A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Birds eat grubs!

Alright... Yesterday, or the day befor I guess by the standards of my tv's clock, I was out looking at my front lawn and I went crazzy.

Within five hours I got tierd and had ripped up almost a third of it!

My mom came out of the house right when I took the picture.
One of the crazziest experiences of my life. It seems so foren to be working towards killing your lawn. Their were so many grub it was discusting but every time I brought a load of sod across the street into the bush half there population in robins were pecking at them! Whords of them would fly in.
Grass is so compleatly over rated, I'd take a sea of clover any day(I've said that so many times)!
Anyways I'm going to take progressive photographs of the yard as I go along cause I'm thinking of turning it into a japanese style garden and I have it in my head that it already is there and as I take the pictures I can calculate the future of it or at least the next step . They haven't been trimed for years, still have some hips on them from last year. Any one have any experience or good sites about japanese gardening? I think the hardest task will be blending the garden into the side of the house, that's why I posted these two picks insted of other views.
Well I'll leave it to you guys for now !
I'm going to go get some trees tomorrow.
Josh.

Just stopping in.....I have no valid input, here, but I had to respond...you are a hoot!!!

I use a photo program to clone plants, trees, etc. from other photos onto a photo of my yard that I am working on. Then I know exactly what it's going to look like when I get done. I love to go out and take a photo of a blank area that needs some landscaping, then do the whole project on the computer first. It gets me more inspired when I can see what my work is going to look like when I'm done, and you can rearrange everything until it looks right, so the finished product will be perfect! If you want a hedge somewhere, a rock pathway, a row of trees...just zap it on with a computer and you can see what it's gonna look like.

:rolleyes: Thanks Jillie! I've got insperation that's why! You should see it up close. It looks like the soils been airated! I now have a robin infestation .
That's a good idea Cindy but the only problem is I'd be putting trees on top of non exsitent forms...

While I was working in the flower beds today I found a lot of grubs. I thought about what you had said about the birds, so I got an empty plant container and started throwing the grubs into it. On my way into the house I dumped it in my bird garden. They went wild!!!

They're still having fun here.
I took a break so I bet they're all back digging again <img border="0" alt="[perplexed]" title="" src="graemlins/confused.gif" /> .

An Update!
End of day two which was monday.

I got all the bricks lined up and the clover seed in(don't know anything about clover breading) I also put a row of some what decaying wood to suport the earth I levled out on the left. I don't know what I was thinking at that point. Do you think the fungus as in not the mushroom kind(at least yet) will be a hasard to my garden? Their was liquidy goo fungus growing on some of them but I scraped it off. Is their some organic/non harmfull product I should spray the logs with as the point of this was to avoid pesticides weed killer and fertilizer? I planted alot of local moss I collected in the cracks and anywhere I could fit it on the logs so that should take it over sooner or later. The moss here seems to adapt to the sun as long as it stays wet but if it doesn't cover the logs it will still have plenty of space to look nice on them .
I would put the pic I took but it was right when I finished placing them and does it no justice!
I'm trying to think of a fern like plant or something that will grow over the logs but not cover them so that the moss will be happier. It needs to handle full sun to part shade for the last 3-4h of light and be hardy up to zone 2b lets say. It's in a place were it might even get killed from to much snow piled on it from the neighbours shovling their drive way so something that dies back and/or should be dug up in winter anyways.
For anyone interested here's where I've gotten so far turning one of those blue star junipers into a bonsai. I'd say I've gotten half way through the prunning(just need to thin out all the branches now so it doesn't look like a bush) and then I need to start getting it in a smaller pot.
The pot is cut off in this pic

I'll try to get a better pic of the log thing on here soon so that you can understand what the plant needs to do.
Thanks for looking

Your yard looks great apples:) I love the juniper bonsai too. I have always wanted to try that. Do you just take a cutting from a bush & trim it to look like a tree after it roots?

I forgot to mention...I have trailing soapwort growing in an old rotting half hallow log with moss & it is doing great & looks really neat.

Thanks crissy!
This one is fairly large. The pot it's in is about a foot wide. I got it at rona depot for $24.
I got three. They are good trees to work with just feel inside the shaggy bush what the trunk is like and the lower branches, if it's thick and tapered with low branches it's good. Then just trim untill you get the disired shape! These ones were instant bonsai's, I got lucky! Within two years it should be in a formal bonsai pot and the little scars fully healed. If you are going to start one I recomend some reading first. The only trick there is to this tree in the pic is to take off all the branches and needles growing off the bottom of the main branches to show off the shape of the branches, it realy makes it look more convincing! I know in the states(in your money) you can get junipers in a gallon pot for five bucks, definitly under ten. If your going to try a juniper I suggest that as the tree's you will find will be much more suited to bonsai then the wild types.
If you want to try though the way to go is air layering. If not it will take quite a few years to get a good trunk and then you'll have to get it back into a small pot which will take at leat two years. I don't know if the wild types of junipers train well small I've never tried yet.
Anyways take a less then five year old branch(I don't know how to figgure that out) probably about a little bigger then a pencil width and twist wire around it tight an inch below were you want roots, put sphagnum moss, wrap with plastic and twist tie it shut . That will get you a pretty nice tree with a canopy of about a foot wide in two or three years! But it's still not a shure thing. maby try different air layering techniques at the same time and see if one works!
God, I realy like talking about bonsai don't I?!?

Thanks for all of the bonsai info apples...I think I am going to actually give it a try:) You can talk bonsai to me anytime...I am really interested in this type of gardening. I have a very small yard...we just moved into town from the country this past winter, so I have lost the ability to really add trees to my landscaping. I figure with bonsai, I could still enjoy growing trees...just little versions of them:)

!! I was just thinking, I'll try not to pm you a book now that you said that. I'm not that experienced but i've learnded so much from my books, the internet, and this bonsai forum I visit. NOw that it's spring I can finaly realy get started on this hobby .