How often do you put weedkiller down?

[Whycantistaymotivated]

We have a pebbled front garden with borders. The pebbles always get over run with weeds. Any recommendations?

Thanks from this beekeeper for not using weedkiller, or pesticides.

Love this thread. And it's persuaded me to order a swoe. Am off to investigate using vinegar on weeds...

Ordinary vinegar only kills off the top of the plant and doesn’t touch the root. To kill the root you need to use garden strength which is 20% as opposed to kitchen strength which is 5% or under. If you use the 20% garden strength has the same effect as using chemicals.
If you don’t want to use any chemicals the only real way is to hand weed or use a wand. Even if you can’t get the root out it will over time weaken it but the minute you stop it will grow again.

When we moved into our present house I spent the first spring hand weeding out a large area of ground elder. I seived the soil, I lifted plants and washed the roots and I even removed areas of soil with a heavy root presence and replaced with fresh topsoil. 6 years on I am still finding and removing odd shoots of ground elder.

Never. Try replacing the membrane as you say 👍🏻

I’ve been using coffee grounds around my flowers and it’s been keeping the slugs away!

Anyone have the answer to bindweed, other than ‘small forest fire’ or ‘move house’?

The roundup/cancer link is not proven. Glyphosate does not bioaccumulate. A bacon sandwich is more carcinogenic. Using chemicals correctly should present little or no danger. I think the case is possibly aimed at Monsanto, who were a major player in gmo, for that reason rather than the roundup one.

Anyone have a solution for block paving that's growing weeds between the cracks? It would take hours that I don't have to weed it all by hand.

Never. Pull out the weeds. If it really bothers you, take up the pebbles and put a membrane layer under them.

Never.
I pick out what I can and put up with the rest.

The roundup/cancer link is not proven. Glyphosate does not bioaccumulate. A bacon sandwich is more carcinogenic. Using chemicals correctly should present little or no danger. I think the case is possibly aimed at Monsanto, who were a major player in gmo, for that reason rather than the roundup one

If this was the case, why didn't the Monsanto rep drink it when offered?

Clue: because he [in his own words] is not an idiot.

I have used roundup in the past but the weeds always come back. No matter what I do the weeds come back! Now I pull them up by hand and try to avoid chemicals. And to make me feel better about it, I call it editing rather than weeding.

If you get down to the ground and learn your weeds, you'll start to recognise which are the lovely self seeding flowers you can leave, like foxgloves, forget me nots and Welsh poppies.

My mother in law has no care for gardening, her lawn is full of weeds, but beautiful they are today - thousands of daisies. I saw 2 beautiful black and red cinnabar moths today fluttering around her garden - apparently they feast on ragwort of which she has plenty!

I don't have an answer to the block paving problem though - tarmac or tolerance I think. Failing that, introduce some ornamentals that love cracks like Mexican flea bane or red valerian that might compete against the weeds.

Get a gas powered flame weed burner.

Easy, no chemicals and so, so satisfying.

No matter what I do the weeds come back!

I refer you to my earlier post:

What happens with weeds and weed killer is that yes it kills off some weeds but what grows back in it's place are stronger and more resilient weeds.

They will come back, they have adapted to being pulled, burnt, chopped, hoed, poisoned. You cannot have a garden without weeds, as nature will always fill empty space.

Oh god now I feel terrible as I went out yesterday and blasted my front garden with Weedkiller. Id had everything ripped out recently and was getting round to planting nice things and it just got overrun in no time.... I need to get better at staying on top of it!
How do you get rid of massive weed patches on a lawn? Dig them out?

What you consider weeds might not even be weeds.

I mow my lawn, and when it grows long, I'll harvest some plantain to put into soups etc, before I mow it.

I have used glyphosate hell on the leaves of bindweed that is running up through perennial grasses, phomiums and yuccas. Can see another way of getting rid of it tbh. I don’t use it on anything else and tend to hand weed or leave things be.

I compost, wildlife garden have an array of pollinators in my 1/3 acre garden. On the grand scheme of things I can’t imagine little bit of round up gel once a year is going to hurt.

Weed it every few weeks for really stubborn weeds use white vinegar. Or get a gardener

So you lure insects into your garden and then poison them? Nice!

I hand weed which is exhausting. We have cats & I don't know enough about which weedkillers have what that do what.

I loathe plantain! My most hated weed.

My mum swears by a homemade weedkiller, it seems to work! It's a bottle of white vinegar, one tablespoon of salt, a squirt of washing up liquid.

I loathe plantain! My most hated weed

Well, as it isn't an actual weed, try eating it.

Salt is sodium chloride. Sodium chloride in high enough quantities will kill weeds and any plant it comes into contact with. It will contaminate your soil and nothing will grow there and it will also kill the micro organisms that live in it.
People using it as a weed killer often mixing with either water or sometimes vinegar and then spraying the weeds.
Sodium is a toxic metal ion which doesn’t break down in the soil. It will remain there until it is washed away but then it is still exists somewhere. Could be another part of your garden where it will happily kill plants you don’t want to lose or it could end up in rivers or lakes.

So your garden is not a plate of chips so don’t put salt on it.

@Onesmallstepforaman You surely are joking about the roundup/cancer link not being proven? It's now a designated probable carcinogen (known carcinogen in lab rodents, probable in humans) by IARC and the state of California, and 3 court cases have resulted in juries awarding billions in damages to the plaintiffs who said they got cancer from using roundup. Where have you been for the past few years?!

@Dontsweatthelittlestuff Vinegar isn't comparable to a weedkiller like roundup, toxicologically. Vinegar is an acute irritant/corrosive and you wouldn't want to be a beetle getting sprayed directly with it, or get it in your eyes. But as far as I know there is no research showing it causes cancer or birth defects or DNA damage, unlike the roundup chemical glyphosate and numerous other weedkillers. Also vinegar doesn't persist, unlike chemical weedkillers.

@SheeshazAZ09. Working in the sports turf, landscape and grounds maintenance industries for over 40 years. The word probable does not mean it definitely causes cancer. This is also in rats, which although mammalian have a much smaller body type with a very different metabolism than humans. The litigants in the case in America worked in lawn care in the U.S. where there are a huge variety of chemicals used. Some really toxic which are not licensed in UK. I avoid chemical use where possible, but when necessary and used correctly, they can be a useful tool.