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