I get asked the most
The reason I post this, is because I get asked a fair few Gardening related questions, and a lot of them; I get asked a lot.
I get asked about a lot of other things also, usually about my dog next.
As this is the Work Website and Blog I’ll keep it to Gardening and what SOTG does.
Time of Year: Early Spring/End of March 2019.
The main jobs I do for clients currently; and what SOTG currently spends most of its time doing at this time of year is…
- Jet Washing and cleaning paths, paving, patio and other Utility surfaces that need a clean and rinse.
- Combined with, followed or prior; weeding and beds and border clearing and preparation.
When The walkways and pathway are clean and clear, they are safer and easier to see, use and follow.
They also look better and lead you to where the Garden Space actually is or the Journey to view the Garden Space leads.
Clean and safer though. For you, your visitors and also me.
The change is near instant to see, though takes time over distance and volume of muck or years of allowing it to sit and grow.
(Till it becomes a dense thick carpet of growth and takes a slower cleaning process to remove the most of it when using the Chemical free cleaning option.)
What does that have to do with being one of the questions I get asked most as a Gardener?
Simples…
You’ve had your path and beds or borders initially tended and cleaned, the weeding process has been started and either a return visit booked to remove regrowth or further treat areas for more than annual weeds that can be culled quickly if it’s a light weed problem. The cleaning worked and the path looks like a path and the beds or borders look brown or brownish.
“What do I do next?”
Is the question I get asked the most.
In my head the reply is usually…
“Whatever your heart’s desire is, the Garden will love you for it and you will love it; so do it I dare you!”
Then I want to say fill it with light, water, colour, sound, grass, flowers, trees, shrubs, bulbs and anything else you love or want.
It is YOUR Garden Space, enjoy it, but use it, please. (:
The only limit is your imagination, so go and have a riot and enjoy the near blank canvas you have to work with!
My actual reply often is :
What flowers or colours do you like?
This usually then gets to the part where I get asked…
“What do I do to keep it like this but with nice colours I want instead?
I firmly believe, if you spend 20 minutes to half an hour in your clean Garden space now it’s had an initial tending, with a cup of coffee or tea.
Look at it, all sparkly and still wet.
There is a bit of mud or some mucky water pools where it’s gathered still.
Yet how much muck has come off, and how long had it been there?
You can still hear little drops of water where there was “stuff” or a “pile or something or other” that looked either half dead or a mutant weed that wanted feeding.
Drink your drink, have a smile about it, take a picture, the future of that is now yours.
To keep it like that, or how it will slowly improve for a week or so as drainage clears water collection pools or areas & when some natural rain has further washed away or settles the residue of sediment and silt particles in the path or other crevices. This is normal after foliage and mud is cleaned and cleared away. The removal of the weeds leaves blanks where you are used to seeing something and the spaces the weed removal leaves will eventually be filled with sand and silt or particles and dirt. Treating with a thick layer of sand or having the paving refilled to replace the years of erosion and weed root growing spaces and places.
Then:
A further 20 to thirty minutes per week and have a brew or a cold drink and do the same.
Look at it.
Think about it.
Plan for it.
Summer is coming, can you use it, sure you can!
While thinking about that or however you can use it, spot anything growing you know shouldn’t be?
Pull anything that is growing up while it is young and not as thorny or mature as it was a week or so ago!
It’s roots and anchor mud and mire has mostly been cleaned away; it should come out easier now than ever before.
It’s good therapy clearing them away and knowing they have had it all their own way for so long.
So get them, grab them all and throw them in the bin once you’ve got as many as you can in that visit to your little space.
That is how you keep it.
You are clever people though, you know that is how it works.
Enjoy it; while you do.
It is key.
It’s good to be outside and have a reason to work through a small space you enjoy having and give it a little of your time and thought while you clear your mind and enjoy your own little space and place.
It’s still “You time”.
It’s actually just on the “Right Side” of being a lil bit selfish. 😉
I won’t tell if you don’t tell though, ok? =]
Speaking of which…
You can Google this to check the truth of it.
If you want to make sure those pesky weeds don’t come back. Or have a hard a time as possible to return without having to resort to harmful and Toxic chemicals.
A natural Weed killer = Morning Urine.
I’m not advocating you go out and pee on your path, but harvested fresh Morning Urine and used as a pesticide to hamper weeds = Good.
To keep weed free takes time, effort and some bending down and elbow grease, little and often or for a long time to regain the ground the weeds grab so fast if allowed.
I advise little and often while you enjoy or retreat and utilise your Garden Space while it is at a stage you can keep on top of it.
What then?
“When?”
Then?
“Then when?”
What?
“What what? What when, Then then?”
Then when I’ve done the bit above?
Buy something for your garden, a plant or pot, an ornament or a bird table. Something nature can claim and change over time and season, wind and rain. Something you like though and the garden will start to become yours.
Then add something else, plant something, grow something.
Watch.
Listen.
See nature come and visit.
Birds, bees, Insects.
Night wildlife.
You will know what grows back initially is mostly weeds because you didn’t plant them, after that you will remember what the weeds looked like when those that could creep back, did so. Anything after that, you planted or put in the garden so you should know it’s one of “Your plants” and not a weed or an invader.
Protect and care for what you planted or grows and you do like.
Then you have a garden of your own.
All the best,
- Simon – www. Shadow of the Gardener . uk
- Creator, Owner & Operator.
- Lead Gardener.
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