Where's all the water from that downspout on the corner go? Is there a way you could attach a roll-up downspout diverter and lay it across the dry area? Lowe's and Home Depot should sell them near the gutters.

Oh! What a GRAND idea!! That's so easy. Thank you!!!!

Tolja I wasn't a gardener. (blush)

One question... would that be too much/bad for the house foundation possibly? It rains here on average 158 days of the year, to a total of 39 inches.

Never worry about posting a question! We are all glad to help.

That is a great idea to divert the water to the bed. But you might have a damp basement when WA monsoon season comes around. Tom, is there a way to divert only some of that water to the bed?
A timed sprinkler would also work great. I don't have one myself, but I imagine you could set it for weekly watering.

I have a spot just like that under the overhang of the house. A large tree is also nearby, which means it is a shady dry bed that dries out quickly because of sandy soil. Snow doesn't even reach the back of the bed, so I just throw some back there when I shovel the sidewalk. I could always send you some snow if you like... ;-D

Does that bed get full sun? Or shade? All day?
CMK

The problem isn't watering the plants. The problem is the plants are too close to the house.

I saw a picture somewhere, can't remember where, of a band of river rock just about the width of what you can't keep watered. Where I used to live, we had wide overhangs and we just mulched the bed and left bare behind the shrubs, which we planted far enough out to get rain. Plants of the right size that are not squished up against a building don't need continual pruning.

Nell

Christin, a damp basement would be a nightmare. Good question about if I could just get some of the water, but not all. That bed gets morning sun and afternoon shade. Actually, we got a surprising amount of snow last winter and we just finished with record breaking heat. Whew! See that brown lawn? They may have to rezone us if this keeps up! How about you? Are you near Spokane? Do you have plants in your dry, sandy, shady bed?

Nell, thanks about the questions. :o) Are you thinking maybe I should extend that bed forward into what's now lawn, and just have the plants moved out away so they get rain? I'm trying to picture how that would look. On the south side I do have a gravel area next to the house. In the back and north is a big gravel area, because the PO used to park a boat in back. In my last house I had raised beds right up to the house... but there wasn't a second-story overhang like here.

I think moving the planting zone out from the house would be simplest, but if you'd rather keep things planted all the way under, I have some plants growing under my eaves, and they do fine with whatever water they can get. "Xeric" plants should do that for you, or garden thugs. I have Agastache, Obedient Plant, and Hosta. Obedient Plant really isn't a thug in my garden (doubling size in 2 years is not thuglike) but it is in other people's gardens.

Diverting all of your gutter water to run right next to the house is not a good idea. I remember plenty of cold and freezes when I lived in Tacoma, so I don't think you can have a hose set up all winter? If you can, you could use a rain barrel set up on blocks (for water pressure) to catch some of your rain. It will need a nice big overflow hose going away from the house, not a garden hose. This barrel could feed a soaker hose under the eaves. You can put a shut-off on the hose, for rainy-windy periods of getting plenty of rain under the eaves.

"The problem isn't watering the plants. The problem is the plants are too close to the house."

Nell is right, I think!
My family had a home facing in a direction that the shrubs just would not do well in, tucked way under the windows. They would always die out and we'd get frustrated. But when they died we'd go and paint.

Then one year my dad put in a fruit cellar and we decided then and there (after realizing how dry the soil was way down deep when we dug) that we'd just put huge patio stones over that area smack next to the house. Then we filled in the front with lovely, billowy shrubs and made the garden in front wider. It worked out fantastically and I always had a great place to stand and wash the windows!

I think a mistake most people make is planting everything too close to the foundation.

Not good for the house, the foundation, or the plants. I just removed every single shrub that had been practically growing out of the foundation for 40 years! The siding was mildewed behind all of them.

It may look a little strange while the plants are very young.
There should be some space between the house siding and the "mature" size of the plant.

