If you haven't heard, my garden is going to be on this Sunday's Carlisle Garden Club 2022 Tour. Come by and check out my landscape aka LAB as well as the baby meadow!
Here's a super quick video tour of how the meadow looks right now!
SO, we have good news, and we have bad news.
The good news is that the meadow is really starting to take form, lots of different plants are visible now. We got our stone steps installed just before my daughter's graduation, and I think they look amazing! We planted some blueberries, a mapleleaf viburnum, and some dwarf chokeberries along with some asters. I tried transplanting some strawberries for ground cover, but I don't think they are going to make it. I also reseeded the meadow along the outer edge of the steps.
The bad news is that we have a ton of weeds. I mean, WAY more than I expected. I knew I needed to watch out for white clover and nutsedge. The nutsedge is SO much worse than I thought. Turns out the "nutlets" or rhizomes can be as deep as 8" and pulling it only activates more growth. It will not only outcompete my seedlings, it prevents seeds from germinating. So I think my only recourse right now is to spray. Unfortunately, I was under the misconception that nutsedge-specific herbicide would only kill nutsedge. Not so. I will have to spray it at least twice, and we'll lose some perennials along with it. But I have extra seed, and I'm hopeful I can reseed those areas in the fall.
Plenty of other weeds have shown up: groundsel, chickweed, woodsorrel, pimpernel, cinquefoil, speedwell, crabgrass, ragweed, lamb's quarters, purslane, mallow, pokeweed, and thistle. Most of these are innocuous, but the last two I'm definitely staying on top of with my scuffle hoe. In 10 years I have seen one pokeweed plant and no thistle on this property. My lot was a horse farm before it became a development 25 years ago, but I am surprised at how many weeds are deep in the soil and still viable.
Conclusion: using a sod cutter to remove your lawn is pretty much ineffective against weeds. I definitely wish we had been able to start earlier and solarize the soil. I'm not sure that would have killed the nutsedge, but it probably would have taken care of most everything else.
Update: I've found more information on the nutsedge - turns out that once it has at least 5 leaves, either spraying or pulling does not kill the rhizomes. So I will try my best to be vigilant and search for that nutsedge at it's earliest stages when spraying or pulling is more effective.
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