The “Russel’s mix” is commonly sold in seed packets here I think if I’m not mistaken thats the name. The plants I had bought were so long ago I couldn’t tell you what variety. @daniel.crespo the seedlings usually germinate but die (likely from not enough water) after a couple of months of stagnant growth. Maybe I’ll try again haha
they prefer gravely soil here but ive seen them on sloped clay do well also.
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i tried planting the russels mix and they died out. they don’t compete with grass like the wild types do. remind me in early july and ill send you some seed. i literally sprinkled seed over my grass covered ditch and they came right up through it with 0 care. maybe try starting them in the fall. by the following spring you will have mature plants that should handle the heat better.
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Sounds awesome I’ll try to remember
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dollar weed is the absolute worst weed in my yard. i’m so tired of constantly pulling out dollar weed, grass and other weeds that grow in the mulch around my fruit trees. i’m giving the cardboard a try even though i couldn’t get all the tape and glue off some of them (i just have to get past my OCD). i cut them into manageable sizes, soaked them in water, and laid them around 3 of my trees in a circle, overlapping them and then i dumped mulch on top and watered them. hope it works.
another tree, a dwarf loquat, i decided to plant tigridia pavonia flower bulbs around the drip line. i know it won’t deter the dollar weed but just wanted something different. will see how they do, hope it will look nice. i just worry squirrels might dig them up and eat them.
i have always liked the look of banana plants surrounded by canna and elephant ears but i can’t do that with my bananas since i am constantly adding fertilizer, compost, mulch as well as removing pups.
I’ve been debating cardboard versus weed barrier and am leaning toward weed barrier. I’ve tried cardboard in some areas. After a while it starts to buckle and wrinkle and looks bad. I think I’ll stick with weed barrier. I can pull up the weed barrier periodically to add organic matter underneath.
I have comfrey under my apples in northern Florida: it holds up to dry spells pretty well, main problem is that deer graze it
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You probably don’t have a lot of arborists cutting trees in your region, but things grow very rambunctiously here, and trees sprout if you turn your back for a second. Maples, oaks, ash…just about any tree you can imagine. I bought an “Extractigator” to be able to get the tap roots out, because if they get to be a foot high before noticed, I can’t pull them out. There are numerous people who are the business of tree cutting and chipping because things are so exuberant. If one is in my neighborhood, I’ll stop and ask if the owners want the chips; if not, I’ll ask if I could have them…usually, they are thrilled that they have only a few houses to travel and drop them off. Those are free and all parties are happy!
I find that cardboard below and then the chips on top (about a foot deep) are enough to prevent rugged plants from growing through. I then will often surround the chips with hosta, for ease of mowing. (I do dig out the grass in foot squares in order to plant it and give it a good start so that grass stays out. This year, I did one of my peach trees (along with other places) and I had enough cardboard saved to be able to bring the area out to the drip line of the branches. It was a pleasure to mow and not have to duck and contort myself to get the job done. I detest weed whacking, and will go to pretty extreme measures to avoid it. Around that one tree, I planted forty divisions of hosta. It’s arduous work, but it’s once and done!
I lined the edges of numerous gardens with hosta this spring…hundreds of feet. (I have been doing this for years and probably have many thousands of feet done.) I now have to move many cartfuls of chips to replenish the ones that were there. My hope is that, eventually, the hazelnuts, goumis, mulberries, etc. will fill in enough that I won’t have to worry too much about the chips. 90% or more of my gardens are now lined with hosta, and it works as a wonderful barrier between the garden and the lawn areas. It’s a lot of up-front work, but then it’s done for the rest of time! I find that the hosta root becomes a solid block, and when I’m separating plants, I use a hacksaw to cut through it. One clump can be divided into at least eight new plants within a few years.
I even will plant bulbs like daffodils nearby,(they need to be divided pretty often) because the leaves of the hosta will cover the unsightly leaves after they’re done blooming. The solid block of root usually goes to a depth of about ten inches, so that easily prevents most plants from penetrating from beneath. I like doing this because it always looks tidy and after it’s done, it doesn’t require any maintenance. Out front, I do chop off the flower stalks when they start going every which way, but out back, I don’t bother. Another perk is that humming birds love the flowers and bumble bees do too; they’ll climb in and sleep within the flowers come dusk…pretty cute!
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lupines can grow to near 5 foot tall. And probably would be problematic for trunk air flow. Addtionally lupines seem like they great cover for borers and other destructive insects. What your throughts about dutch clover? Growing 4 to 8 inches high seems ideal.
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The lupines I plan to plant will only get to 2 feet supposedly, but this does vary by species. I’ve also never grown it before but I don’t think prairie moon would be off by that much!
I did not look much into if it is also a host to other insects that would damage my plants BUT chopping it would still allow it to serve a nitrogen purpose too
I’m a fan of all kinds of clover. It’s not native but it does produce a lot of nitrogen if you chop it. Its a c tier pollinator too https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhxlGEltPGI&pp=ygUlSW5hdmFkaWNlIHdpbGQgZmxvd2VyIHRpZXJsaXN0IG5vIGtvd9IHCQnYAKO1ajebQw%3D%3D
Id pick clover over a lot of other plants
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Is that you in the video?
I have common blue violet growing all over the place here. I enjoy it very much, it’s one of the first ground covers to bloom in early spring. Plus it’s a very well behaved ground cover. I knew it was a violet, but now I know a lot more about it.
Thanks for the reply
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The flower stalk shoots up a few feet above the leaves. So you do end up with a 2 foot lupine with a 5 foot bloom. I’ve never seen one max out at 2 feet while blooming—maybe 3 1/2.
In any case, I doubt they’d cause an airflow problem unless they were within 3 or 4 inches of the trunk. Lupines need so much water, though, I don’t think they’d survive under a fruit tree.
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I’ve finally got violets coming up this year under and I’m glad. I have yarrow and clover too here and there now