This follows my earlier posting about glyphosate (and neighbours). I have now cleared most of the weeds so how can I keep the ground clear meantime?
I believe glyphosate works on green leaves so would not be effective on barren soil. Sodium chlorate is now banned. Agent Orange banned by the UN! I have heard vinegar is effective, also old carpet. Is there a good way to maintain an area of ground free of weeds?
Mulch. I run twigs/hedge clippings through the shredder and used the result to cover the ground and suppress weeds.
Thanks. We don't have a hedge or a shredder but I know a landscape gardener. Maybe he could supply this if asked. Does it improve the soil or the opposite?
Mulch has to be continuously replaced or it turns into fertile humus.
Black weed discouraging membrane covered by 4" of gravel is about as close as you can get - but even that fails after a decade or so and will need topping up. Plenty of weeds can survive in trivial amounts of soil.
One particularly annoying small fleshy sedum album in particular can grow and flower on roofs round here with no soil at all to speak of.
You can buy membrane designed to do just this. Allows water through, but stops weeds growing. Won't stop roots creeping under it 'till they find a way up, though - things like brambles.
Concrete's quite good, except against Japanese knotweed of course! That'll come up through anything.
But as long as they can be picked out easily, it seems a fair compromise ?
Thanks :-)
I was looking for an arrangement that is later reversible when a decision is made about the garden. .
Vinegar, salt and borax.
Could you give me an idea of quantities? I assume not particularly harmful as harm goes to dogs etc?
I think it can only be used for bleaching paper. Maybe I will find a lot of paper that needs to be bleached and obviously do this outside.
Old carpets work, so does concrete. A fabric and chips needs an annual application of weed killer, I would skip the fabric: seeds will come in from above. Mulching makes the weeds easy to pull out, but provides them nutrients to grow well. Forget vinegar etc. There is no easy solution. I have a patch of clover that I have sown, 15m by 15, it does out compete most weeds, but I have pulled weeds out of it too.
Picked out yes. Easily no. I designed the VH low maintainence garden and the only part that has stood the test of time without weed problem was mulched thickly with the most expensive dark plum slate. Nothing else came close to being weed free. The gravels end up being weed beds.
Nothing like as bad as open soil but bad enough to need spraying off at least twice a year and picking over in between. Thistles can punch through weed preventing membrane or at least find an edge.
It will certainly penetrate tarmac - especially at the moment when it is soft enough that the unwary can get themselves stuck in it!
Interesting that it has been declared a weed that neighbours can be compensated for the effects of after the recent X vs Network Rail ruling. It is rather expensive to get controlled/eliminated.
Some thistles and surprisingly shaggy inkcap fungi are also incredibly penetrating and have smashed up the local tarmac footpaths here. Maybe they were done on the cheap and are not thick enough...
How is NR supposed to get rid of the weeds if all the decent weedkillers have been banned?
They can't.
If there was then somebody would be making a fortune. You coule make it very radioactive but I doubt that is practical.
Concrete? Brian
only for domestic use. Contractors can get them
You have to persist with glyphosate on it. I finally got rid of it at the old house but it took seven years.
I will need to read the case then because as a general proposition a person has to take reasonable care. Achieving the impossible is not normally demanded by law !!!
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