It looks like the front area is sloped? Maybe the rain is running off too fast to soak in. If there is a slope the diverted water shouldn't be an issue. Another idea might be a soaker hose turned on for a period of time on a regular basis.
I have a similar problem with the planting in front of the house where I removed the old, overgrown yews. I know my problem is the ground is packed like cement. If I had taken the time to work in lots of humus and compost it would have retained the moisture, but since I didn't, I am just using layers of newspapers and mulch and will keep replenishing it until the soil tilth is improved.
Let us know what you work out.

We all ask questions. So feel free to do so at any time.
My last house had an over hang like that. I agree that moving the plants out would work well. Just mulch the area under there and it will look tidy behind your plants.
Redesign your bed to connect with the one on the side.
Lay your garden hose out from the side walk to the side bed in a curved line. Or something that pleases your eye.
Don't dig out the grass. Use the lasagna method. I have posted these pictures before. In 7 mos. time I went from the first pic to the second.

#1

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#2, notice that the boxwoods across the front are gone in this picture.

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#3 earth worms where there was just grass.

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Nell's right. Move the plants. Diverting the rain water will cause more problems than it solves. I didn't think about that, even though I have a basement that floods whenever it rains.

And do what plantmaven said. I used lasagna methods too.

April, 2008

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Tom, I'm still amazed at that transformation!

Oceanna, I'm in agreement with enlarging the bed and putting rocks under the overhang area. We've done that on a few sides of our house.

Hi Oceanna! Yes, I do live in Spokane. It rather looks like you guys are getting the worst of summer this year! At least you are not alone in the dry lawn; I think most people over there do let it go in summer. Last winter certainly was a bad one. It is still amazing at the amount of snow Seattle and the surrounding areas got. Must have been a killer trying to get up and down some of those steep hills! The snow banks over here, from shoveling, where eight feet high! Hopefully it won't be a bad winter this year...

I do have things planted in that bed. I must agree with everyone else, it is very difficult to keep things near the foundation watered and looking nice. I keep a few inches of of bare space in front of the foundation. But that is mostly because cats poo in there and often uncover and dig up plants.
I do have to water it constantly, but it is worth it to me. At the very back of the bed I have a few hostas, Geranium macrorrhizum, and a few shrubs (Yew, Barberry, and Euonymus). Nicer things are planted toward the front.

This seems to be the only picture I have of it from this year. Early spring. Gosh, I took this picture at a weird angle...

Polygonatum, Epimedium, Geranium macrorrhizum, and Lamium (dead nettle) are great for dry shade.
It is quite understandable if you don't want to plant anythign in so difficult a situation. Maybe you could put some big pots there with pretty annuals, like Elephant's Ears and Impatients.
Take care!
CMK

Stagerat, you're exactly correct, we have to unhook our hoses and weatherproof our spigots here. I talked with my son about this last night and he got alarmed and said my basement would flood if I get too much water there. That would be awful.

Girlgroup, are you saying your dad widened the bed and had rocks along the back of it?

Gldno, yes the yard is sloped but that bed is flat.

Don't dig out the grass. Use the lasagna method.

Plantmaven, your "new" yard looks great! What an improvement! That looks like an amazing amount of back-breaking work and a lot of money out for new plants too, right? I don't understand what the black is on the ground in the first picture, or why it's there. And I don't understand why I wouldn't have to dig out the grass to widen that bed. ??

Token, that's an amazing transformation! That looks like it was an immense amount of work over a large area. My daughter astounded all her neighbors by digging out all her grass and putting in plants. I love what you did, but I'm just an old lady living alone on a very small income. You've got my wheels turning, though! I do get tired of so darned much lawn to mow.

Natal thanks -- it's looking pretty unanimous for rocks under the window and resculpturing the front yard.

Hi Christin! Yeah, we broke records for hot this week (hottest EVER on record) and we got more snow last winter. Eight feet? Yikes! My lawn is dry but I didn't let it go... my water bill is high too. No fair, huh? Yes we're ready for WA to mellow out, aren't we? Your pic looks very pretty (if I turn my head - had you been drinking? hehe), and your lawn looks great. Thanks SO much for a list of plants that don't need so much water.

