Awful weeds following garden renovation (pics included)

[cdba88]

Hi all,

I have an extremely weedy section of soil in my garden. Its impossible to keep on top of and it's driving me insane please could I have some advice?

Before we bought the house the garden was left untouched for years so I think the root systems are really well established. We renovated the garden last year, had a digger in to get rid of the weeds and top layer of soil then added new top soil.

Last month we spent the full weekend deweeding and levelling the problem area. We spent a few hundred pounds on new shrubs and plants and planted them all. I've been going out about twice a week and weeding anything that pops up. There are so many! On the surface they look tiny, I try to dig them out but under the soil the roots are huge and so thick. So much so I'm often unable to dig far enough down without snapping it.

Weed fabric doesn't work they just grow right through if. I've tried weed killer but it doesn't seem to help and I don't want it to kill my new plants.

Any ideas? I'll try to post some pics.

It will give you a suggestion that you can then google to check whether it is correct. Plan id apps have improved enormously but can still make huge mistakes

I had the same issue in my front garden. I'd tried woodchips, membrane, gravel. As someone else said, if you've got bare earth, something unwanted will grow there!
I had horrible annual mercury and bindweed growing really fast each year. This year I've cracked it by planting nasturtium seeds.

They look pretty, are edible, grow fast and thrive on neglect! If they're in poor quality soil they produce more flowers, if in rich compost, they'll produce more foliage.

@Confusedandanxiety thanks for the tip. When did you plant them and is it too late for me to plant them now?

A lot of wild flowers have very pretty flowers and are worth leaving alongside plants you’ve purchased.

I made a new border last year. This year I have a buttercup spread all the way through but the yellow has complimented the colours of the plants and shrubs I put in so I’ve left it, aside from a bit of crowd control. I’ve also got some cornflowers and poppies pop up that look pretty interwoven through the rest. It’s easier gardening to leave the pretty wild ones than to fight them and they tend to do well. Depends on how formal you want your garden though, I like the cottage garden look.

I thought that but I have been snapping away and it is amazingly accurate, the only thing mine has got wrong has been alkanet id'd as forget-me-not and as the flowers are more or less identical that's not bad. Can't speak for the android equivalent though.

You need one of these:

www.burgonandball.com/collections/razor-hoe

"Cleanse"?! Seriously? convenient Glyphosates are now known to damage aquatic life and bees. OP please don't take this terrible advice. Agree with everyone else who says hoeing is the way to go.

Some weeds are quite pretty, and have evolved to suit the pollinators we have in this country.

Scientists are warning of “insect Armageddon”. If we get rid of all the insects, there will be knock on effects. I know, I’m a fucking cheerful Charlie.

if you don’t want to spend a lot on plants, and I agree that the bare earth is just heaven for weeds. I would suggest letting these “weeds” alone, until you can identify them. Check them out, potential use to pollinators, how they look, spread etc. Then relentlessly pull up the ones you don’t like, or leave and get rid of before they set seed.

Can you find a friend or neighbour to give you any plants? Most gardeners are a very generous breed.

My God! Don't do this!

Glyphosate will kill bees and is muderously terrible for the environment. It will linger as well and continue killing pollinators for potentially years.

Bark is down!! It looks great I'll post some pics later.

Got a weed wacker which has been great too.

I need some kind of edging or barrier for where the bark meets the gravel. The mini fences we have won't stick in the ground properly, it caused me much trauma today.

Thanks all!

Yes, not a bad mistake as they’re in the same family, albeit very different in size. But not a problem because you were able to check. Misidentifying as eg chervil the very similar flowers of hemlock could be a life and death mistake.

I’d never rely on it for whether you can eat something or not, and wasn’t suggesting anyone did, but they are very useful for identifying weeds or other self-seeded plants in the garden. Obviously alkanet and forget me not look nothing like each other in form but in a close up of the flowers it could easily be mistaken.