Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 21Mar 29, 2013 5:08 pm Some of the other hardware store are now starting to sell zeolite for gardens. saw a tiny bag in my local "home hardware" store a month or so back. Ridiculous cost of course but it's gradually getting recognition at least. If you can find it in your Bunnings its lots cheaper than clark rubber. Bought 2 bags last month from bunnings. Could have bought almost 3 bags for the price of the 2 I bought in clark rubber in January. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 22Apr 01, 2013 11:25 am The Spa and Pool products place I went to didn't have Zeolite - the guy who runs the place said he used to stock it but not anymore. However he said he could order it @ 33 dollars for a 15kg bag So next stop Clark rubber, and they sell 15kg bags for around 27 dollars. I bought one bag, and started digging the area alongside the new path I've built to the front door as I want to start planting some Alyssum there. It is hard work trying to dig through 30 cm I must confess that at certain points I was just digging and mixing the zeolite into the top 10 cm only But Alyssum all planted and watered over the long weekend, can't wait to see the seedlings come through. This is the first thing I have EVER PLANTED from seed myself Got some quotes on bulk pine bark from some local landscaping places as well. I can already see some new weeds coming up and I have sprayed Round up on them with a vengeance Still waiting on my friend to organise his weekend schedule so that he can help me with the rest of the front yard. I need some man muscle Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 23Apr 01, 2013 11:42 am What a run around. Glad you finally found some. A shame the local bunnings didnt have any as it is so much cheaper than clark rubber. It was in the pool section at the bunnings I tried. I did have to ask someone to point it out though as I couldn't find it for looking.. Some of the hydroponic places would sell it to if you have an aquaponics place near you. Worth making some calls. I'd be tempted to ring a local bunnings and ask them to look it up on their screen for you. Seems odd that they didn't have any. When I went to my local bunnings about 2 years back I was told the same thing but when I checked recently they had it. I think I got someone too unknowledgeable/slack to know any better the first time. Plus I didn't know exactly what name to use. This time I asked for Zeochlor and the person actually responded with, "The zeolite is over there." Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 24Apr 04, 2013 4:15 pm Yeah it has been a run around, but glad I managed to get some! This saturday we plan on tackling one more section of the front-yard, which is the area right in front of the house turning left to the gas\electricity meters and then on to the timber gate. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Uploaded with ImageShack.us Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Uploaded with ImageShack.us I want to build a path using the existing white pebbles but lay some concrete pavers as well. Given that the reason I am doing all this is to reduce my weekly weeding effort, I want to be able to re-lay the pebbles to a depth of around 8 to 10 cm (and thereby avoid putting down weed mats). I will have to dig and remove some soil and remove the existing flax grass. The pavers however are around 40mm or 4 cm high. What should I lay under the pavers to about 6 cm high so that at the end of the job the pebbles and pavers are level? I was thinking of laying thick sheets of news paper under the pavers alone. Does that sound allright? Although when the newspaper breakdowns eventually I guess I will have to put some more down.. Or should I forget the stack of newspapers and the 10 cm of pebbles and just lay some weedmat? That area is for not plants, just for a path. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 25Apr 18, 2013 9:11 pm You'll need to mix up a basic mortar mix in a barrow and sit the pavers on that so they don't move. If you use newspaper, news is that they will become unstable in time to come. It amazes me how so many fall prey to the "low maintenance" style garden which they discover to be very high maintenance. I reckon I spend about an hour a year on my garden. It's the best in the street. It is not what new homeowners call "low maintenance" style. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 26Apr 25, 2013 12:47 pm Thanks again we did lay some pavers that weekend, and so far so good. I have been visiting local nursery and soil\mulch places, and one of them had a mulch called 'graded bark'. The girl at the counter couldn't tell me if is was Pine bark or not. Does anyone know if graded bark is the same as pine bark?? Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 27May 06, 2013 2:21 pm another update....
