Tomatoes.......I'll keep 3-4 and the neighbours get the rest......
Anyone into gardening here?
- Thread starter shanekingsley
- Start date
Our overgrown hedge may be on its last days. While it looks good at a glance it is 10 to 12 feet thick and my neighbour and I are both losing about six feet of back yard. It sounds like he's willing to take the financial hit for the fence and I can do what I want on my side. The hedge is technically on my side, the trunks anyway.
I'm undecided with what to do.
1) Replace the hedge with another batch of swamp cedars, a cheaper variant but it will take longer to fill in.
On the plus side the variant has proven itself as the existing one is over 40 years old. Pruning it back isn't practical.
The downside it that swamp cedars grow like bushes and only keep their hedge shape by constant trimming.
2) Replace with Skybound cedars which grow straight up, requiring less maintenance.
They are more expensive and possibly less tolerant of the soil and moisture conditions.
This is likely a five figure tab so I don't want to do it again in four or five years.
3) Accept looking at a fence and put pretty things in front of it. (Like M/C that would be cheaper than hedges)
With a fence behind whatever gets put in the new hedge has to be planted a few feet away from the fence. That negates a lot of what I gain in yard space.
I guess a dozen or two artificial Christmas trees would look tacky.
I'm undecided with what to do.
1) Replace the hedge with another batch of swamp cedars, a cheaper variant but it will take longer to fill in.
On the plus side the variant has proven itself as the existing one is over 40 years old. Pruning it back isn't practical.
The downside it that swamp cedars grow like bushes and only keep their hedge shape by constant trimming.
2) Replace with Skybound cedars which grow straight up, requiring less maintenance.
They are more expensive and possibly less tolerant of the soil and moisture conditions.
This is likely a five figure tab so I don't want to do it again in four or five years.
3) Accept looking at a fence and put pretty things in front of it. (Like M/C that would be cheaper than hedges)
With a fence behind whatever gets put in the new hedge has to be planted a few feet away from the fence. That negates a lot of what I gain in yard space.
I guess a dozen or two artificial Christmas trees would look tacky.
How long do you plan on staying in the house? I think that may come into play. Whatever you install, you want it to look great when you plan to sell but I wouldn't put much weight on anything after that. Solid chance new owners have different plans and cut it down anyway.
If this is just for a screen then what about tall growing grasses? We have some that grows rapidly to around 7-8ft tall every summer and even the dead stalks stay tall in the winter. Adds a bit of a tropical air too.
If a 5000 square foot lot is a million dollars that's $200 per SF. If six feet by fifty feet is hidden that's $60,000 of property that isn't obvious when the time to sell comes along.
For Toronto, it's a good location and the neighbours are good so this isn't a sales spruce up. We like the privacy without it looking like cattle pens or Stalag Etobicoke
Personally I like small towns but as one ages one needs more medical visits. I knew a guy that retired to Kincardine and after a few years of health decline ended up having to go to London several times a week to see specialists. It got to be too much.
He sold when Hydro was bailing out staff and subsidizing the crashing sales prices. Since he wasn't part of hydro he took the hit personally.
Must have been a crappy winter for mosquito control as they are rampant in my garden and they are massive this year.
Trying something new this year. Bought a pack of 20 mosquito dunks off Amazon and I’ll be putting them in buckets of water around the garden to kill off the larvae. I’m hoping this disrupts the breeding cycle enough to make a difference.
I have a zapper, but that’s pretty indescriminate. I also have one of those traps that draws the skeeters into a container with a fan and that works pretty well. I have a bunch of Thermacell devices too.
It’s bad this year though.
Trying something new this year. Bought a pack of 20 mosquito dunks off Amazon and I’ll be putting them in buckets of water around the garden to kill off the larvae. I’m hoping this disrupts the breeding cycle enough to make a difference.
I have a zapper, but that’s pretty indescriminate. I also have one of those traps that draws the skeeters into a container with a fan and that works pretty well. I have a bunch of Thermacell devices too.
It’s bad this year though.
I did that last year, and those buckets started to smell so bad and there was interesting lifeforms that started to materialize in that soup. It might have killed future offsprings but it didn't feel like the existing population was reduced. I only kept it for a few weeks and when I went to dump it out, it was like driving behind a badly secured Honey Wagon.
Not sure if I will try it again this year.
Hopefully you have better luck than me. You are right the mosquitoes came a bit later this year, but they are bad in the shady areas for sure.
Maybe I’ll add some Dawn to it or something. Don’t want to swap one issue for another.
The dunks are based on a bacteria that only attacks the mosquito larvae. If you use Dawn, that might not make it work.
Just make sure it is far away. I had it too close to where we’re sitting and if the wind blew the right way everyone looked suspiciously at the person sitting beside them.
I have some left I may try it again this year.
You motivated me into trying it again. Nice day with a breeze to keep those blood suckers mostly away. I also didn’t use a white bucket. Saw an Amish guy on YouTube who said you have to make it look like a dark pond and not sunshine. I also put a long 2” wide log on an angle case someone got in and couldn’t get out. Lots of chipmunks around here.
Will see how it goes.
Thanks for the reminder post!
I’ve been putting the dunks in everything I could find but I forgot the rain barrels. I knocked the cover off one last week and a bajillion of the little blood suckers flew out. Need to sort that ASAP.
In the meantime I bought a few more of the tennis racquet bug zappers from crappy tire for $10 a piece. Very therapeutic frying the mean little bastards in mid air with a loud zap. Also got an angry 2” European hornet with one today but that took a few more whacks to fry it.
Canadian winter hardy cactus in its 3rd season!
Its doing pretty well. Started off as just a couple of paddles on one plant and now it's split into two plants with multiple paddles. Hoping it will flower this year. It does have the world's most annoying super fine spines though.
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Its doing pretty well. Started off as just a couple of paddles on one plant and now it's split into two plants with multiple paddles. Hoping it will flower this year. It does have the world's most annoying super fine spines though.
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You moved to Arizona? Wow that looks great!Canadian winter hardy cactus in its 3rd season!
Its doing pretty well. Started off as just a couple of paddles on one plant and now it's split into two plants with multiple paddles. Hoping it will flower this year. It does have the world's most annoying super fine spines though.
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Yucca (far left in the pic) and the hens and chicks succulent plants grow fantastically here and overwinter easily. The yucca I have has spawned about 5 baby plants and they flower every summer too. The winter hardy cactus was surprising but it’s growing pretty fast for a cactus. That’s called the “tropical bed” in our garden.
