Accidental use of a strimmer on queen anne's lace when the seed was
set but before it ripened nearly wiped mine out right along the
hedge bottom where I like to encourage it - sequence is snowdrops,
daffodiles, primrose, queen anne's lace, blue comfrey (which seeds
everywhere so don't ever let it out of the wild garden) foxgloves.
Daffodils are currently squashed flat into the mud by equinoctial
storm. Repeated tilling will kill it - it only really comes back from
fairly large root chunks and only during its first year or early in
the second. Like carrots the roots die off after flowering. Repeat
mowing will also kill it. Cattle, sheep and goats all eat it.
Bishops Weed, Gout Weed, Ground Elder is a total curse. Don't ever
till it - it makes root cutting s faster than comfrey. Repeated
tilling seems to propagate it faster. I eventually got rid of it from
the only bed that was infested by digging up all the plants.
Replanting in containers so I could remove the stuff when it came up
again and covering the soil for two years with an old stack cover.
But its coming back in the field and I am going all out on total
warfare from day one.
Bindweed can be mowed out if you keep at it for long enough - that is
if we are talking about convolvulus major - I've come across many
other bindweeds over the years. If its in the vegetableor flower beds
it gets very discouraged if you use our old friend the newspaper
layer with compost on top and a mulch over that. Pull every shoot as
it finds a crack and gets through and after a lifetime of pulling it
will get discouraged and go away. No, actually about 2 years gets
most of it. This place was totally infested and now it just lives
prettily in a couple of hedgerows where its delightful white flowers
threaten to drive me to (more) drink. It gets discouraged if you keep
after it with a hoe too. Persistence is the thing with this one. And
its about the only weed whose roots I burn rather than composting
unless I have a really hot heap going at the time in which case it
goes right in the middle. I burn the tops too if I think there might
be viable seed in there.
Must be nearly time for the annual bermuda grass discussion - glad I
don't live in its territory (and that poison ivy never made it to
Ireland)
kathryn
