Weedkiller That Works?

Glyphosate. Available dilute as a trigger spray in most garden centres, even supermarkets, but an expensive way to buy it. OK if you've only got a small area to treat as a one-off, but better is to get some concentrate and dilute it according to the instructions. Choose a dry windless day. Be aware that it's not instant - at this time of year it will take probably a couple of weeks before you see any effect, but it will kill deep-rooted weeds, whereas some just kill the top growth and the root re-sprouts and round you go again.

all the stuff that works has been banned

Jim Stewart ... snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com wrote

Thats bullshit with roundup.

If you search ebay for 'Gallup' it finds the concentrate. Note that the

That means a 1 litre bottle of concentrate for about £20 makes 33 litres of solution.

Theo

Spot on.

I buy ~350g/l stump killer, and measure 20ml using a turkey baster into an empty 800ml trigger pack. Don’t use one designed to produce foam.

For ivy and brambles I double the amount and add a couple of drops of washing-up detergent, then agitate gently before using.

Agreed.

Bill

Roundup is a form of Glyphosate. Glyphosate has already been mentioned and is effective.

Otherwise, I agree most other weedkillers that are effective have been banned, usually for good reason. Paraquat is an example, which has an association with Parkinson's disease.

best online price

Available dilute in terms of using any old spray bottle as an applicator and diluting concentrate 20:1 etc

I think the one big issue with much weed killer is that it does also tend to be lethal to insects and other life which feeds on them. I don't think you can buy agent Orange. Brian

Salt. The type that is used on the roads for ice clearing. Spread it all over your gravel and you will see no more weeds. Mike

That is more than somewhat misleading.

It was the nasty dioxin impurities in Agent Orange that caused most of the harm in populations exposed to it and not the herbicide itself (which is still used in places to control grass in rice and wheat).

Glyphosate is astonishingly benign in mammals considering how utterly lethal it is to green plants. We don't possess the photosynthetic pathway that it messes up. Malaria parasites do though and derivatives of glyphosate are under consideration as novel anti-malarials.

The thing that makes weedkillers lethal to life that feeds on plants is that it kills the plants they feed on and then they starve to death.

Classic weedkillers of choice for suicides like Paraquat that interfere with electron transfer were incredibly toxic in humans.

There were usually gramoxone bottles kicking around grandad's farm buildings, we knew not to touch them.

Couch grass grows perfectly well on our piles of grit salt by the roadside as do dandelions.

The OP probably wants to use Pathclear on it next year after knocking everything on the head with dose of glyphosate. Although the modern formulation is rubbish compared to the old one it is it only remaining one with a persistent germination inhibitor in that actually works.

It is nowhere near as good as it used to be but better than any of the alternatives in that it does last a couple of months weed free.

If you boil bleach you will turn sodium hypochlorite into a mixture of the chloride and chlorate forms. If you want a long-lasting path-clear style weedkiller that should do the trick!

I use neat thick bleach from a plastic bottle with an angled nozzle and it works quite quickly and I don't seem to get re-growth on the same spot.

This is presumably after you've come out of hospital as a result of inhaling the chlorine gas so produced ?

bb

So use something safe like Agent Orange or Napalm:-)