When Garden Help Goes Wrong

[Beekissed]

Antique dealers have a saying, old money will buy a antique and want it to show its age. New money will buy a antique and want it to look new.

I fall in the "no money" zone...that one where you find a well worn antique with whatever patina time has put on it, find it pleasing to the eye and a STEAL on price because the people who own it thinks it looks like a grubby old thing their family has owned forever and they want NEW furniture, not that old stuff. That's me...I like old, sturdy things that I can still use for their practical purpose but having that patina that I love so well.

I wouldn't have washed the algae and moss off your bird bath either, NY Birds bathe in mud puddles around here, so they don't really want or need bleached clean bowls in which to take a drink or bath.

Every time I clean waterers around here, bleaching them clean and filling them with crystal clear water, I see the dogs, cats and chickens bypass them and drink out of some stagnate puddle with chicken poop in it. Never fails. Maybe they like "patina" on their watering holes too?

 

[seedcorn]

Probably like me, don't like smell taste of bleach......yuck!

 

[thistlebloom]

Oh, and what's "scrub brush?"

It depends on who's cutting it down. Some folks might say lilacs, for example.

At my house, my definition is the stuff that's growing where I want an open area. But I almost never grub out service berry. Snowberries, yes. They are ubiquitous and send runner roots out everywhere, but I like them and appreciate their foliage and the white berries. I just don't need 10 acres of them.

 

[Nyboy]

scrub brush = like used to clean toilets

 

[digitS']

Syringa!

About those snowberries:

the grouse like them. Shoot a grouse in winter and he will be full of snowberries. But yeah, it's difficult to understand why there isn't a grouse every 20' since there are so many snowberries around here.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

I would NEVER force my ideas on another gardener, BUT, I like the "scrubbed clean look" myself. However, it doesn't work well if you are trying to grow moss.

 

[Carol Dee]

Patina wins every time.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i admit, i wouldn't want to drink from any container that smells like it was recently bleached either. can't stand when my local tap water gets that bleach smell/taste at certain times of the year. with all the rain/snow this time of year it will start up soon.

i will clean water dishes for my animals a couple times a week but i don't usually bleach them. i will replace after some time or switch to using them as feed bowls. as long as they get some time to air out & washed with soap & water they are usually good.

i'm hesitant to have my DH help in the garden & he has said many times he will help with it. i just wish he would show that he is willing to separate his behind from the couch & eyes from the computer/tv & notice when i head out the door to work on stuff. i tell him when i'm going out but i find he still looses track of time. by the time he finally gets out the door i'm done with my project.

 

[Nyboy]

At work we use paper dishes for food, thrown away.Water is in stainless steel buckets which get soaked in bleach and water then rinsed out everyday.

 

[bobm]

Last week the City water supply line in the middle of our cul de sac sprung a leak. I called the water dept. who sent out an engineer 3 days later, who spray painted the area on the blacktop to be cut . Another 3 days and a crew of 2 showed up who made the saw cuts , then left. 2 days later, a crew of 3 showed up and dug down to their armpits. They then cut the pipe and installed a new section of the water pipe and a new water anti--syphon valve. Two days later we started to taste chlorine in our tap water going on now for 3 days. I guess that the City does't want us to get sick from the contamination.