On Sun, 4 Jun 2006 18:53:04 +0100, Janet Baraclough
wrote:

The message
from scorpy66 contains these words:

I dug a border out a few years ago and thought I'd got rid of all of
the weeds, planted it up and the first year it was fine. The following
year it became clear that I hadn't got rid of everything

Er, did you do any weeding at all in the first year after planting up?

Gosh yes!!! I probably wasn't clear enough in my original post, the
problem I think was that when I first cleared the border it was full
of couch. I must have left bits of chopped up couch root and probably
dug it in deeper than ever (I didn't know at the time how persistent
it is!)

While in some places it's been ok to keep on top of, the problem areas
are where it's pushing up right through my plants, especially more
ground cover types. It's basically inaccessible as far as digging it
out goes, hence my plan to dig the whole plant out to try to remove
it. Other problem areas are along the fence (I think it's coming
through from the neighbour's garden too) and a wall in a raised bed,
where there's a mat of roots running vertically flush to the wall and
is really tough to get at as well. For the wall/fence l'll follow the
RoundUp advice. Still not sure about rescuiing the plants though.

Beds don't just "stay made".

Hey, my mum used to tell me that too g

Even if you eliminated every weed
beforehand, new ones come in by seed blown in the wind or dropped by
birds.

New weeds I can handle, in any case, they're less likely to run deep
ans invade established plants aren't they? I just wish I'd got rid of
all the couch before I first planted rather than digging it in! doh

Whatever you do to recover the bed, afterwards, it will require
regular maintenance to keep it clear. The easiest solution is keeping
the soil surface covered with a mulch. But even that will take some time
and effort, colecting and spreading mulch.

Mulch sounds a good bet once I've cleared the couch.

Thanks Janet,

scorpy
"You'll never get me up in one of those!" said the caterpillar to the butterfly ~ Timothy Leary