I love this board and I'm getting great ideas -- thanks everybody!

Which is better, folks, weeding or mowing? Do your breathtaking cottage gardens require more or less water than your lawns did? More or less work?

Oceanna

The reason for lasagna gardening is to improve the soil and minimal digging.
Very little digging and I brought starts of plants from my old house and kept them watered all winter. The dark in the picture is roofing paper.
Here is a link where we explained how we did lasagna gardening.
If you have questions, email me.

plantmaven at gmail dot com

Kathy

Here is a link that might be useful: lasagna link

Cure your nasty sod buildup problem with lasagna and wintersowing! It's cheap or even free. With lasagna, you do have to move the materials around, so it has an exertion price. Wintersowing is a crazy-easy way to start plants from seeds, outdoors. You can collect your seeds, trade for others, collect free containers, buy seed-starting mix, and you'll have hundreds of plants for a tiny amount of money.

If I have to water something, I'd rather it be something that flowers. As it is, I only water new plants/seedlings, and I water my lotsa-sun bed. (I have sandy soil that dries fast). I have many, many established plants that don't get watered.

I'd much rather weed than mow. I get more weeds in the lawn than in the garden beds, so I figure I may as well continue to reduce the lawn.

Please be patient with me as I really know nothing about gardening. In my last house I learned that tomatoes did well in this bed but lousy in the other bed and like that, and that was the extent of it. I have piled my grass and weeds in a pile, but there's a bunch of stuff there (branches) that isn't rotting fast at all. I do have a black compost bin that you turn but it really doesn't hold all that much. Besides, I never have put anything in it but grass and weeds. When they say "add the brown stuff" I shrug. I did just read up about the leaves and shredding them in a trash can with a weed eater and I can do that. :o)

What is barn litter?

I figure this would be a great time to shovel horse manure as it's been so hot and dry and there are people around here with horses who would let me. For a truck I have a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Is there some way to haul manure in that wihout hurting my car? Like in black trash bags in the trunk or something? Or should I just give up on this idea as one of my stupidest? I do like the price tag of free! And I don't want to shovel it when it's all wet with rain, which is when I'm going to need it, come fall. Right now I'm tempted to let my poor garden keep going. Maybe I should just give up now and stomp it down. Dunno. The corn is the tallest plant in there, maybe a foot high, and the neighbor just told me the raccoons steal all his corn. Figures! The rest of my plants are only about 4-5". Pretty sad, huh? I did start my winter sowing on the late side, because I learned about it late, but this is ridiculous.

I'm also a bit concerned about my whackadoodle Wheaten tearing up anything I put down in the back yard. I sure wish she would understand if I would explain to her why she musn't do that! I had put up a fence of sorts but she tore that down too, darn her. Lucky for her I know that beating her senseless wouldn't teach her not to dig there -- she would just think humans were crazy. So no point in that even though that's what I feel like doing when I discover she has killed the three blueberry bushes I planted, or dumped over and desimated two long planters of veggies (I figured the planters would stop her from trampling them). No sense yelling at her after the fact... but I need a punching bag! That dog alone is enough to make me want to either give up the dog or the gardening.

I did winter sowing for the first time this year. I was thrilled with all the plants I got. But then the trouble started. I had a HUGE double-trunked tree (fir and hemlock) fall over in my yard a couple of years ago. A stump grinder guy came out and ground it up and left me a mountain in the middle of my lawn. So I wheelbarrowed that dirt to where I now have my garden because it could use a little building up, I thought. Stupid idea.

The bad news is that last year my garden didn't grow/flourish at all in that spot (yeah, I've figured out why). So this year I carefully put peatmoss and compost in the holes for each plant and it still didn't grow/flourish. So I got so disappointed and told my neighbor to quit saving milk cartons for me as I apparently can't garden in my garden patch to save my soul, so no sense winter sowing for me.

