| This blog is on cheap landscaping ideas. One | | | | |
| of the main hassles of a garden is not | | | | Prepare the garden, yes this means a huge |
| planting, but weeding. Weeds grow with | | | | effort and weed the whole garden by hand. |
| remarkable speed and can quickly overtake a | | | | Rake over the soil so its nice and smooth and |
| garden. Using a poison or herbicide like | | | | then apply the newspaper. The thicker the |
| roundup is not recommended as you might kill | | | | better. |
| your plants. I know that the manufactors | | | | |
| claim the product breaks down in the soil | | | | Min. six sheets thick. Spread it out and then |
| very quickly but I find with my lawn edges | | | | with a hose wet it all down so it soaked. The |
| after a second dose of roundup no grass is | | | | now heavy paper won't blow around in the wind |
| growing there six months later. | | | | and will mold better to the grounds surface. |
| | | | |
| In moving into a new rental property I had a | | | | Step Two:- |
| large front garden with a nice quickkerb | | | | |
| concrete border to highlight the beautiful | | | | Next spread out the sugar cane mulch. If you |
| weeds. So I began to weed, got sick of it and | | | | cant access cheap sugar cane mulch, try |
| left it for a month. Big mistake, there were | | | | straw, but ensure it has no seeds in it. Make |
| now more weeds than ever. I was going to have | | | | sure all the paper is covered. It doesn't |
| to have mulch it or spend everyday in the | | | | have to be deep, just enough to cover all the |
| garden. With the landlord not interested in | | | | paper. Once again apply water to damp down |
| paying for it it was going to have to come | | | | the mulch. Once watered it takes on a lovely |
| out of my own pocket. Now I don't mine paying | | | | golden colour. |
| for gardening supplies, plants, etc when its | | | | |
| my own place, but I'm certainly not keen on | | | | Step Three:- |
| giving my landlord a free ride. | | | | |
| | | | Now apply the bark. Just grab handfulls and |
| So I needed a cheap mulching option, that | | | | throw it around. You don't want to totally |
| would look good, work, but not cost too much. | | | | cover the yellow mulch, the barks mainly to |
| | | | give colour and to contrase with the mulch. |
| I chose three basic supplies, newspaper -the | | | | |
| local rags free and it doesn't take long to | | | | I have found this to be a very effective |
| build up a stock pile of papers, sugar cane | | | | mulch. A year later and few weeds can get |
| mulch - its comes in a big bags and is cheap, | | | | through. Nutgrass was the only successful one |
| and finally a few bags of bark - not so | | | | and I pulled those out by hand and even the |
| cheap, but as you will see its used to give | | | | nutgrass gave up the fight. The beautiful |
| colour not as a mulch so only a little bit is | | | | browns and golden colour unfortunately fade |
| required. | | | | under the harsh sun, but by that time you |
| | | | should have plenty of flower to make up for |
| Step One:- | | | | it. Best of all - NO WEEDING, yes. |