularly, but mine just alternated between drying out completely so I had to start again, and being a putrid stench-ridden mozzie breeding ground! (I think it is best left to people who don’t have one or more of the following: job, kids, pets, a life)
Transferring pics from camera to puter now.

Ok, if you click view full thread to see the ‘before’ shots for comparison, this is the garden as of yesterday.

The path (couch grass tumbleweed now gone)

the plumbago hedge – looking much more hedge-like. (Please excuse messy pile of prunings)

The new (old) fence. (It is the old fence that used to go around the ‘nursery’ in the other place…brought it with me as I had exactly this in mind) The various bits of lattice/mini fence are just there to remind the dogs at night that there is an invisible fence there that didn’t used to be. Once the garden beds are dug (more couch removal – sigh) and plants put in, I won’t need ‘illuminators’. This pic also shows another bit of path that I have started to free from it’s shallow grave of couch grass.

The gate. The two tall posts either side of the gate are hefty tree stakes that a client didn’t want and I knew would come in useful one day. I will put a beam across the top (or arch – undecided at this point) and grow a climber up either side and across the top. If I go with a straight beam it might help straighten the posts but if I go with an arch I will have more head clearance. In it’s small form, this pic shows exactly WHY I need ‘illuminators’ for my invisible fence, and apparently invisible gate too, LOL! You can see the tarp covered vegie plots in the back, with plant pots on them.

That’s all for now, time to go and eat dinner, which I’ve been cooking in between piccies.

looks lovely and clean.
you are doing the methodical thing of getting the infrastructure and structure in place before planting.
well done horty.