Landscaping/Gardening Thread.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Used some scrap lumber, and the PEX and poly I used for the same purpose last year, to build some easily removable greenhouse covers for my garden boxes.

Love getting projects done having spent $0.

PEX falls apart very quickly with UV exposure, might want to wrap it with silicone tape.

[T-Dog]

Does anyone have a recommendation of a place in Calgary to buy decorative bark pieces (for landscaping under trees, etc) in bulk?

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by T-Dog

Does anyone have a recommendation of a place in Calgary to buy decorative bark pieces (for landscaping under trees, etc) in bulk?

I hit Burnco each spring to top up our gardens. We've used Soil Kings in the past as well for delivery before we had a truck

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by T-Dog

Does anyone have a recommendation of a place in Calgary to buy decorative bark pieces (for landscaping under trees, etc) in bulk?

We bought a half yard from CLS. Formerly cochrane landscaping supply, now located in bearspaw. They delivered it in a giant bag. We were getting sand and dirt as well, which made the delivery charge easier to take.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Ducay

You tried any of the "good" insecticides? Generally these are ones not at the Home Depots of the world cause they don't want people overusing and ruining the environment. Usually the type you'd get commercially or from the States.

Or UFA if you can provide them with a legal farming location...or from a friend who is a farmer and could get it for you. Diazepam works very well.

[Shazam]

Sevin is more than adequate. I committed mass ant genocide with it last year.

[DoubleF]

I have a ton of trees on my property I'm trying to figure out what to do with. 4x giant like 30-50' spruce trees, 2x 10' spruce trees like 2 feet from the foundation and like half a dozen tower aspen (or columnar popular, not sure).

I'm thinking to DIY (which likely I have to spend around $300-500 for some equipment like pole saws, telescopic pruners, safety equipment etc.). I think I can do most of it, but for the roots, should I try and DIY or should I call in a pro? How much does it cost to dig out tree roots and stumps? I'm also assuming if I want someone to pull it out for me, it would be easier to leave 3-4 feet of trunk for leverage vs cutting to a few inches off the ground?

I think I am going to cut down one of the shorter spruce trees. I'm not looking forward to digging out the roots though. I'm also trying to figure out if I want another plant to replace the spruce for privacy.

The 4 gigantic spruce are going in all sorts of different directions and I think I need to figure out how to tidy them up a little. I doubt I can upkeep more than around 15-20' up. No idea if I need to trim even higher. My neighbor also has around 3-4 large spruce trees that occasionally overhang onto my side, so I think having the saws and the pruners will be useful for that too.

The tower aspen are getting older and are around 5-6" trucks at the base. The property inspector advised met to consider replacing them in around 2-3 years time so that the roots don't get bad enough to damage the foundation and the upper branches aren't thick enough to damage the roof when the wind blows. Cutting them down isn't hard, but I wonder how big of a pain it would be to rip out the roots myself to prepare the ground for new trees.

[MoneyGuy]

My lawn is near perfect except for a circle of crabgrass. I plan to try the Roundup paintbrush trick and if that doesn’t work I will kill the small area and reseed.

Any other brilliant ideas?

[Fuzz]

I find the Wilson Total Wipeout works better than roundup. But you will have to apply in the same careful manner. Though I use it on quackgrass, not crabgrass.

[Fuzz]

Well I don't know where we were talking about artificial turf, but it should be in this thread. So Sliver, I took some pictures for ya of that horrible turf job I mentioned.

Spoiler!

Why you'd spend all that money on a brand new house and do that to it, I can't figure out.

[wwkayaker]

If that house/turf is Sliver’s home, this could get entertaining.

[Fuzz]

We all know he's down in the Lake District. This is by Confed.

[wwkayaker]

I was wondering if you were in the good end of town or the bad. Crisis averted.

[Sliver]

Haha, that is one of the most poorly executed landscaping jobs I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. You weren't kidding.

So northwest of them.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Sevin is more than adequate. I committed mass ant genocide with it last year.

I called around and can't seem to find this anywhere. Do you have a specific location that might still carry it?

[postman56]

Am much as I like watering, hauling hoses around a large yard can be a pain.
I'm thinking of a sprinkler system and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for DIY?
The quotes I'm getting seem ridiculous from installers, with 3x the markup on supplies.
Just looking for general info on how to.

Is this a project that anyone could do?

Any web sites? books? suggestions? tips?

Cheers in advance

[surferguy]

I did my own which is just hooked up to a four way timer that connects to my hose bib. It’s not code at this point, I will eventually tie it into the house and sort all of that out, maybe next year. I found the actual work easy, just getting the right sprinklers and coverage is the tricky part. I’ve had to move some of the units here and there to get everything to work but it does the job.

I really enjoyed the process.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

My lawn is near perfect except for a circle of crabgrass. I plan to try the Roundup paintbrush trick and if that doesn’t work I will kill the small area and reseed.

Any other brilliant ideas?

I think those are probably the only 2 options, since any herbicide that works on Crab/Quack grasses likely work on fescues and ryes that we have here. (aka don't think there are any selective herbicides that'll do the trick).

Curious to hear how it goes. Backing onto a ravine we have plenty of quack (I think thats what it is since its tall and root-y and annoying) that comes into our turf grass. I'm not too fussed about it, but the pain is it grows so much taller/faster than the rest of the lawn it makes it look unkempt really fast

[Remember1989]

Hoping to get a recommendation...

We have several garden beds around our house located in Renfrew that need some TLC and attention/ With two new family members now part of the household, taking care of weeding these areas is no longer making it to page 1 of the "to do" list (or even registering).

A few places I called were in the $60/hr range per person to do what they call "bed maintenance" which to us isn't economical. So wondering if anyone knows of a company or otherwise that would charge much less than that?

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Remember1989

Hoping to get a recommendation...

We have several garden beds around our house located in Renfrew that need some TLC and attention/ With two new family members now part of the household, taking care of weeding these areas is no longer making it to page 1 of the "to do" list (or even registering).

A few places I called were in the $60/hr range per person to do what they call "bed maintenance" which to us isn't economical. So wondering if anyone knows of a company or otherwise that would charge much less than that?

$60/hr to weed a garden bed!? I'm in the wrong business!