AIBU to be utterly fed up of weeding every weekend?! Please give me your best tips

[polka7]

Ok I'm not that organised that I do it every week.. maybe every 2/3 weeks and only manage a bit at a time that some areas aren't attended to for several weeks. Is it just my garden that produces a vast amount of weed that grow super fast?! (Ashamed to admit some bits had grown to hip height in the past!!) Mostly have patio but every edge on every square has weeds, I don't think I'm always getting managing to pull out the roots. Can't afford to pay someone on a regular basis but open to any tools or sprays etc at this point (haven't used anything in the past, do they really help?). Thanks!

No-dig gardening. Whack a couple of inches of compost on top of your beds each spring, then use a hoe to rake every couple of days. I haven’t had weeds for years.
For patios, we do use weed killer as much as I hate it. We are planning to dig it out and replace a membrane eventually.

My neighbour has recently recommended boiling water with bleach..haven't tried it yet but the weedkiller stuff, liberally applied has done nothing at all.

I use a mix of salt, vinegar and washing up liquid diluted in water.

Fortnightly gardener 😍

Dig up roots
Smother
Plant ground cover plants

A kettle of boiled water poured into a bucket with some bleach? Surely this is crazy time consuming to get through the whole garden?

Say it's a wild garden and just cut it down a couple of times a year, all the rage now apparently, very good for insects and wildlife. We've been calling our green area (possibly meant to be a lawn) a meadow for years.

Salt is really bad for the soil, not good if you want to grow something other than weeds. I use a burner on the weeds that come up between the paving, works well if you keep on top of it and harmless to pets.

Are your hip high weeds actually wild and native wild flowers/grasses? They are really important for insects, so perhaps embrace them. I don't cut down thistles. Were are they? You can plant weed control plants that give ground cover. Try not to use weedkiller, it can kill off all wildlife.

Hoe it.

Firstly you have to know what weeds you have.

Please don’t pour bleach all over your garden, insect numbers are already majorly in decline.

I hate weed killer too as it kills insects and bees.

id just learn to enjoy the weeding and think it therapeutic 😂

Plant more ground cover plants so the weeds have less space to grow. And embrace some of the weeds, don’t worry about them as much!
I don’t use weed killer or pesticides in my garden. I can’t imagine bleach is good for the flowers or wildlife.

The trick is to plant so all ground is covered . Mulch too.

I highly recommend turning a blind eye and then patting yourself on the back for being a safe haven for pollinators 😂

We’ve lived here for five years and we’ve been focusing on spending money on fixing up the house.

The fucking weeds and brambles outside. The patio is old, that takes a couple of hours, then there’s the old drive, then weeds in the borders, then the bloody brambles that have taken over the back garden/down the side of the house. We’ll spend all weekend trying to dig them out/admit defeat and tried spraying different weed killers but they keep coming back stronger. Really we’ve got to spent £20,000+ getting it back to a blank canvas. I used weed killer that’s meant to be able to kill brambles on the weeds on the patio and it’s made them a bit droopy at best.

I’ve spent two hours out there already this morning but it’s bloody awful. I hate it so much I don’t even sit out there anymore let alone open the back curtains.

Just to echo other pp please don't use bleach or weedkiller. We need insects, not to mention how it also kills birds and other wildlife.
No dig is best if you're time constrained, or as others have said, embrace a wildlife friendly garden and know that you are helping our pollinators

We pour boiling water on weeds on the patio as I'm not a fan of chemical weedkillers, it's slower and a bit laborious but effective. There are also recipes online using washing up liquid, bicarb and various other ingredients.

It's definitely faster than doing it by hand. They've been a nightmare this year though.

If it's weeds coming up through the patio we use a blow torch.

Weeds in flowerbeds we mulch or ground cover plants. Some areas are 'wild' which we make neat by edging so it looks purposeful.

Oh and the main bit of the garden would have been a haven for insects in previous years - buddleia, honeysuckle, all kinds of lovely weed flowers for bees and butterflies but we've only seen a handful this year and they have mostly been small and frail but determined.

We live near farmland and last year the flies were an absolute pest. This year, hardly any.

But hey, climate change is a myth according to most powermongers and the book Silent Spring contains the ravings of a mad person.

Hoe for beds. And I'm sorry but Weedon for the patio.

Which burner do you use? @twomanyfrogsinabox

@Ponoka7 yes some are wild flowers/grasses but coming up between patio, against fence, through the lawn etc.

@HotPotato123 I've never used anything for weeds other than my bare hands (but been unwell recently when the weeds grew to hip height, that was relatively easy to pull out but took a long long time) but now have knee issues meaning I can't bend down easily to pull out short weeds. I think a long tool / burner etc could work so I don't need to get down.

@Entangledlife What do you mean by no dig?

@Aconite20 are you literally pouring boiled water from a kettle over grown weeds? Do they die? Or just easier to pull out? How long does this take you and is it effective?

@Frowningprovidence Would you mind recommending a blowtorch?

We have lawn in the front (weeds coming through though and all around the borders) and mostly patio in the back but weeds that grow through every gap and crack with a vengeance. Detached house so both narrowish sides are also full of weeds - some are thorny/sharp and a real nuisance to try to remove. Help!

Definitely don’t throw bleach on your garden! Eventually it makes it into the groundwater and will have an effect on the ecosystem as a whole. Before that it will kill the microorganisms in the soil and change its pH. The same thing goes for weed killer. There are plenty of plants that discourage weeds, just google those and choose some.

@polka7 it's a bit of a family heirloom so I don't actually know the make.

When I was clearing overgrown allotment beds ready for planting I treated myself to lovely audiobooks and would only allow myself to listen to them when tackling getting the plot ready. I found it highly motivating!

This works for doing exceptionally boring housework jobs as well. I am soon going to be starting removing extensive woodchip wallpaper from the house I'm buying and am lining up the audio books ready!

Dense planting. There are areas of my garden where no weeds have a chance. The rest gets 2-3 weeds a year, always starting at the bit that most needs it. I don’t worry about the patio - in summer it’s a lovely mass of harebells