On 01/08/2015 17:16, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...
On Sat, 1 Aug 2015 11:44:11 +0100, "ag.richards"
wrote:
Hi going to put some all year round plants in this year,just covered my
garden with stone and a membrane
but underneath there used to be a lawn not a very nice one full weeds and
stuff,just want to know the best way to go
about this does the soil underneath need treating or can I plant straight
away any advice most welcome what sort of
plants etc,Thx in advance T.R.
Not sure what you mean by "stone". Do you mean paving slabs, gravel or
something in between? If you have a membrane you presumably mean
gravel of some sort.
The best thing to do would have been to use Glyphosate on the weedy
lawn before putting down the membrane. You need to leave it all
covered to give time for the stuff underneath to die off in the dark,
On the contrary, when you use glyphosate, you want the plant to
survive long enough to translocate the poison to its roots. Covering it
would interfere with the process.
If you're using a membrane covered in either gravel or slabs, on a
weedy lawn, there's no need to weedkill first; total lack of light will
do that(and also, prevent any weed seeds in the soil from germinating.
You can make doubly sure by covering the lawn with cardboard, then
membrane, then the stone. (I've done this; instant gravelled area on
what was lawn until that morning.)
ideally waiting long enough (?) before you plant through the membrane.
There will be weeds that get through anyway from seeds in the soil.
No, there won't. It will be far too dark and newly germinated
seedlings don't have the strength to penetrate membrane let alone stone
topping it.
Janet.
You should have thought about this before you put down the membrane and
gravel.
From what you have said there is no knowing the state of the soil under
the covering other than it was lawn, Was it compacted? did it have
perennial weeds?
when you cut through to plant you will disturb the soil and will expose
some weed seeds that will naturally germinate so some weeding will be
needed in time.
If the soil is badly compacted then it is going to require breaking up
before planting, how much depends on what you are going to plant.
The old grass and weeds will need months rather than weeks to die off
totally depending on the type of each. If you had couch grass in the
lawn then it may well grow through the membrane and gravel but you could
then spot treat it with glyposate.
It also depends on the quality of the membrane you have laid, some of
the cheaper ones are no better than putting down a couple of sheets of
newspaper.
I am using ground cover fabric on beds out the field to grow dahlias
through. Some of the fabric from Tildnet has been down for 5 years and
no problems, but some cheaper stuff I bought started to break down
within weeks, even this year with our lack of sunshine here in South
Wales, and the price difference was less than 10%.