ᐅ Natural-style garden with hedge instead of fence (boundary hedge instead of fence)
Created on: 14 Apr 2019 17:52
M
Müllerin
I still owe you some garden photos...
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, we’re getting an “eco garden.”
After the excavation spoil from both halves of the house, which was just lying around here, was finally removed in September, nothing happened for a while.
At the end of March, it looked like this
Then I planted the hedge (with the gardeners).
On the outside there is a lot of hawthorn, then 2 holly bushes (we’ll see if they don’t dry out too much in summer), 2 firethorns, a witch hazel, a butterfly bush, 2 copper mountain ashes, spireas, a viburnum, and a mock orange. Up front, separately, a maple.
Eventually, there will be a rose arch with a gate at the end of the path.
The lawn is growing rather slowly; it’s just too cold right now.
In the raised bed there are herbs and a few flowers, and in the mulched bed only blue/white/pink flowers will bloom. A privet hedge will be planted along the border this week. Luckily, I was able to convince our neighbors not to go for anything like thuja or cherry laurel or anything similarly horrible. (Actually, it was pretty simple: I would have refused to plant that stuff in our garden. That would have meant installing a fence, and they would have had to pay for the hedge themselves.)
If you don’t prune privet to a blocky shape, it flowers beautifully.
Here’s a lilac; over Easter, vegetables will go into the raised bed, and on the right side towards the neighbors there will be a large bed in orange/yellow/red.
Yes.
Eventually, there will be an apple tree, once we find a tasty variety that the child isn’t allergic to.
I’d also like to add some kind of water feature, but we’ll see how that works without a fence with so many children around. Probably not at all.
We’ll see how it all turns out, but a gardener needs patience.
And here we’ll have the only nature-friendly garden; all around us there are golf-course lawns, gabions, dull uniform beech hedges, and hardly any flower beds.
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, we’re getting an “eco garden.”
After the excavation spoil from both halves of the house, which was just lying around here, was finally removed in September, nothing happened for a while.
At the end of March, it looked like this
Then I planted the hedge (with the gardeners).
On the outside there is a lot of hawthorn, then 2 holly bushes (we’ll see if they don’t dry out too much in summer), 2 firethorns, a witch hazel, a butterfly bush, 2 copper mountain ashes, spireas, a viburnum, and a mock orange. Up front, separately, a maple.
Eventually, there will be a rose arch with a gate at the end of the path.
The lawn is growing rather slowly; it’s just too cold right now.
In the raised bed there are herbs and a few flowers, and in the mulched bed only blue/white/pink flowers will bloom. A privet hedge will be planted along the border this week. Luckily, I was able to convince our neighbors not to go for anything like thuja or cherry laurel or anything similarly horrible. (Actually, it was pretty simple: I would have refused to plant that stuff in our garden. That would have meant installing a fence, and they would have had to pay for the hedge themselves.)
If you don’t prune privet to a blocky shape, it flowers beautifully.
Here’s a lilac; over Easter, vegetables will go into the raised bed, and on the right side towards the neighbors there will be a large bed in orange/yellow/red.
Yes.
Eventually, there will be an apple tree, once we find a tasty variety that the child isn’t allergic to.
I’d also like to add some kind of water feature, but we’ll see how that works without a fence with so many children around. Probably not at all.
We’ll see how it all turns out, but a gardener needs patience.
And here we’ll have the only nature-friendly garden; all around us there are golf-course lawns, gabions, dull uniform beech hedges, and hardly any flower beds.
Müllerin schrieb:
I love our meadow. Every single time I look at it...
I love your meadow too. How long did it take to look like that?I started my poor-quality meadow this year. I scattered some seeds, but I’m afraid other "weeds" have already taken complete control. I tend to just let it grow wild. So far, it looks like a field of thistles, surrounded by bindweed, buttercups, chickweed, shepherd’s purse, and other similarly unwanted plants.
In the end, I don’t really mind what grows there, as long as insects can hide in it and the plants grow tall enough to cover three ugly manhole covers on our cisterns. So far, the thistles are doing their best. I’m curious to see what the goldfinches will think about it in autumn.
Question: This year, we have a severe infestation of viburnum leaf beetles on our snowball bushes. The plants have been completely defoliated.
I’m not particularly attached to this variety and don’t see much point in undertaking major control measures. I definitely don’t want to use pesticides in the garden. Is it just bad luck for the snowball, or will the beetles come back next year? Do the beetles remain permanently? In that case, I might just remove the plants altogether.
I’m not particularly attached to this variety and don’t see much point in undertaking major control measures. I definitely don’t want to use pesticides in the garden. Is it just bad luck for the snowball, or will the beetles come back next year? Do the beetles remain permanently? In that case, I might just remove the plants altogether.
I have no idea how well the snowball bush will tolerate being so heavily browsed – I would wait to see if it recovers, and if not, you can still replace it.
The meadow is in its second year. Last year, it was mostly goosefoot because I mowed too late. Only at the edges were some field flax, poppy, and cornflower growing sporadically.
And then this year, this explosion of blossoms, which I definitely didn't expect.
The meadow is in its second year. Last year, it was mostly goosefoot because I mowed too late. Only at the edges were some field flax, poppy, and cornflower growing sporadically.
And then this year, this explosion of blossoms, which I definitely didn't expect.
Müllerin schrieb:
I mowed too late. When would D.E. have been the right time? Everyone seems to say something different. Do you use a scythe?
kaho674 schrieb:
When would D.E. have been the right time? Everyone seems to say something different. Do you use a scythe?I regularly mow some paths with the electric lawn mower to be able to water the hedge and flower beds – and to have observation paths, of course.
I use the scythe for the rest, yes. On the one hand, the mower eventually can’t get through, and on the other hand, there is so much life in the meadow that I wouldn’t want to shred it all with a mower.
At this time, there are two good options, and I follow the recommendations from Rieger Hoffmann. If you look on their website under "Knowledge – Mowing time."
What was the problem for us: it was a new sowing on some topsoil. Apparently, the seeds of common goosefoot were already present. Common goosefoot is really tough – so I had a nice monoculture. And I should have mowed that completely once it was about 20cm (8 inches) high. Then I probably would have had many more flowers last year.
HausiKlausi24 May 2020 23:50Müllerin schrieb:
The meadow is in its second year. Last year we mostly had knotgrass because I mowed too late. Only along the edges were some occasional linseed, poppy, and cornflowers.
And then this year there was this explosion of blossoms, which I didn’t expect. Could you briefly explain how you approached this? Was it a seed mix, or did you just wait to see what would grow? We’ve been trying this on a small area for a while, with less impressive results...