First time homeowner, and I’m overwhelmed with landscaping. I’m trying to clean off the garden (weedwacking and pulling roots out). But now that it’s somewhat clean (last picture) and ready for plants, I really don’t understand how to keep the area somewhat free of weeds once I put plants in. I’m still going clean off a few areas on the side and on top of the boulder.
Any tips? I’m also accepting tips on what kind of plants I should add in there!
by yyyllluan
11 Comments
Maintenance
Pull/remove unwanted weeds/plants and leaves etc on a regular basis
I’d go with Powerfrac 70 and blast mats. Look at all that space you’ll have.
Asian bush honeysuckle is a nasty invasive plant
Regular and frequent maintenance. Owning is a hobby.
Those hostas are perfect! They’ll be very pretty there! You can break apart the clumps and spread them out. They’ll fill in quickly!
You can cut back the brush put some flowers and some mulch etc
Handweeding
If it were me I would plant some groundcovers to compete with the weeds and cascade over the side of the wall. Lonicera reticula “Kintzley’s Ghost” is a North American native honeysuckle that has foliage reminiscent of eucalyptus. I can’t tell if that spot gets enough sun but other options would be groundcover juniper, creeping thyme, creeping phlox, candytuft, rock cress, rock soapwort, etc. I don’t know where you are, what your hardiness zone is or how much sun the site gets so I just gave some examples of good ground covers that look nice cascading over a wall. The ground cover juniper would be my top choice. Its dense growing habit literally shades out the weeds preventing them from seeding and it looks amazing growing off the side of rock. It needs full sun(at least 6-8 hours). There are many different kinds but ‘blue rug’ is one of the most popular for on rock walls. There are also golden cultivars too. I highly recommend looking into it. And it’s evergreen!
Do the cardboard weed-smothering thing. If you keep pulling weeds you’ll disturb the soil and weed seeds will activate. Put compost on top of cardboard and then plant native plants which won’t require a lot of tending. Fill the spaces and then weeds have trouble competing.
it needs on going care. There is no permanent cure or fix in nature.