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mbwest · 16-06-2005, 02:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaques d'Alltrades

The message
from mbwest contains these words:

I have another problem. I went back into my garden today mainly to give
it a little rake, get it ready for the lawn seeds and admire my work,
mostly the latter but unfortunatly found myself down there for 3hrs
diggin up masses of weeds and lots more to do still.

Ah. I presume you didn't examine the first six inches of soil for seeds...

Sorry, but this is par for the course.

How much of a weed do you need to pull out to totally kill it?

In the case of most of them, the stem and most of the root. If it's a
nettle, bindweed, horsetail, willow herb or similar, there will almost
certainly be underground runners which go deep into the soil, wait until
your back is turned, then send minions out to thumb their noses at you.

Can you ever COMPLETELY rid a patch of weeds without the use of nuclear
weapons?

Yes. One nuclear weapon is quite sufficient.

If so how?

Spray all weeds with Roundup or other glyphosate-containing weedkiller.
Wait for the next crop, then spray that. Then, sow your grass seed, and
pull up any weeds which still appear, until the grass is established.

Then you can spray the grass with a weedkiller which kills broad-leaved
weeds, I've forgotten the name of it. However, if you have any arable
farmers in Westminster, I'm sure they'll give you some of their empty
(plastic) cans or drums. There's usually enough for a year's
applications in half a dozen cans/drums, and you can cut the tops off
them and use them for other things later.

I brought Weedol2 but saw it said on the side "inactivated as soon as
it touches the soil" and saw one on TV adverstised as killing all the
roots, i naturally thought all weedkillers did that?!?

No, grammoxone-based weedkillers just kill the green areas, preventing
the plant from photosynthesising food. Shallow-rooted weeds die because
of it, but deep-rooted weeds like dandelions, bindweed, horsetail and
sometimes, nettles, have enough energy in their roots to make several
more excursions into the sun.

Any stray grammoxone or glyphosate weedkiller which reaches the soil
combines with clay/stone molecules and is rendered harmless. (Allegedly
harmless.)

So basically i am hoping to lay this lawn soon but i dont want to have
to worry about a constant supply of weeds oming up! Will they? How much
needs pulling out? Should i but a stronger weedkiller (keep in mind i
have a lot of cats that roam my garden).

Neither grammoxone nor glyphosate will harm the cats, once it's dried.
Rabbits and caterpillars might be quite terminally upset.

Basically any tips on weed-control would be great. I' also going to
have a good look around the forum for any tips elsewhere.

I'll ask a fiend if I can put a pic of his on me wibble...

All of that info was helpful.
Thankyou