(August 3, 2012 at 9:30 pm)whateverist Wrote: I would love to hear more about that tomato extract, jonb. I'm thinking of yanking the lawn for a low growing groundcover anyway. Do you work in garden design/build or maintenance? (This may wind up being my third career.)
I can't remember now what the extracts were called but there were a number of different manufactures. Grass where I was gardening could take far more punishment than other ground cover. My advice would be if you want to walk on it, but it looks patchy and uneven and can't get it to look smooth is to go the other way introduce wild flowers to some parts grow the grass to different heights, some bits treat as a pasture and you could have mown paths through it or if it is a small area you could cut it tightly at the paths edge and then let it graduate into wilderness. A lawn does not have to be conventional, it can have different coloured grasses sown in drifts to make patterns, scented plants like thymes and chamomiles can be planted into it, to add a bit of sensuality into a roll in the hay.
If you are going to work for yourself, the best advice I got was to, only work in gardens you like. A gardener gets so much work through word and mouth, and it is hard to do a good job in a place you don't like. You will be doing yourself a favour by turning down the jobs places people you feel ify about.
