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Weeds and weeding - basics and how to clear a neglected area
Weeds are sent to remind us that we just borrow our gardens from the surrounding countryside, even if you live right in the heart of the city, they tell us that it shouldn't really be like that and that mother nature wants it back. Know your weed I'm not going to attempt to describe the hundreds - thousands, of plant species that are classed as weeds as I don't really see the point. We just want to get rid of them right? So lets just start with broad categories. Annual weeds These grow from seed every year and frequently arrive after an area of previously untouched soil has been disturbed (they've sat in the soil maybe for years). The exposure to light and oxygen stimulates dormant seeds into growth. They are fairly straightforward to get rid of as they tend to have shallow roots. The main danger with these is that they are prodigious seed producers and they run to seed very quickly after flowering, and produce a huge amount of seed. "One years seeds seven years weeds" is very true. The famous poppies that covered the battle fields in the first world war grew quickly from the ground being disturbed by the rain of shells exposing millions of dormant seeds in the soil. Perennial weeds
How to get rid of entrenched perennial weeds One of the commonest questions I get asked. There is no easy answer. You cannot go out this afternoon perform some low-effort trick and be rid of them forever - to be able lay your lawn, sow your vegetable patch - tomorrow or even next week. If you have an area that is choked with perennial weeds, then you can't really do much at all with it until the weeds are cleared. Understanding the weeds
Time dependent weed removal If you're not in a hurry, then you're lucky and your weed eradication programme will be a lot easier. The organic approach - non chemical. This relies on covering the weeds so that light can't get to them, I'd start by cutting them back with shears, strimmer or even a rotary lawnmower set on the highest setting as long as the ground was fairly even and there was no danger of hitting rocks and stones. Then you need to cover the area with something - old carpet is a good choice as it's very dense and will block out all of the light and heavy enough not to flap about in the wind, just anchor down the corners and edges with bricks or something. Plastic can also be used be used, but it needs to be dense enough to keep all light out, cheap bin-liners are too thin for the job and blow about everywhere. Every month or so pull back the carpet, remove any growth and put it back again. The weeds will keep pulling on the store to produce more leaves, but the store never gets replenished. Eventually the roots die and your perennial weeds are gone - this could take a year or more. I'd recommend you mix and match this with the effort category methods too. You could also grass the area over and mow them out - level the ground roughly, clear it and sow grass seed - the cheapest will do. Mow the grass regularly when it comes up and after a year or so most or all weeds will have been mown down continuously and killed and / or out-competed by the grass. Start to dig the grass up in beds to plant what you want. The non-organic approach - chemical attack. Use a glyphosate containing weedkiller, these are taken up by the leaves and carried (translocated) all over the plant right down to the root tips too. They are neutralised on contact with the soil, but will kill any plants they come into contact with. Don't remove any leaves before starting, you need the weeds to have the maximum area for take-up of the chemical. They are pretty slow acting (as they're pretty thorough) and take 2-3 weeks to kill all the foliage, don't touch the weeds for this time. They also work best in spring and summer during active growth - at cold and inactive times of the year, they can be almost ineffective. When the original foliage has died down, collect it up and dispose of it, I put it in the bin to be on the safe side. You then need to stand back and watch for recovery / regrowth - there will always be some. Let this grow until there is a reasonable amount of leaf surface and repeat spray with the weedkiller again. 2 applications are usually enough, though you may even need 3 if you've a lot of bramble, Japanese knotweed or something similar. Then dig the area over thoroughly before planting. Effort dependent weed removal Most people don't have or aren't prepared to wait the several months or longer it need to kill weeds by the above methods, so it's a question of some hard graft needed instead. 1/ root attack - It's not rocket science, using a garden fork start at one end of the area where the weeds are. Dig up a fork full of soil and then break it up with the fork, pick out the roots and shake the soil off, put them in a bucket - continue. The more thorough you are at breaking up the clods and removing pieces of root, the more effective your eradication will be. This can be very time consuming and digging out some weed roots is like trying to remove large balls of loose spaghetti from within the soil - you'll be amazed at how much stuff you can dig up from a small area but it will explain how the weeds keep coming back time and time again. You'll never get all of the roots out in this way, but you will reduce the stores very considerably. 2/ Leaf attack - Every time you remove the leaves you are depleting the stores. If the leaves get large enough, they will start to replenish the stores, so keep on pulling them up. 3/ Individual attack - this works well for individual perennial weeds in beds or lawns. Using a trowel or hand weeder tool, push it down by the side of the weed as deep as you can go and start a digging action until you hear/feel a "snap" of the tap root, the rest of the weed leaves and long portion of root can be removed with the other hand. This can be very satisfying if you can get a particularly long piece of root with the leaves too. One of the best tools for this approach is an old narrow kitchen knife that you can push down and cut through the tap root below the ground. The combined attack - Recommended Approach. Assuming a large bed of entrenched perennial weeds:
Dealing with ongoing weeding tasks |
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A
perennial weed has an underground store room and above ground leaves to fill the
store room. If the leaves are removed, stores are taken to grow some more. As soon
as the leaves are big enough, they can start to fill the store again. What you need
to do is stop the leaves being able to fill the store, but just removing them isn't
going to make the store go away. As far as the plant is concerned leaves and store
act together as a long-lived seed producing factory.