If you are not in my Backyard
Growers Group you are missing out! Where else
can you buy beautiful Japanese Red Maple Trees for
as little as $1.35 each?
Check this out:
http://www.freeplants.com/growing-japanese-red-maples.htm
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https://mikesbackyardnursery.com/2011/03/growers-board/
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http://freeplants.com/wanted.htm
More winners! 10 more people have been chosen to get
a box of free plants. That’s a total of 20 this
month! See the list below.
Spring Gardening Tips
It’s spring, so the big question is what to do first?
Take a look at your perennials. Do they have a lot of
dead foliage on them still from last year? If so, cut it
or pull it off. Clean up all of last years growth so the
new growth will look clean and fresh.
Get rid of all the weeds in your gardens. Yeah, yeah,
I know, that’s no fun, but if you get all of them out
now you can maintain a weed free garden all season long.
Well, almost weed free. Weed control is an all summer
task, but it shouldn’t be difficult or overwhelming.
Most people fail at weed control because they never get
it completely under control. So here’s what you do.
Start loosening the soil and removing all the existing
weeds. Then put down newspaper at least 8 pages thick
and cover that with about 2″ of mulch. You can also
use brown paper grocery bags, they work great!
I don’t like those weed barrier fabrics that you can
buy in the garden stores because . . . when I was in
the landscaping business I pulled out miles of that
stuff. Why did we pull it out? Because it was a
horrendous mess with weeds growing up through it!
You couldn’t pull the weeds because they were all
tangled up in the so called weed barrier material.
That’s why I like newspaper or paper bags. They go
away! And that’s really important in your gardens.
Don’t put things in there that won’t go away.
Newspaper and mulch are biodegradable.
What about all the magic weed control potients that you
can buy? Do they work? Yes they do. But most people
don’t use them properly so they get really poor
results. Products like Preen and other pre-emergent
weed control products are just that, pre-emergent.
That means they only control weed seeds. Controlling
weed seeds is important, but if you don’t have all of
the existing weeds and weed roots under control first
your pre-emergent weed control is doomed from the start.
So you have to completely clear out all of the existing
weeds from your gardens then apply the pre-emergent
weed control formulas. I still recommend the newspaper
because the pre-emergent weed controls will not control
weeds that come from roots left in the ground. The only
way to control the weed roots from growing is to starve
them of sunlight and you do that with newspaper and mulch.
If they can’t get sunlight they cannot grow.
Okay, the lucky winners! These folks are all getting a
box of free plants:
Donna W.
Hamilton, Ohio
Jim P.
Apopka, Florida
Scarlette H.
Providence Forge, Virgina
Penny W.
Beaver Dams, NY
Alphonso P.
Pocola, OK 74902
Richard L.
Salina, KS
Larry M.
Jane Lew, WV
Joel S.
Shoshoni, WY
Margie S.
Brookeland, TX
Sharon M.
Dover, Ohio
Do me a favor and send this newsletter
to at least three of your gardening friends and tell them
why you like or why you don’t like me. Okey dokey?
Take care, have a great day and by all means stay inspired!
-Mike McGroarty
I had bad problems with Bermuda grass in my veggie garden……so that fall after the garden been frosted on several xs…….I gathered leaves……put all my yard leaves on garden spot……wet them down so they wont blow..also added manure and left over hay too..(I had domestic rabbits at that time)……I wanted my leaves at least 4 to 5 feet deep…..so I went and got leaves on the curb left for trash……I ask everytime and no one turned me down………the earthworms worked the soil all winter…….u will have rich black soil in the spring…….it looked like dark potting soil!!!! no weeds no grass……I might have pulled a few springs of grass for the whole growing season……jennifer
Great advice! Thank you.
mike, i need to ask a question. how come my sweet shubbery doesnt smell?
Terry, I really don’t know because I’m not sure what sweet shubbery is. Could be a viburnum, but only a few viburnums are fragrant. Most are not.
Mike:
If you use newspapers and/or paper bags do you have to dig everything up and put down new papers/bags every year?? We have so many flower beds where I’m living now that I just don’t have enough time to devote that much time to them every year.
What I was planning to do is dig up and remove all weeds (almost done, and it’s been going on 2 months now! yikes), rearrange all the plants (trust me, there is NO rhyme or reason to how they’re planted right now), then put down a heavy duty weed fabric and mulch over the fabric.
Is this not a good plan?? 🙁 🙁
Shelley, this is my opinion and only my opinion, but it’s based on years and years of real world experience in this field. Weed barrier fabric was invented by the devil to drive me insane!!! Seriously, I really, really do not like this stuff. I’ve never seen it work as intended. Just today I was mowing grass around the old house at my nursery. Before I bought the place somebody put down black plastic and lots of weed barrier. Of course now it’s completely covered with weeds and grass and the ragged edges are sticking up everywhere. I’ll probably write about this soon. When I was landscaping I pulled out miles of this stuff because not one time did it ever work as intended.
Remove all the weeds, use brown paper bags, mulch, then stay on top of the weeds. You don’t need to move any plants. Just go around them. The bags won’t work for long, but they won’t haunt you like weed fabric.
Mike,
I like your weed control tips and the bean recipe. If I might add, we control weeds in our vegetable garden in a similar way. We put down newspaper several pages thick and cover with grass clippings. You may have to additional grass at some point, but you will not have any weeds the whole grwoing season. When the garden is done producing, simply till everything back into the soil. My Italian grandfather taught us this back when I was a child. We liked it becasue it took us one day to do, and then we never had to weed the garden all summer!
Mr.Mtke.can I use news papers in the Tulip, Iris bed?
Will they come up though the paper in the spring?
Thank you Mary
Mary,
I’m sure you can. By spring they’ll be wet enough the bulbs will push right through.