The cardboard trick

A wet and muddy weekend, but the plants seemed to like it.

I learned this planting method (and many other useful things about gardening) from Michael Cowan of Edibella Organic Landscapes. He calls it cardboard mulch, Peter calls it "the cardboard trick." Mary, for the record, says it doesn't work. It's not perfect, but it sure beats digging.

We dug deep holes for the plants and filled around and them with compost and dirt, then laid cardboard all around them, covering all the grass and soil. Then lots of fine bark mulch on top. The idea is the sod and weeds will die under the cardboard, which will slowly decompose. The reality is there are often breakouts of grass and weeds, but you can always add more bark, or cardboard, or landscape cloth over the whole thing, then more bark. I didn't think I liked bark, but I've realized weeds don't like it as much as they like growing in compost or dirt, so it saves a lot of work.

Also, tried the trim colour on the windows: "Noble Grey". Too wet to pressure wash the rest of the house, and not enough time, so let's hope we can do it tomorrow.