Re: Still no gardening

NO!

Cathy, west central IL, z5b

On Oct 15, 2007, at 3:27 PM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:

> There is a guy in town who teaches at the local college and writes a
> column for the paper. I have taken some classes from him but, well,  
> his
> style and mine don't mesh although he certainly knows plants and
> growing. However his advice on xeriscaping is keep the lawn and get  
> rid
> of your trees, because trees take more water than a lawn does.
> Annnnnddddd...maybe...but does that sound like sense to you?
>
> Cyndi
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
> Behalf Of james singer
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:00 AM
> To: gardenchat@hort.net
> Subject: Re: [CHAT] Still no gardening
>
> Ouch! 40K for a xeriscape? But we should've seen it coming. As soon as
> we realized water was a problem, all sorts of xeriscape specialists
> have tumbled into town. Mainly, they advise getting rid of the lawn
> [good idea] and replacing it with gravel, river rock, crushed quartz,
> decomposed granite, washed beach sand, or some such [bad idea]. Lawns
> and all their replacements are high maintenance. Fighting weeds in the
> gravel, I recall, was one of the labors of Hercules [maybe not].
> Xeriscape should be native-scape without the undesirable plants, and
> require little more maintenance than the undeveloped tracts up the
> street. The real goal, I submit, is to re-create a natural landscape
> that somehow conveys the illusion--as questionable as it may seem-- 
> that
> your house belongs where it was built.
>
>
>
> On Oct 15, 2007, at 11:55 AM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:
>
>> Still not much gardening going on at my house, although we did have a
>> nice weekend. Went to a wedding Friday on a big yacht in Newport  
>> Beach
>> (very ritzy!). Got home about 7 pm and thankfully we missed the
>> horrendous truck crash and fire that closed the big freeway
> interchange
>> we take to get home. We didn't hear about it till my sister called  
>> the
>> next morning to make sure we were okay, but I guess it made national
>> news.
>> I did manage to clear weeds out of another four feet or so of the
>> cottage garden out front. It isn't a long term fix because I was
>> pulling
>> out two types of grass that both spread via underground runners. I
> have
>> no idea what one of them is, the other looks a little like Bermuda
>> grass
>> but isn't. Guess it doesn't really matter what they are, unless I
>> bulldoze it and cut off the water, I'll be battling them for years to
>> come. But what I've done looks better for the moment and as it looks
>> better my morale goes up and I'm more willing to keep at it.  I am
>> pretty sure I'm going to hire a gardener to mow and get rid of leaves
>> over the winter months. I'm still debating (dithering would be more
>> like
>> it) about getting professional advice on redoing the area. I did talk
>> to
>> a friend who had a local company give him some advice on xeriscaping.
> I
>> looked at their website and went "Yuck"; they apparently have only  
>> two
>> looks, either gravel with a couple cactus plonked down or bare dirt
>> with
>> a strip of lawn, a few rocks and some accent lights. I may not know
>> what
>> I want yet, but I know that isn't it.  My friend didn't like it  
>> either
>> especially after they told him it would be $40K to do his yard!
>>
>> Cyndi
>>
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>>
> Island Jim
> Southwest Florida
> 27.1 N, 82.4 W
> Hardiness Zone 10
> Heat Zone 10
> Sunset Zone 25
> Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
> Maximum 100 F [38 C]
>
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