By the last weekend, I've managed to remove all the while pebbles, complete the 2nd path that along the house (behind the yucca), remove the artificial turf, lay down sheets of newspapers and top it up with 5 cubic metres of pine bark mulch. Have also planted a couple of grevilleas and an eremophila. Plenty of zeolite and compost mixed through while planting those Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The boulders\rocks have just been plonked on top for the mulch for now as I ran out of energy but next weekend, I'll dig through the mulch and some of the soil to place the rocks within them so that it looks more "natural" I also have a LOT more planting to do, which I will do in spring. Unless there are natives that can be planted in late Autumn\Winter that any of you know of and recommend Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 29May 06, 2013 10:30 pm If you plant them now they might not grow much but they can settle in and will get watered over autumn and winter and when spring comes along they should start growing quickly. On the weekend I planted 7 eremophilas and a few hakea tube stock. The weekend before I transplanted a pot of a leaf plant that's a bulb and replaced the pot with cannas I got from my MIL. I had too many for the pot so some have ended up in the ground next to the transplanted bulbs. 1 week before that I planted some nandinias( 7) 2 diosma's and several grevilleas. I'll be planting more eremophilas and some other natives this coming weekend.(3 x calistemon little johns and 4 x others and a <not native> hibiscus) Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 30May 15, 2013 2:34 pm kexkez If you plant them now they might not grow much but they can settle in and will get watered over autumn and winter and when spring comes along they should start growing quickly. On the weekend I planted 7 eremophilas and a few hakea tube stock. The weekend before I transplanted a pot of a leaf plant that's a bulb and replaced the pot with cannas I got from my MIL. I had too many for the pot so some have ended up in the ground next to the transplanted bulbs. 1 week before that I planted some nandinias( 7) 2 diosma's and several grevilleas. I'll be planting more eremophilas and some other natives this coming weekend.(3 x calistemon little johns and 4 x others and a <not native> hibiscus) Your plant list sounds impressive Kexkez. For those with weed problems like mine - the newspapers and bark mulch have improved the weed situation already. In the past 2 weeks I haven't seen any new weeds on the bark mulched area and also on the pebbled area (I added more pebbles on top than before). Which is an improvement from my previous weekly weeding exercise!! I will revisit this post in spring with some more progress photos. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 31May 16, 2013 8:48 am arghh weeds. I try not to see them as I have so many. Sounds like you are making good head way at your place sumsub. I mentioned the plantings because you seemed concerned about planting at this time of the year. Plenty of planting going on at my place and will be for a few years yet as I'm on 3/4 of am acre. Sometimes its a case of crowbar though to get a hole big enough for tubestock ( the hakeas) at our place. Or if I'm lucky it might be an area where we've brought in soil. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 32May 16, 2013 10:08 am wow! 3/4 of an acre. I took a look at your forum thread on your yard, and a lot of work done there! Very impressive With planting new plants now, as I am in Melbourne, not sure if it is advisable to plant in late autumn\winter or not. I am away this weekend so won't be able to plant anything (if I decide to) until the weekend after. I noticed you are in west australia so perhaps given the climate, it is different there. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 33May 18, 2013 2:02 pm the use of newspaper just doesn't sit well with me. It will channel water along the surface under the mulch away from the root zone. Not a method I'd advise to do. Not saying things wont work, just that they become far less efficient and retards successes perceived. On another note the garden looks a 100 times better without the pebbles everywhere. A great example of how a front yard can be landscaped with out needing any lawn. lawn is a landscaping addiction. we even have a methadone lawn called plastic grass to help wean us off it. That is a landscape that I hope leads others in the area to follow suit. Well done Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 34May 18, 2013 2:04 pm Oh, don't be shy on taking the concept further by using up the verge area with low plantings and ground covers. Re: Re-doing frontyard to combat weeds - feedback please! 35Oct 19, 2013 11:03 am Thought I'd just revisit this post and put in an update on how things are progressing on the weed front, which was my original problem. And it's been great! I've pulled out a few weeds by hand now and again in the mulched area, but it is not the fortnightly massive exercise it used to be. The pebbled area also doesn't get too many weeds any more, possibly because I put a thicker layer during the makeover. The plants that were planted in May are coming along nicely especially the silver centuria fountain which has just exploded! I've planted some more plants today on the right hand side of the yard. I've got a couple of Nandina nana's, felicia amelloides, Correa alba, Agapanthus and an eremophila kalbarri. The nature strip still gets weeds though and looks really shabby at times. I am considering lawn there. Can't do mass plantings n my nature strip as we don't have a pedestrian walkway so council rules are either lawn or gravel. Anyway for people looking for weed solutions - mulch and plantings did it for me. I don't like to spend too much time in the garden so getting hardy and easy to grow plants is key. Just have to water them initially after planting, prune them if they get too unwieldy, water also on really hot days..and thats it! I got some fertiliser for native plants but haven't applied any yet, the plants seem to be doing well without it so far..I think! Thanks so much to all the forum regulars who contributed with sugesstions 3 6555 The DIY project can be broken into two major steps. Planning and Design and Construction. Both of these steps are as important as one another to ensure you give… 0 5149 |