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It is a quite simple, efficient approach of weeding with out chemical substances (and nearly with out effort). It comes from the Abbey Physic Backyard in Faversham.
The Abbey Physic Backyard in Faversham trials totally different strategies of natural and chemical free gardening, together with chemical-free weeding.
The Abbey Physic backyard is a wildlife-friendly, natural group backyard with a particular purpose to enhance psychological and bodily well being.
Begin with some cardboard
I visited them final March. And I noticed a lot of shrubs and small bushes with cardboard protecting the earth round them.
You then add selfmade compost on high of the cardboard, so you may’t see the cardboard.
The cardboard helps suppress perennial weeds. It slowly decomposes with the mulch.
No want for weeding – the cardboard across the base of this plant will disappear from sight when it’s coated in mulch. But it surely’ll act as a weed preventer till the cardboard decomposes.
I attempted this out round a reasonably newly planted silver birch. It’s in a mattress which will get very crowded, and I needed to offer it area, not simply from weeds but in addition from encroaching crops.
However there are snowdrops planted across the base of the tree. I didn’t need to miss out on these.
Time it so you continue to get bulbs…
In April, when the snowdrop foliage was gone, I coated the earth across the tree with cardboard.
I added a layer of mulch on high. I didn’t need to weed across the tree in any respect till round late August, when some annuals weeds settled on high.
The snowdrops are up, so the cardboard I laid down in April should have decomposed.
And now, in February, all of the snowdrops have come by. So the cardboard has now mulched down, bettering the soil.
I’ll add one other layer of cardboard and mulch when the snowdrop foliage dies down.
And I’m going to guard a number of newly planted rose bushes in the identical approach.
Higher than a weed-suppressing membrane?
I favor cardboard to a manufactured weed-suppressing materials as a result of cardboard decomposes. I’ve one mattress that’s infested with bindweed, however which has wonderful bulbs within the spring.
These Emperor tulips emerge in April, and the bindweed doesn’t come up until Could, so I’m hoping I can use a cardboard mulch to cope with the bindweed with out dropping the tulips. I’ll report again!
A cardboard layer could assist suppress the bindweed over the summer season and it’ll have disappeared by the point the bulbs come up this time subsequent yr.
I’ll report again on how profitable it’s.
May you place a layer of cardboard over the entire mattress?
In idea, I might eliminate my continual weed drawback by placing a layer of cardboard and mulch over the entire border.
Nonetheless, there are a variety of perennial crops and bulbs that come up at totally different occasions. I wouldn’t cowl a border in cardboard whereas there are alliums, dahlias or different crops ready to emerge.
I additionally love self-seeded crops, and people gained’t pop up by cardboard.
Nearly every part on this image is self-seeded – the alliums, euphorbia and spikes of untamed gladioli, so I’d lose alot if I coated the entire mattress in a weed-suppressing cardboard.
However the self-seeders do crowd out newly planted crops. So I’ve discovered it helpful so as to add the cardboard and mulch round something younger that I believe wants a little bit of area to get established.
Not all weeds….
It took me some time to know the distinction between hunting down annual weeds and perennial weeds.
Annual weeds come from seeds. These are blown round on the wind, dropped by birds or dug up while you dig the soil.
Black medic (aka yellow trefoil) is a comparatively new arrival within the backyard. It’s an annual weed (and an absolute thug). It has in all probability been blown in on the wind or arrived with one other plant.
A weed suppressing layer, corresponding to cardboard, will solely stop you exposing annual weed seeds by digging. It gained’t cease them blowing in and touchdown on the mulch.
Butterburr or winter heliotrope romps by in my backyard. It’s a perennial and its roots get all over the place, however it didn’t come by the cardboard.
Perennial weeds, corresponding to bindweed and floor elder, unfold by their roots. These are sometimes dormant within the winter.
A lightweight-preventing layer, corresponding to cardboard and mulch, will discourage them. Though they are going to actually attempt to come up elsewhere. However ravenous perennial weeds of sunshine will be more practical than digging them up, as so many can re-sprout from the tiniest little bit of root.
This week’s video
This week’s video is the February backyard tour. And there’s a take a look at the sensible areas of the backyard too.
You may go to the Abbey Physic Backyard from Wednesdays to Sundays – it’s an exquisite place to spend time and there are many good suggestions for environmentally-friendly gardening.
It’s additionally open for Faversham Open Gardens & Backyard Market Day on thirtieth June, 2019.
And for extra middle-sized backyard suggestions and backyard excursions, do be part of us each Sunday morning – comply with us by electronic mail.
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