Any plant in the wrong place can be a weed but some plants are weeds where ever they grow. Invasive plants and green gardening problems
What is the collective noun for a group of dandelions? A drift or adrift in my garden!
With so many potential ‘clocks’ ticking away to dispersal I wonder at the number of flowers on this fine weed. (Dandelion makes a wine but I am not so sure that it is quite so ‘fine’.)
Bindweed can be deceptively attractive except when flowering in my garden. I would call their group noun a ‘knot’ or a pestilence of convolvulous. Heaven forbid that they should become a congregation!
When is a weed not a weed? Well not very often if it is growing in the wrong place. If you have planted Persicaria then that is Knot a weed it is a notweed or not depending on your spelling.
Persicaria affinis aka Polygonum affine Common Name: ‘Knotweed’ flower from late summer until the frosts with spires of red, pink or white flowers held aloft as with these massed plants by the lake at Grewlthorpe.
There are over 150 species of Knotweed which get their common name from the swollen nodes on the stems.
Comfrey juice concentrate or nettle juice stink but Seaweed extract is a weed to feed your garden. In fact seaweed is arguably the best weed in your garden.
Seaweed is an algae generally living in saltwater. There are over 10,000 species in green, brown and red.
Brown algae Ascophyllum nodosum cc 2.5
Will the EU ban the garden use of glyphosphate the best chemical cure for Couch grass?
Couch grass is an invasive perennial garden weed.
In the north of England it is called twitch but elsewhere it is called quick grass, quitch, dog grass, quackgrass, scutch grass, and witchgrass.
The latin species names are Elytrigia repens or Elymus repens.
Bellis or Daisy is recognised by it’s flat rosettes of oval leaves and small white yellow eyed flowers. They tend to form colonies that hug the ground to smother out nearby grass. From the boots of the ‘My old mans a dustman’ song, ‘it takes such a job to pull them up that he calls them daisy roots’ the best treatment is a selective weed killer that may need a couple of applications. Alternatively each root can be dug out by hand.
Dandelion leaves are recognised by long hairless coarsely toothed leaves that form large rosettes. They form dense mat to suppress the nearby plants or grass. The flowers are bright yellow and self-seed freely from Dandelion clocks the globular seed heads we blew as children. The long tap root will regrow unless removed completely or killed by systemic weed killer. Spot treat the weed with a touchweeder or selectively apply a weed killer. Burning and boiling water on the leaves may have some impact on crazy paving but i don’t find it works on lawns.
Buttercups stunt nearby plants and make the lawn look uncared for. remove by hand or normal weed killers.
Clover has shamrock shaped leaves (not real rocks as you find in rockeries). Clover stays green in drought and as a leguminous plant its roots provide nitrogen for grass but the pink or white flowers are intrusive. As clover thrives on poor soil feed the lawn and use a grass box on the mower to remove seed heads. Lawn sand may be used to treat the problem.
Plantains have large leaf rosettes that can smother grass and compete for vital nutrients. Fork out by hand or treat individually.
Annual meadow grass hosts harmful eelworms and is hard to control with weed killers. The leaves are short tufts and strap shaped with tiny coarse flowers. in summer they can die back leaving patches. Feed the lawn well and use the grass bow when mowing. really bad investations may need re sowing or turfing.
Moss is a dense low growing mat of greenery that affects badly drained lawns. It is too short to be cut by a mower but a lawn that itself is cut too short can attract moss instead of grass. Feed the lawn with a weed and feed fertiliser or use lawn sand containing a moss killer. Scarify and improve drainage by forking over the lawn
Lawn Tool Tips
Bindweed after being sprayed – note the stick it has been trained to grow up makes it easier to spray”. Bindweed will grow up living plants and throttle them if left unchecked.
My first garden in Oxford had been neglected for 10 or 20 years. Bindweed had run rampant throughout the garden, there was no alternative but to spend many hours and many years before I was able to bring it under control.
This is the strategy I used for bringing a bindweed garden under control.
1. Dig up Roots. If bindweed is well established, it will have developed an extensive system of roots which will make it resistant to the odd spray. I suggest starting by having a thorough dig taking a section of the garden one at a time. Don’t try to dig the whole garden as you will be depressed at the scale of the job. Start with a manageable section and dig deep to get as much of the white root as possible.
If the soil is dry it is easier to separate the roots from the soil. It actually becomes quite satisfying job, seeing how much of the white roots you can dig up. You will want to go at least as deep as a full spade blade. Lift up the soil and shake of the soil surrounding the roots. Be relatively gentle as the roots are quite brittle and new weeds will grow from even small bits of root. When the ground is dug over, you can start planting as you won’t have to dig it again.
Dandelion – Weed or Plant of beauty?
The question is, what kind of plants fall into the weed category? As gardeners we sometimes fall into the trap of aiming for perfection and feel guilty about a dandelion growing in the herbaceous border. However, a dandelion has a certain natural beauty. Even its seed heads are beautiful. The problem is we have been conditioned to think that the dandelion is a ‘weed’ and therefore needs to be always removed. Sometimes it is a matter of changing our perspective. Rather than feel guilty about the dandelions in the grass, why not appreciate its simple beauty?
There are many ‘so called weeds’ which actually are quite attractive – eg Daisy’s, Poppy’s, Thistles
This does not mean we want dandelions everywhere, but, we can learn to be more tolerant of plants often considered as weeds
So like everyone else you have weeds you want to ‘get rid of’ and here is how.
Good weeding for next year – a year of seeds is 5 years of weeds.
Common Ragwort Senecio jacobaea or Jacobea vulgaris is a specified weed as it can kill animals that graze on it. Even when cut with hay and wilted it is toxic to horses and cattle. It is not a significant problem in gardens and some claim its toxicity with horses is overstated
Ragwort appreciation society wants to look at the myths and facts
Senecio jacobaea is part of our biodiversity and provides nectar and pollen for many insects. Cinnabar moths can be an effective biocontrol limiting growth and seed production. Eggs are laid in May -June and catterpillars feed on leaves in July- August. Thay can strip a plant down to its stalks
Ulex europaeus better known as Gorse, furze, furse or whin is a very prickly shrub of the pea family. Western gorse Ulex gallii is frequent in the western side of Britain and is relatively low growing yet robust. Dwarf gorse or Ulex minor is a low growing, sprawling shrub.
Read about other Prickly Shrubs