Dealing with Weeds

An appealing alternative to digging by hand, particularly on larger sites, is to rent machinery. Although it will increase costs, it will speed up site clearance, save energy, and be great fun as well as being invaluable for heavy work such as breaking concrete. “Mini” machines, including diggers, dumpers, tractors and their accessories, are perfect for small-scale landscaping. Before hiring, check the width of the access to save embarrassment!

Find out the location and depth of services-electricity and water-which may run across your garden, and keep details of your findings. You can rent tools designed for this purpose; though be sure to use them according to the manufacturer’s instructions. If necessary, contact the relevant authorities to obtain a plan of the site. To avoid damage to other areas of the garden, mark the machines’ route across the plot using brightly painted canes with rags attached to the top, or to the twine between them. Indicate the relevant depths of cables or pipes on temporary signs as a useful reminder. Beware of using large machinery under low power cables; if in doubt, hire an experienced operator to do the job for you, but make sure they know which features are to remain by marking them clearly. Once all the major ground clearance is complete, plough or till the site to break up compacted soil, particularly on the heavy ground, incorporating soil conditioners if necessary. Take care to avoid bringing any subsoil to the surface when digging or rotavating.

Dealing with Weeds - Seedlings or Established Plants

The biggest factor in deciding how to deal with weeds is whether they are small seedlings or established plants. The latter is far harder to control and survive more brutal attacks than seedlings, which succumb to almost any weeding regime. To put it another way, those common weeds of bare, well-cultivated soil may be legion but are all relatively easy to deal with and pose no problem for the diligent gardener. In some ways, seedlings do not need to be identified (except by their habit of springing from seed and their being vulnerable), but it is easier to get rid of them if you can recognize the different types from an early stage. A good idea is to put some garden soil in a tray on the windowsill and watch the seedlings come up. Remove any duplicates, leaving one of each sort to grow on until you can identify what it is. This soon gets your eye in and will simplify weeding out the commonest offenders earlier on.

Established weeds are a different matter. They are much more difficult to control because their reserves allow them to survive many weeding attempts and to grow through mulches. The worst are the spreaders, which root and run everywhere, such as mints, stinging nettles, and bindweeds. It is essential that you recognize these early on so you can deal with them promptly. Tap-rooted weeds, such as docks and thistles, also recover from light weeding and need several attempts to clear them. These are often a problem in lawns.

Identifying Common Lawn Weeds

Most lawn weeds are easy to spot-they are not grass. Others might be grass, but not the right grass! Common and unwanted lawn weed grasses are the tussock-forming rough grasses, running, spreading knotgrasses, and the annual seeding grasses. The first and second sorts are usually found in neglected lawns and annual seeding grasses in well-maintained but heavily cut and worn lawns, where they appear in the worn patches. Mosses are only usually a problem if a lawn has poor drainage or shade, or the sod is not healthy enough to out-compete it. They are easy to spot as they look like shreds of wool.

In very wet and acid soils, rushes (Luzula campestris), with their round, grass-like stems, move in. Clovers (Trifolium spp.), with their distinctive three-lobed leaves and pompom flowers loved by bumblebees, are common lawn weeds. They can be spotted easily when the grass browns because patches of clover stay green. Similar is the trefoils and yarrow (Achillea millefolium), with its silvery leaves.

Then there are the tap-rooted and rosette-forming weeds, such as docks, dandelions (Taraxacum officinale), plantains (Plantago spp.), and thistles (Cirsium or Sonchus spp.). Regular cutting often fails to remove them from closely cropped lawns

Lawns on acid soils with fine-bladed grasses often get speedwell (Veronica filiformis) infestations, which, although their little flowers are pretty, are hard to treat. Wetter acid soils may be choked with buttercups (Ranunculus spp.) andifa lawn is too closely cut it will tend to have a lot of daisies (Bellis perennis).

Understanding Weeds and Weed Control

Weeds are essentially plants growing in the wrong place. All of our gardens are potentially full of them and even if at some point we succeed in eradicating every weed from our plot, they will reappear as if from nowhere. Light seeds fly in on the wind (thistles and rosebay willowherb), birds drop seeds from berries they have eaten (bramble and elder), and perennials like bindweed, ground elder, brambles, and ivy creep insidiously through boundaries from neighbouring gardens and fields. Weeds can even hitch a lift with new plants—many a garden has been infested with bittercress whose seeds and seedlings were inadvertently planted along with a new shrub or herbaceous perennial. This annual weed matures rapidly and soon fires its seed out of taut pods, colonizing around new plants.

Keeping our gardens as clear of weeds as we can is important not just from an aesthetic point of view, but also because weeds tangle themselves up with our cultivated plants, competing for space, light, air, water, and nutrients. Their eradication and control may seem like a chore, but weeding can be surprisingly satisfying and is best tackled little and often. Clearing an area of weeds also brings us into close proximity with our plants. Enjoying the peppery fragrance of lupins, the textural buds on moss roses and the mouthwatering aromas from aniseed-scented Agastache or rosemary are some of the side-benefits of weeding.

Even if we can’t prevent weeds appearing, there are plenty of j of ways to control them and make life as difficult as possible for them.