Draven wrote:
"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
...

"Andy Atkinson" wrote in message
...

"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
...

"Andy Atkinson" wrote in message
...
I recently dug up my lawn and put gravel down with pots over
the
top. I used weed-proof fabric but it seems to have doen little
good with things sprouting through it.

Can anyone recommend something to kill the weeds underneath?
Needs to be fairly powerful.

Andy

are they rooting in the gravel or from beneath it?

if the former, pull them up, if the latter "Pathclear"

--
Tumbleweed


They are beneath the gravle and coming through the sheeting. I
was
considering sodium chlorate to kill them off for good. Any
opinons?

Andy

can you still buy that? I thought it was banned? Anyway, i'd go
for
pathclear.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

Sodium Chlorate is still available.
It's the one to use.

Yes and no. As a "simple" chemical, it's what I'd use for biggish
bare areas: I've done it before, and I'll probably do it again. But
it does hang about in the soil, and may drain down to places you
don't want it. It's not good to let it into watercourses. "Pathclear"
contains either 2-4-D or Paraquat (forgotten which, I'm afraid, but
the info is there on the Web): if you handle these according to the
book they're pretty good, but they're still suspect -- even Paraquat,
which usually breaks down quickly. But amateurs, like poor African
farmers, handle these things badly: they overdose, and expose
themselves and sometimes the children to unnecessary skin and lung
contact. And for what? A tiny suburban patch.

For a sensible single application I wouldn't actually worry much
about either. But the blunt fact is that very few European hobby
gardeners should ever need to use these things more than once, if
ever. Either you're a gardener or you're not. Dependence on
herbicides is another symptom of make-over gardening. Without the
so-called "weed-proof" membranes, you could just get the weeds out
without fear of damaging the membrane, which was meant to stop the
weeds in the first place! .

There is no such thing as gardening without weeding. A pot of
geraniums on a balcony will get unwelcome visitors. Once the garden's
established, the weeding shouldn't be a big problem, and it's a
perfectly pleasant activity anyhow: it's what gardeners do.

--
Mike.