So yesterday I phoned a nursery and asked the guy what to do and he said shovel out all that bad dirt and shovel in good topsoil. I'm too old for that. So I called a topsoil place and they wanted a fortune to take my old bad dirt that has the root chips in it, and also to bring me new dirt. I'm too poor for that.

I had never heard of "lasagna gardening" until today. Um, yes I'd heard something about layering, but they always seemed to want something I didn't have and didn't know how to get, so I didn't pay too much attention. I put down newspaper in my old garden once and it stuck around forever and I thought it was supposed to disappear and it was hard to dig a hole through to plant, so I didn't do it again. I just googled it and read up on it. Now I feel a glimmer of hope but I have questions.

So now are you telling me I can newspaper over my bad root-chipped garden soil and put layers of good stuff on it and next year I can plant in it and my plants will do well? In just the stuff I added? And they won't send roots down into the old bad soil?

Okay, that's in the back yard. Now, in the front yard the grass is a little higher than is the flower bed under the house overhang. So are you saying that if I put newspaper over the grass and add stuff that the grass and roots underneath would decay enough so that I could rake that area to blend it in? I think that's not what you're saying. I think what you're saying is I would have to add enough stuff to raise the whole bed up higher than the grass to the point where I could rake it out to be flat? Then I'd need some kind of retaining wall around it, right?

Also, I don't understand using the tar paper. First, I thought tar was toxic? Second, are you building a whole garden on top of the tar paper? It looks like at least in part that's where your grass ended up. (Does it drive you nuts to mow that curve?) Or are you taking the tar paper off later?

This post feels like it should be in a "gardeners anonymous" meeting. Come to think of it, it kind of is. lol!

Okay, off to google "Euonymus." I'll be darned if I know what that is.

I am a 65 year old widow, on a tight budget and have had 3 back surgeries. So I know you can do it also. Just do a little at a time and later enlarge it as your situation allows. As my Asian friend says, "litty bit one time".
Here is what happens.
Tar paper is not toxic or the worms would die. Tar is an organic natural fossil substance. As with any thing too much can be bad.

#1 I put the roofing/tar paper on the grass and weight it down with something until I can get the leaves, compost or grass clippings on top to hold it down. Because the paper is black, no sun can get to the grass and it dies. That grass feeds the soil and some how earth worms appear.
(just yesterday I pull back some and about 100 baby worms wiggled in the decomposing grass clippings.)
I use the tar paper because it is easier than hauling a lot of card board boxes. The tar paper rots faster than the cardboard.
#2 add anything like grass clippings, shredded leaves and put that on top of the paper. Then put mulch on top of that. In a few months the tar paper and grass rot. Ever once in a while you will find scraps of the tar paper but it too will eventually decompose. If you want to plant something right away, just pull back the mulch etc, cut a hole in the paper and dig a hole to plant in. If you use a hose as you are digging and fill the hole with water it is easier for old ladies to scoop mud out than dig in hard soil.

Drive around on the evenings before trash pick up and find bags of grass or leaves. I had a man bring me bags, as it cost him to take them to the dump. I just sat the bags side by side and emptied them where they were and gave the a couple kicks to level them a tad. then I just left them. That was a year ago and they have all decomposed. Of course I did that in the back yard. Had I done that out front the HOA would have stroked out.

Call the Boy Scouts to inquire if you can get help from boys needing to do something to earn a badge. They might help with any heavy labor.

January 2008

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July13, 2008

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It is easy to mow the curved beds. I made sure the grass paths were easy. I pushed the mower around to be sure I could make my turns and marked each curve with spray paint. I go down one side and turn around and mow the other way on the same strip.

Once a month, as my budget permits, I but about 10 bags of mulch. It is easier for me to put a bag in my wagon, than try to shovel it from a pile.
Pull a bag to the edge of your trunk and let it hang over the wagon/wheelbarrow. Cut the bag open and scoop out what you think you can haul.
I do have a pickup, but my sister has a Miata convertible and she can get about 4 or 5 bags in her trunk.
So far the cheapest I have found is under $3 for 2 cubic feet @ Lowes.

