The House Plants Thread

Mint flower:



Sunflower... looking a little rough:



Dahlias popping like crazy. They took a while to flower but they were worth it:



Caladium mix pot:



Elephant Ear is huge and happy:

Monty Don said that the core of a compost pile should be grass, twigs, cuttings, and leaves. Kitchen scraps are either entirely unnecessary or should only be about %10 of the total pile.

Lanx Don't forget the aesthetics of what you are creating for yourself in all the details/hard work of doing the job. Enjoy your Stardew Valley: Ironman/Hardmode edition.

Lanx said:

Yup, I have two trees on my property with leaves on the ground. I was gonna mow it today, but my other neighbor decide to lay on her driveway...

Ha, too bad I have the worst lawn on the block. I'm not worried, last week I had the worst driveway with weeds coming out of every which cracks. Then I vinegared and salted all this weeds and power washed half my driveway (so ppl can see the difference!). Now the other guy across the street where we get out mail from, (it's a cul da sac, so we have the post office lock boxes) has the worst driveway.

Click to expand...

You've got it. The competition.

You have the inner desire to DOMINATE!

The Flytrap has thrived

Lanx said:

I got 6 bags of top soil, wow this shit is like 1.50, but it is dirt. Should I fill out the pot holes first or reseed the dead patches? Also figured out I need to buy a leaf blower, apparently you got blow this trimmings away, thought nature would just take care of it.

I got a blower/vac, might as well vac up those leaves and mulch em for the compost then.

I have a sprinkler system, looks like one or two dead heads, any brand I should get over another?

Click to expand...

I would do it all at once. Fill holes, cover blank spots, seed everything, water the fuck out of it. Make it one big garden overhaul. Your lawn is a monoculture garden.

As far as lawn trimmings go, the common wisdom is that mulching them is best. This requires a mulch mower however. If you have a mower that simply side-shoots the clippings, then yes you want to blow or rake them up because the clippings are too big and will only sit atop your lawn and shade it out.. You don't have to be a surgeon about it, just get up most of it.

Mulching mowers have a different blade and deck that is designed to chop the clippings up into something like 1/4 to 1/3 inch pieces. These work their way down into the thatch layer and become fertilizer. The clippings are nitrogen. There is no reason to throw that nitrogen away if you don't have to. Over time the nitrogen is recycled back into the soil. Eventually this will lead to some build-up of the thatch layer so occasional thatch-raking needs to be done in the spring. Small price to pay for free fertilizer imo. Plus mulching is easier on a week to week basis than is bagging or blowing/raking.

YouTube is a good source for sprinkler stuff if you're willing to listen to a few rednecks explain a few things. I don't know them well myself.

Dandain said:

Lanx Don't forget the aesthetics of what you are creating for yourself in all the details/hard work of doing the job. Enjoy your Stardew Valley: Ironman/Hardmode edition.

Click to expand...

Fuck yeah. That is almost exactly how I see it! Life is a video game, only on ultra-hard mode. But us nerds can still share cheat codes!

Take that last picture to your local nursery. Tell them which way that wall is facing, and they should be able to make lots of good recommendations for your area. You'll have to think about what size plants you want, do you want small garden perennials or hedges or trees? If you go for a cottage garden, will you do any annuals or do you want permanent perennials? High maintenance ones or low maintenance? If you want low maintenance and you tell the local nursery, they can make good suggestions.

That grass weed looks like crab or goose grass. The problem with weed grasses is that they are annual. They die off in winter and leave a bald spot on the lawn where it also drops its seeds. It's an aggressive plant that will expand the edges of the bald spot bit by bit every year as it dies off, drops seeds, and comes back in spring year after year. You want to kill it and stop this process and replace that spot with goof thick perennial turf grass. Pre-emergents in the last days of winter are the best way to deal with it. It creates a small chemical barrier that kill the sprouts as they begin to germinate. Once this process is halted, and the pre-emergent has done its work, then you can overseed and fertilize and push turf grass growth. Some seeds will still break through and you might have to pull or spray them. It's a multiyear process but if you keep at it, you'll begin to win the fight and it gets easier each year.