There's a couple of building sites near me, and when I go out for a stiff lunchtime walk, to inspect the neighbourhood so to speak, I usually pass one of them - I'm fascinated to see the slabs of insulation go into the cavity walls, for instance, I've popped inside the showhouse on a fine autumn day and been surprised at how warm - hot! - it is.
Anyway, there's still lots of building work going on, and some of it entails taking things out of cardboard boxes and putting the cardboard on that day's skip. And I have a lot of places in my garden that could do with some cardboard mulch - well, all of it. Either its just been weeded, its about to be weeded, its about to be dug up to become border, and in addition to all of that, the whole garden needs more organic material - there's so much clay in this soil that sometimes I don't dig it so much as slice it ... its quite weird, after having been on the chalky soils of the south coast for so long.
Well, there we go. Cardboard! Hmmm, there's a lot of work to be done in this garden, isn't there - still, at least I know its fertile! This pic will be used again, incidentally, in telling the saga of my battle against the sedge .... for now, I'm just admiring the fact that I have good light in this garden, and everything wants to grow.
But thats not all - there were little carpet samples too, at another skip. These are about 15" x 6" - perfect for putting between plants (eventually!), they won't mulch a long strip of land, but they'll do a fine temporary job. I mustn't leave them on too long tho, because they're not natural fibre, and they'll soon break down into my now-organic soil if I'm not careful.
And last but not least, these amazing manufactured stone samples! They're really tiny, I've laid them out on the step up onto the grass. They won't do anything magical except look beautiful in amongst the borders by the house, which will soon be full of slate, pebbles, stones or shells.
I love the way that you think of uses for things from skips. It would never have entered my head to used carpet! I did once have a friend who got a lot of carpet samples from a shop and (I dont know how) she turned them into a patchwork rug. It looked really lovely. Those stone samples are beautiful. I think that they might make a really lovely art piece in the garden.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cheri! That sounds a great idea for a rug, and I might well try that the next time I come across some *dry* pieces of carpet (these samples are very soggy now, lol).
ReplyDeleteThe stone samples really are lovely, aren't they, I was so chuffed to find them.
Ha - when we had the allotment we became lasters of skip-diving, and natural fibre carpet was a prize to be treasured as that CAN be left on areas for the long term. For realy heavy-duty weed supression we used to use a thick layer of cardboard, then carpet, and weight the while lot down with stones found as we were digging the next bit, and just lobbed across!
ReplyDeleteskip diving - how utterly brilliant.
ReplyDeleteLoving all the tips on on here (tips as in advice, not as in skip) :)
I know a local carpet company here gives their samples away - they have loads - worth an ask?
They also advertise them as 'posh recycled' car mats - which I thought was very funny.
Keep up the great work!