I hope this helps.
Kathy

I have another thought. Baby diapers have crystals that absorb urine. Maybe try buying a cheap brand and rip them open. Empty the crystals in to your dry area and dig them in a bit. They will absorb water and keep it moist. Each time you water they will absorb again.

Nell is right-move the plants out and mulch behind. I also took everyone's advice several weeks ago on lasagna gardening and have used 5-7 layers of newspaper (good way to recycle and cheap!) or one layer of cardboard, composted manure, and mulch on a new bed I have started. Can't wait until spring!

Kathy, yes it helps me a lot! Thank you very much for the excellent explanation and your time and your kindness. You gave me so many wonderful tips. You and I are in the same boat age and health-wise, and both without a helpmate, so now I'm doubly impressed with you and doubly encouraged. "Litty bit one time" -- I love it! THAT is something I can do.

Does all this mulching you do hold your weeds down? Do you do the tar paper every fall? Or did you just tar paper the one time?

Pull a bag to the edge of your trunk and let it hang over the wagon/wheelbarrow. Cut the bag open and scoop out what you think you can haul.

Great idea, as I've been on the lookout in CL for a dog food container that will let me do that with my big bags of dog food that are getting harder and harder for me to haul up out of my deep trunk and carry across the garage.

Once a month, as my budget permits, I but about 10 bags of mulch.

Wow! No wonder your yard looks so good. Now... what do you mean when you say "mulch?" I thought your grass and leaves were mulch? Or do you mean what we call beauty bark? Or do you mean compost? shrug

I never would have thought of baby diapers. I have some peat moss, though. I just looked up azaleas and it says they need to be watered a lot but absolutely need to drain, and they hate alkaline. Does that mean I should try to find evergreen needles to mix in the soil maybe? One of my azaleas is not looking very happy lately and I don't know why... the heat maybe, but the other one looks better and I can't see the difference in their treatment.

Okay, I ran into a snag and I'm confused. I called Lowes and asked them about tar paper. They said a roll weighs about 50 lbs. Yeow. Then they said it absolutely would not decompose, that it's made to go on roofs and they don't want it to decompose there, and that makes good sense. He said he thinks it has fiberglas in it. So I asked to talk with the gardening department and nobody there had ever heard of using tar paper. And I'm thinking we want water to get through to the ground but we don't want water to get through our roofs. I am not doubting you, I am just confused and want to be sure I don't get the wrong thing.

Cyn, good for you! I hope you are absolutely thrilled with what you see in the spring. The popular vote here seems to be that I move the plants out. So now I'm trying to think about how much bed I want versus how much lawn.

Your past mistakes haven't doomed you forever, many of us have done things we regret (I made some of the same mistakes), and everything worked out ok after some time and/or work.

A couple of years ago I put pretty fresh wood chips in my garden bed as mulch, (uh...beauty bark to you, I think?) and wondered why everything just sat there and didn't grow much. Not only were the chips fresh enough to deplete the nitrogen in the soil, there is a weed tree in my neighborhood, and most likely in those chips, that is poisonous to other plants. (it is the Tree of Heaven, ptooey). But, those chips break down and that chemical does too, and the bed was fine the next year. Those chips in your garden bed are not a permanent problem. However, they may still be causing problems this year, using the notrogen in the soil for their breakdown. If that's the case, adding some nitrogen would help your plants. (I think that compost is a great fertilizer, but it's not a high-nitrogen fert. I like using organic granular fertilizer too, like Espoma brand. There are other brands, too)

However, that may not be the reason your garden still isn't thriving, another thought I have is that if your soil is already acidic, the peatmoss may be making things even harder for some of your plants. I don't know if soils in your area tend to be acid or alkaline or if they vary. You could get your soil tested (I think it costs about $15, contact your county cooperative extension) and you'll find out a lot of info about what you do and don't have in the soil. I think they test for pH, but I'm not sure. If you just want to know pH, you could find a little pH test kit at a garden center. I used one with a little lest tube and tablet.

