We have had some glorious weather over the last few days. After some rain the sun has been shining, encouraging quite a bit of growth. Gardening has been a pleasure, well, except for the weeds. But more of them later. Firstly, some of the pretty parts.
Like the crepe myrtle. It grows down in the back corner. I love it for its flowers in Spring and leaves in Autumn, as well as it’s bark and the shape of its branches. It really is a stunning tree through all the seasons. And it has needed nothing but admiration from me.
The correas are in flower.
The sedum has flowered and now the seed heads add an extra dimension to the garden beds.
Is it time for orchids to flower? Apparently it is in my garden!
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And now for the weeds….
There is the old adage “A weed is just a plant in the wrong place”. That’s true, but they are also opportunistic plants. While they certainly grow in my garden beds, with regular maintenance I am able to keep them under control. However I have areas that are not beds, sort of biggish pathways, I guess. The weeds love to grow here, especially at the moment.
I don’t want them growing there but I recognise that they have been able to harvest nutrients from the soil in these parts. This is especially true of stinging nettles. They have deep roots which are able to draw up minerals from deeper down than other weeds. I want to recycle those nutrients back to the plants I want to grow.
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Composting is not really an option and poison is definitely not one. I use a cold composting system rather than hot. This means that while the matter decays, the seeds are not necessarily destroyed. Spreading more weed seeds around the garden is not my idea! I could just chuck them into the green bin and have the council take them away. Then the nutrients are taken away too.
My solution is to put the weeds into an old style rubbish bin and cover with water. (Remember those small, round plastic rubbish bins with lids!) The weeds will rot down, giving me some lovely Weed Tea to use as liquid fertiliser. The rotted material can then be put into the compost, without fear of seed germination.
What do you do with your weeds?
Anne Lawson Art 
6 replies on “How does my garden grow…….in late Autumn?”
Your garden look wonderful weeds and all… so right weeds are just plants growing in an unwanted space đŸ™‚ *Brigid
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The weeds are certainly very lush! Thanks for taking a wander through my garden. đŸ™‚
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How amazing to have orchids in your garden, they are such beautiful flowers and one of my favorites. We have such hot weather in Bahrain weeds do not get time to spread.
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The G.O. and I are on the same page about most things. But we do differ about our crepe myrtle trees at Taylors Arm. I love them for the same reasons as you. He hates them because they push suckers through the fence, drop leaves and flowers on his ute and attract swarms of tiny bugs that also fall on his ute. I’m sure if I didn’t object he’d chop them out. Driving around the country side when they’re in flower you can see where old homes once were but no longer. The G.O. likes those crepe myrtes.
The weather is crazy – the days are more like summer than autumn but it seems to suit your garden – I love your orchid.
At the moment the weeds go in the green bin but one day I will have time to make and apply your weed tea.
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Hello. I feed my weeds to my worms. I have a small worm farm which gets all vegie scraps and garden green waste. Not the brown stuff, but anything green and sappy. They happily munch it up and give me Worm Tea, which is fantastically high in nutrients, plus worm castings, the world’s best organic compost additive. Brown stuff can get mown or chopped into mulch. I try not to let anything set seed so it doesn’t propagate itself, but my garden is minuscule so weeding’s not too much of a chore…
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Fascinating. If I can grab greens without flowers or seeds then I’ll compost them. Otherwise, we have curb-side pick up of all our green waste once a week. Super handy.
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