Over time, I’ve noticed that certain activities and areas seem to be more work than others. And sometimes I never manage to tame things. I’ve had a 1/2 acre yard since 2010 and have been learning the hard way ever since.
I’ve also been taking care of the landscaping at our rental properties, so that has given me even more chances to learn, as well as a bit more pressure to keep things tidy. And generally, I have found it much easier to keep the rentals at least relatively neat, compared to at home. So part of the following list came from thinking about what I’d been doing differently.
1.) Anything you can mow, do it. And set things up so that you can mow as much as possible.
- As nice an idea as a low raised bed (I’ve tried both logs or stones, as they are free…), it make it much harder to keep the weeds under control.
- I’m not thrilled with them, but at least taller raised beds (maybe 2-3 layers of cement blocks) have a purpose (less bending) and are harder for weeds to grow in the edge, leaving a straight line to edge.
- Mowing is by far the fastest way to cover large areas and is less loud/messy/work than weed whacking.
- Anytime you are getting an area ready to mow or even think you may start mowing it in the future, remove rocks WHEN you see them. It’s a lot easier to remove the rocks during the winter, than once the weeds have grown up to cover them in the spring.
2.) Anything you can’t mow, weed whack.
- But try to do it BEFORE the weeds go to seed (I’m still working on this…). It’s especially important if the weed is an invasive like bindweed or Japanese knotweed (I break out the herbicide for that…).
- Good eye and ear protection is important here.
- The 40V/56V trimmers are OK from a power standpoint, but the earlier low voltage ones were under powered and a pain.
3.) Last resort is mulching to keep weeds down.
- You’ll need to add more mulch in the future, something which I don’t do regularly and thus forget until well after the area is choked with weeds.
- The one type of mulching which seems to work pretty well for me is when I blow leaves to a fence. A 3’ wide, 1-2 foot tall pile of leaves seems to last until next fall, when I can do it again (hard to forget when I need to get them off the lawn…).
- Often, I get some weeds anyway, which means hand weeding, the most time-intensive and unpleasant way to remove weeds.
- Avoid using rocks, especially the big ones you get from digging, as weeds/grass like to grow from all the gaps. Even worse, removing them is a lot of work due to their weight.
- My mulch of choice around trees is leaf mulch/mold. It looks like black dirt, so it is relatively decorative and doesn’t damage the mower when you run it over (unlike wood chips).
- If you are going to mulch a bigger area, at least make sure to put down a layer of cardboard or landscaping fabric. And if you put down cardboard, make sure to hold it in place with something like wood chips or leaf mold, not rocks, as they will be work later to move. It also looks better and sometimes wet cardboard will break and later fly around if only rocks hold it down.
4.) When pruning overgrown bush/vine start from the center/base.
- In the past, I often would approach from the outside, trying to gradually reduce the size, making a ton of painful decisions. It was a lot of work, both physically and mentally. And I would generally end up with too much plant still left.
- The solution is to look at it for a minute, then decide on a few cuts which will remove a large amount to the plant, yet still leave enough to work with.
- For example, I had a massive hardy kiwi that I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to reduce in size for years. It had maybe 10 vines coming from the ground, several very large (3"+). I cut everything except 1 large and 2-3 small vines, then followed the cut ones outwards, removing them.
- Once you’ve cut it off at the bottom, there isn’t any more agonizing about “should I cut this? here?”. The decision is made and you are just getting rid of the dead wood.
- Same thing can be applied to trees- remove the big stuff first.
- It’s also physically much easier to make 3 chainsaw cuts, than to make 30 smaller cuts.
5.) Whatever spacing you have, it would probably help to be wider
- I wanted (and still want) to grow everything, even though I have limited space. So, I started out with the tightest spacing that I read about (2-3’ for small stuff and 5’ for trees, with 10-12’ between rows).
- I think it can do OK, but is a lot more work. If I didn’t have the rentals, I may not have had a chance to experiment so much with the spacing. But once I had some that were spaced 8-10’ apart (and without raised beds and edging), I noticed that it got a LOT easier.
- Now, for new plantings, I do 10-12’ spacing for trees and 4-5’ for smaller bushes like black currants.
- I’ve even gotten to the point of moving some large trees to leave 2 trees at 10’, rather than 3 trees at 5’.
- For vines, especially vigorous ones like Kiwi and grape, make sure you have a good trellis and leave a LOT of space on ALL sides. My first kiwi planting had currants, gooseberries, retaining walls, etc on all sides, which made it a nightmare to prune. And there is (or rather needs to be) a lot of pruning for hardy kiwi.
- Spacing things better also helps with spraying and general disease pressure. I’ve also started getting more draconian about keeping things short. I don’t want to have to climb a ladder to thin, spray, or pick. Maybe a step-stool, but not more than that…
