Weedkillers do not kill the weeds in my garden

I had a weed burner but my son confiscated it 😐

Woollywoman

Love that description, BlueBelle…

It’s lovely isn’t it 😃

Love that description, BlueBelle…

I agree with Septima..boiling water always works for me. I’d never use a chemical weed killer.

Dandelions are the most maligned of flowers they are really wonderful have all sort of properties within them that are good for us and the ground They were an adored plant in past centuries it’s just now we ve decided to hate them
Think of them not as wet pant plants but the sun (the flower) the moon (the white seed heads) and the stars (the seeds that fly)

I dislike dandelions, think it's because when I was little my mum always told me not to pick them because they'd make me wet my pants!

I'm sure you're right Luckygirl3.

Churchview

Salt isn't good for wildlife. It harms amphibians, birds, gets into the food chain and runs off into ponds and streams where it harms fish. It also washes into the soil and harms other plants.

It is only small amounts in the cracks of a path with nowhere to go really from here. I feel it is better than toxic weed killers.

I leave the buttercups in my lawn but dig them up if they appear in the flower beds. They get surprisingly huge if they're not competing with grass.

Salt isn't good for wildlife. It harms amphibians, birds, gets into the food chain and runs off into ponds and streams where it harms fish. It also washes into the soil and harms other plants.

Interesting article Bluebelle, thanks.
I'll add point number 11. A dandelion is called a pissenlit in French, because you'll wet the bed if you eat one! 😆 (mentioned in point 3).

Oooo buttercups! I bet we all remember shining them under chins to see if we liked butter! 😆

BlueBelle

Dandelions were adored until recent decades They are a wonderful source of so much
Read up on them

www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/

I love my dandelions ... and the buttercups. Beautiful splashes of yellow.

M0nica

The problem is that these weeddkillers have been made less and less powerful. Either there are bans stopping domestic consumers using certain weedkillers available to farmers or it is so diluted it is useless.

I find that the solution is to double or triple the amount of weedkiller for every litre of water in the spray. I did this this morning and last night and all the weeds on my gravel access road and on the garden paths are shrivelled and brown. However it does work out very expensive. But now I have knocked the spring flush of weeds, next week and thereafter I will be going around with my weed burner.

Weeds in gravel and paths can be killed with cooking salt. Just sprinkle over each one and they dry put and die in a few days. Cheap and environmentally friendly.

That’s lovely BlueBelle. Maybe we should start a dandelion appreciation society!

Dandelions were adored until recent decades They are a wonderful source of so much
Read up on them

www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/

I only mind them much when they grow on my patio and some cracked concrete on the drive, cant afford to have it "redone", which is slabs but the gaps grow weeds in them, its impossible to cut roots outs they have got under slabs which must have been laid before I came without properly covering the earth.

I try to keep a lot of variety of flowering plants in my garden, some are native, some aren't & they flower from feb to november. But if I let weeds grow unchecked I would pretty soon have bindweed, that creeping blue calendula, dandelions, brambles +++ & not a lot else.
The only thing I use weedkiller on is the calendula, it runs riot & seeds in this garden. Don't think it's a native anyway, & I do dig it up as well.

M0nica

Its not the yellow dandelion flower that people dislike. It is the blow away seed head that follows and scatters all over the garden and gives even more dandelions the next year.

Like tourists, you can have too much of a good thing.

I agree.

Pretty flowers, then suddenly the clocks are blowing everywhere! Before you know it, they've taken over the garden. There are plenty of insect and bee-friendly flowers we can plant, in fact bees seem to prefer the blue and purple ones in our garden.

Weed killers kill all manner of wildlife that we desperately need to encourage. Very helpful advice advice available on the RHS website. You don’t need to be a member to read it….

Its not the yellow dandelion flower that people dislike. It is the blow away seed head that follows and scatters all over the garden and gives even more dandelions the next year.

Like tourists, you can have too much of a good thing.

Just don’t understand the dandelion hate, how is this not beautiful in a lawn? Why are daisies considered pretty and dandelions not?
All in eye of the beholder I suppose. But as others have said, remember their to value to pollinators

I only use weed killers on hard surfaces - and that infrequently. I am not sure what else one can do. Lay concrete paths everywhere?

Nature provides the 'weeds' and it will also provide the solution as to how to control them and as you have already realised it isn't weedkiller.

Churchview

I trained with the RHS and the best piece of advice I've ever received was this old gardener's joke.

When's the best way to tackle mares tail/bindweed?
Weed on Sunday.
Which Sunday?
Every Sunday.

50 years of gardening have proved this true.

I garden organically and never use weed killer. Only persistence really works and then only temporarily. Nature will always win.

I was horrified when I realised there was a small growing mares tail weed in my garden one time. But the thing was I go by the best way to deal with a weed problem is the "gardeners eye" - ie regular inspection of a garden and one spots the problem early on.

So I spotted it when it was still just one plant and just a few inches high. It was in between the old paving stones and cracked concrete my garden had when I bought this house. So I literally got out my nail scissors and cut it down right down to the ground, poured boiling water over it a couple of times and then covered it up with a spare bit of old paving stone.

I repeated that once or twice and that did the trick and it never got any further. The old spare bit of paving stone was so that it couldnt receive any light to help its growth along.

Also there are some sycamore trees not that far away and I have always spotted sycamore seedlings trying to establish themselves here when they were just a few inches high - and, at that height, one quick tug on them and you've pulled them up and can bin them. My garden would have a noticeable number of young sycamore trees a few feet high by now if I didn't check it out regularly for troublesome stuff like that.