Tuesday, 21 June 2022
We spent the whole workday weeding and mulching on the beach approach. People were appreciative, and I got to meet a lot of dogs, one of the best parts of the job.
Diane and Holly came by. I was thrilled when she said her garden looked good so we didn’t need to come by this week. More time for the beach approach!
We got a satisfying amount done, although I wish it went faster.
Having access to an endless pile of mulch finally enables us to make the beach approach look good, not battered, after weeding. Does it look better as a wild and weedy meadow (not with all native plants, by the way) or as a more cultivated garden? I actually do not know.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
“Does it look better as a wild and weedy meadow (not with all native plants, by the way) or as a more cultivated garden? I actually do not know.”
Is the answer somewhere in between? I decided to turn a long strip of lawn into a wildflower meadow, and after reading the pros and cons of scratching into the grass or not – removed the turf. Then planted with a wildflower seed mix that also had a short and pretty seed-head grass component. Year two and the grass seed took over – with dense hillocks of grass that resist any reseeding wildflowers.
Now I have to cultivate half of those out. Every year no doubt.
I suspect that to “get the look” of a meadow in a public garden. if you go that route – you will probably still have to do some cultivation. Give it a go in one of the sections perhaps?
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As you will see in future posts on this project, we did strip out a lot of grass, a lot of it being velvet grass (Yorkshire fog), left purple and white clover, some areas ended up bare because they were originally walkways, and the whole things gets trampled so much during kite festival that there was no hope of a successful planting of wildflowers. Even if they grew in the wind and salt and no supplemental water, they get smashed on the third week of august to a literal pulp so can’t reseed effectively unless they had already seeded by then. Thus the roses…
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Ah, I forgot all about the festival crowd who stomp and flatten anything but the most thorny of plantings.
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It is very limiting.
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I think a landscape like that can easily get away with wild and meadowy, but I know the slightly more cultivated look is appreciated by so many and actually helps you keep it more under control. I’m not sure which I prefer! I DO prefer that you are in charge of managing it again. 🙂
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Thanks, looks like this will be our last year for several reasons, mostly Allan turning 70 and would like to have some end of life years having the full retirement experience….and we can afford to retire if we are frugal… It won’t be easy to let it go, so we’ll see.
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Does it look better as a wild and weedy meadow (not with all native plants, by the way) or as a more cultivated garden? – I expect that it does look better when it is cultivated but looks are not the be all and end all these days. It is a tricky question.
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Thanks, Mr T. I left a lot of clover, which in the past I would have removed cuz people view it as a weed. I am hoping they are more enlightened now. If I had time and the resources, I’d put up some signage about pollinators. Work always has us too swamped to do the finer things, though.
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I can believe that.
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I’m with Jane -you can definitely get away with wild and meadowy-which can also be cultivated . A hybrid.
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I went further than I really wanted to with the cultivated look as you will see…. But since we are close to retiring, I think it will go back to the wild anyway 🙂
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