Cat(h) wrote:
Alan Holmes wrote:


I've never found them to be any use at all, the roots are not destroyed and
they grow again.

The only real solution is one of the chemicals.

Alan

Many thanks, Alan and all who commented. I think there is little point
in buying the small "flame thrower". I am reluctant to use chemicals a
few times a year - I used two packs of Pathclear a few week ends ago,
each pack costing € - Euro - 29 (no doubt, typical Irish excessive
price). I may need to do this three times a year - allowing for not
much growth in winter - the product labelling states it lasts 3 months,
and it is quite good and effective during the growing season. By my
reckoning, that would cost me a total of € - Euro - 174 per year.

ISTR unless they have changed the licence that Pathclear did contain
Simazine and should not be used more often than every 6 months.
(I think now withdrawn under EEC rules)

How big is the drive if you are using that much weedkiller on it?

You should be able to control it with whatever fast acting weedkiller
you like unless you have invasive Japanese knotweed or something.

Residual weedkillers like pathclear stop new seeds germinating as well
as killing all the weeds.

The alternatives to this are 1) hand pulling - I have done this this
spring and summer, qutie successfully, but if I miss a week end , it
goes mad quite quickly. And I have a lot of non-gardening things to do
at week ends.
or 2) a flame thrower with more power than the Weed Wizard. Even if it
doesn't completely kill the weeds, I imagine that using it every couple
of weeks would be faster than hand pulling, and might keep the drive
clear. Bearing in mind that not all hand pulling takes out roots, and
that new weeds keep coming anyway.

Option 2) sounds sensible to me having listened to all the advice, so
I'll investigate that avenue.

Glyphosate would probably be more environmentally friendly. And in the
growing season you only need a trace on each green plant to work.

Thanks again, and my humblest apologies for unwittingly unleashing an
off-topic currency symbol debate. Though anything which contributes to
a bit of Microsoft bashing can't be totally evil.

Works OK here, but then I was in Belgium when the Euro launched.

Regards,
Martin Brown