Those wood chips are eventually going to add good stuff to your soil, I can't believe you were told it's "bad dirt" and to shovel it out. I now have access to wood chips that have aged for 1-2 years, and they're breaking down into crumbly good stuff that my plants like just fine. It's just in the early breakdown that it's a problem.

I too tried to kill off some grass for a garden bed with thin layers of stuff and found that it didn't work all that well. I didn't really read up on the original lasagna technique, I just threw down what I had, which was a too-thin layer of coffeegrounds, cardboard and newspaper. The next spring I dug through the stuff into the rock-hard soil, planted the seedlings, and watched them not take off. I learned that one of the really important things is to keep stuff moist if you want it to break down faster (or at all). And that plants like "fluffy," however you get the soil that way, they don't mind. The lasagna-style beds I've made since then (with no materials bought) have definitely been thick and stayed raised above the rest of the garden. Some people say that even a pretty thick pile breaks down to be even with the rest of the yard pretty quickly, but not mine. You don't necessarily need a retaining wall, by the time you plant in it it will likely just be a few inches high, and it will kind of just taper to the level of the rest of the garden. But you could edge it with blocks if you wished.

You do not have to put down tar paper, but could. It worked for Plantmaven, but as you mentioned, the rolls are heavy. You can have success without doing it, too. Some people cover their layers of lasagna material with black plastic to hold in moisture, kill weeds, warm stuff up and keep the microbes busy, etc. I think that's more "sheet composting" than "lasagna gardening," but I haven't been over to the soil and compost forum in so long, I may not have my terms correct. Some people will use old carpet to kill off sod, (it stays wet a long time) sometimes sticking compost materials below and above--above just to cover up the carpet. And many people just make layer after layer of the lasagna materials and keep it moist.

I put a lot of gardening stuff in my car, and that includes manure that is not quite composted. I have a hatchback (yay) and lay down a blanket and plastic. I use a lot of buckets without lids. I drape an old blanket over the top of the buckets near the front, so if I slam on the brakes and they tip a bit, it doesn't go far. You could set a full bucket into a trash bag, tie it over the bucket, then lift it into your back seat. If you use just bags, they do need to be strong. I save the bags that dirt or mulch comes in, of course you can't fill them all that far and still be able to tie them closed. But the buckets and bags get heavy fast anyway, so not filling them all the way makes unloading easier.

The motto I got from GW (I hadn't read plantmaven's before today) is "inch by inch it's a cinch, yard by yard it's hard." Boy, does thinking about that help me! Sure, I can do an inch, I can even do a foot!

It was a county agricultural agent that told me to use it.
Don't refer to it as tar paper, call it roofing paper, or sometimes roofing felt. I bought it at Lowes for about $12 a roll. It is heavy, but you can have them load it and roll it into your wagon etc. when you get home. It is like very thick black construction paper we used in school.
Or leave it in the trunk and cut it as needed. Of course as your run around with paper flapping in the wind, your neighbors will be thinking you are crazy for sure.
When we were doing this my sister heard a child behind the fence telling his mother that we were covering the grass. She informed him that we were old and old people do strange things. LOL!

The grass and leaves go under mulch to fertilize your soil as after the roofing paper decomposes.

Mulch serves 2 purposes. One, it helps the soil retain moisture and two, it keeps weeds from germinating.
The only time I have to pull weeds is in areas that have to be mulched. In the picture of July 2008 you can see the mulch around the plants. Also on the sidewalk is a bird planted cantaloupe. It was delicious!

Mulch will be in large bags and will say what type, cedar mulch, pine bark, hardwood. It is shredded, not the nuggets. (See the link) Buy the cheapest you can find. It all works the same. It will change color as it ages and won't be so bright colored. The last I bought was dark brown.
Bags are usually 2 cubic feet. That should cover four square feet of grass. If you do one bag a day, in a week you will have around 28 sq. ft. of flower garden. Again, the litty bit one time thing.

