Salting the Earth!

[fromtheshires]

Gardening Guru's
I have recently purchased a house and for once in my adult life, I actually have a garden thats more than just a few slabs so will be asking several questions on here when the weather gets better.

Anyway, my first question. I have a strip of about 7 inches wide between the pavement and my garden wall running the length of the house and garden. This is currently filled with stones and some weeds that have been left to grow by the previous occupants. As this is on the outside of the garden, I dont want plants in there and I dont particularly want to weed it every few weeks.

If I put a load of salt water down to kill the weeds (I assume I will need to pull them up when they are dead? - can you tell I'm a total novice), can I somehow put down enough salt to ever stop anything growing in this little strip of land? Also roughly how much salt should be used.

A gardening guru I am not, but it does seem rather gloomy to have and entirely dead strip of earth surrounding your house! Can you not plant it over with something spreading and low maintenance? Campanula seems to be taking over half my garden, and looks pretty all year round, for instance. The real gurus will have some better suggestions, I'm sure.

The trouble with plants is that they will grow wherever they can get a toehold. Better to accept it than fight it.

Campanula is indeed immortal and looks nice. It should stop uglier weeds getting in.

I like erigeron which is similarly tough, but might be a bit taller than you would like.

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Thyme is lower profile and scented. Saxifrage might like it if it is sunny (London Pride is a nice type)

www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/erigeron-karvinskianus/classid.2000013202/?affiliate=googleproductfeed&gclid=CjwKCAjwwPfVBRBiEiwAdkM0HfnNk6DM_0RDpMvCpQpLv7Z1ROvxp0-qg7Xt4_HzuF3yLFALJ6S_rRoCNSwQAvD_BwE

Try that link again. Erigeron.

If you really want a scorched earth patch you can use something like Pathclear, which you can spray on a couple of times a year. It will kill anything and will slow down regrowth. You need to get one of the ones that clearly says it will continue working for a while.

And if you are thinking ‘oh but I don’t want to use a poison’ salt is a poison. As is much of the crap thrown up from the road.

Personally I’d be going with Erigeron but I’m a bit pink and fluffy like that.

Ps if you want Erigeron don’t worry about buying it, I’ve never got a bought one to live, just ask for a clump when you walk past somewhere with lots and they will happily rip some up for you. Shove it roughly in the area where you want it and it will either flourish or disappear. If it disappears don’t bother trying again, go for campanula.

Wouldn't it be easier to just concrete it?

A friend put a line of rock salt crystals along the bottom of a chain link fence to stop the grass growing up through the fence where it couldn't be mowed / strimmed. He said it worked for a few years. Maybe get some road salt (not grit!) and tip it on? The rain will dissolve it into the ground.

The only trouble with campanula is that once you have it you will never be without it. Great for bees, though, and it is currently doing a grand job in my garden of concealing the ugliest retaining wall ever made. I should quite like to shake whoever built it.

Am I the only perso in the world who cannot grow campanula ?

I’ll join the Campanula not growing club! 😁 I plant it and then after one season it’s gone. The same with Aubretia.

Yes, me to with aubretia. I also have trouble growing garden mint. Every other variety of mint grows really well.

Dear Lord, can you ladies come and discourage the campanula in my garden? Every year I root out bucketsful, and every year it rampages back as if I hadn't touched it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I could concrete it, but I like having the stones.

The reason I thought about salt was it wont matter if it is dry or not just after application (my luck would be it rains straight after applying the weed killer) as it will still seep into the ground.

The ground below the gravel is pure clay so not sure if anything will every grow that well there but weeds. My 'grass' is mostly crab grass and moss so I will need to think about that at some point as well.

Why not lay some weed barrier down under the stones? That way you stop weeds and don't poison the soil.

Salt is soluble and will only act as a very short term weed killer. I spray a combination of roundup and a residual weedkiller for this sort of area, but I'm not sure if this is available to domestic users.

How about mint? It is believed to deter rats and mice.

I've decided to embrace nature and take thing the (almost) natural route.

I spent three hours yesterday pulling up all the weeds in the gravel / clay and it looks a lot nicer. I've thrown a bit of Weedol down one one weed as it was really spikey but the rest I've pulled by hand. Half a black bag in 30ft by (now I've measured it) 11 inches.

I think I'm going to just leave the public side clear from plants but on my side of the wall I will get some trellis and climbing roses or so,thing to make it look nice and provide a bit of protection from wall jumpers.

I then worked on the inside of the garden wall and pulled up all the garden weeds that had never been pulled in years from the editing stones and between the patio slabs. Finally I got a wire brush and scrubbed the mosssy grass stuff off the pointing on the retaining wall. I now have a totally clear set of gardens and cannot wait to do something with them

how about mind-your-own-business? .
i have it in a strip between my and next door fence.