Your layers:
1 your grass.
2 the roofing paper. Use brick, rocks, buckets to hold the paper until you get the leaves grass etc on top.
3 leaves and or grass clippings (wet these with water if you desire...or not
4 mulch about 5 or 6 inches deep.

Here is a link that might be useful:

As stage rat says you can use what ever works to cover the grass. The roofing felt worked best for me.
My sister used an old plastic shower curtain. But then at some point we had to pull that out so plants could grow roots into the soil.
In the very back of the yard, I just sat the big bags of leaves side by side and left them until the grass was dead. Then I emptied them and spread them out. You want the grass to die and feed the soil so you only have to dig a hole for each plant as you plant it. Not the whole bed to till.

oceanna and plantmaven, include me in the 'older women with bad backs and no help' department who will never give up gardening regardless. Love this post.
Pat

I love this post, too. We're making lasagna, not angel food cake -- the ingredients and the amounts don't have to be exact, nor the conditions perfect, just plenty of everything, you're feeding a crowd!

Nell

Stage rat thank you so much for a really well thought out and informative post. You answered a number of questions I still had, and you gave me some very good ideas. I am comforted greatly to see you say the wood chips will break down and I don't need to take all that soil out and toss it.

I just called my local extension office to find out how to get my soil tested, and they put me on the line with a master gardener. She said she doesn't think the lasagna gardening would work around here the same as it may in other parts of the country... she doesn't think it would decompose enough between fall and spring. She suggested that I might try it on half my garden. Then see what works best. She said she wouldn't bother with the soil test just now... she'd just keep trying to improve the soil.

Thanks for giving me the benefit of your experience with the too-fresh wood chips (that's my problem no doubt) and the too-thin lasagna method. I'll remember both.

"Inch by inch it's a cinch, yard by yard it's hard." I love that. Yesterday when mowing the big back lawn in the heat, dripping sweat, I just kept saying to myself what Plantmaven said, "litty bit one time!" That kept me going. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Fly Lady cleaning system on the web. What I got out of that was set an egg timer for 15 mins and clean that room till it goes ding. I can clean for fifteen minutes! But the whole job is too overwhelming to even start.

I like the buckets with the blanket idea. I have buckets. My neighbor also suggested one or two of those big rubbermaid type plastic bin/boxes. Those have lids, too.

Oh, the extension lady also said I shouldn't have put peat moss in the holes for all my garden plants -- too acidic. Yes the blueberries love it but the other plants probably not. So she thinks that may be part of why my garden is so puny this year too. Oops! Live and learn, eh?

~~

Hi again Plantmaven Kathy! "She informed him that we were old and old people do strange things. LOL! " Hahaha! Yes we old people surely do. I have a friend who was getting new siding on her house. There was quite a lag time between when she got it insulated and could get the siding. A little boy in the neighborhood called her the lady who lived in the paper house. hehe

How long did it take your roofing paper to decompose? The master gardener at the extension office didn't even think newspaper would decompose here (near Seattle) from fall to spring. She said it would take a lot longer, and meanwhile I still have that crappy soil underneath it and the roots would go there. She said it would be awfully hard to go 2' deep other than on a small area... but it looks to me like you did a huge area.

I notice Token says she did it too, and her area was really big.

>> Bags are usually 2 cubic feet. That should cover four square feet of grass. If you do one bag a day, in a week you will have around 28 sq. ft. of flower garden. Again, the litty bit one time thing.

Thanks for this. My veggie garden in the back is about (I'm bad at this) maybe 7 x 12 feet... I could use maybe 7 x 18 feet if I want. It would take 21 bags of mulch to do that 7 x 12 if one covers 4 sq. ft.... right? My budget is very tight. I'm going to have to do this on the cheap/scrounge/free as much as I can. Too bad I don't have a great way to "mulch" up all those darned blackberry bushes in my neighbor's yard that keep encroaching on my yard!

If I'm only doing that front bed where the azaelias are, I won't need so much. Hmm.... the hose and spigot are at one end and there are stepping stones there and rocks. If I raise the level those will all have to be taken out and replaced.

Thanks, everyone!!