On 18/04/2011 20:41, chris French wrote:

In message , Baz
writes
The OP said


Subject: Hi All, newbie from Essex.
From: Mark Baigent
Newsgroups: uk.rec.gardening


Hi all

Today I started (must not rush things) by using a borrowed hedge
trimmer to cut all the jungle down to earth level, I need to level a
mound of earth to make a sitting area under a big oak tree. I guess
that I will turf it as well.

But do I need to do anything to stop all the nettles, brambles etc
coming back up?

Nettles are fairly shallow rooted and you can get a lot of them out with
a decent pair of forks with some risk of snapping the tines off.

Your posting messed up the quoting Baz, you put it under Marks sig and
any decent newsreader will snip it in the reply.

anyway, managed to fiddle it.

Not sure of the point of starting another thread on this though, IME you
end up gettign the same arguamnets in 2 places..

I for one am a bit confused with it all and have read some of the
replies,
but not all of them.
Bitching, sarky, praggy, sometimes threatening answers have been posted.


That's Usenet sometimes.

Is it all a bone of contention?

Obviously.

Does Pastor work?

If so how does a domestic
household obtain such a powerful set of chemicals?

AIUI, you are not supposed to legally. no doubt some suppliers will
provide it though.

We can all get
glyphosate but in a weak solution, yet can not be trusted to have it
in an
industrial strength!

Read Janet's reply about it's contents, it isn't glyphosphate.

And read the MSDS. AFAIK It is not licenced for domestic use. Probably
because it is potentially a nasty skin sensitiser although the LD50 is
pretty high.

Pastor probably isn't the right choice for reclaiming a wilderness
anyway since you probably do want to kill all the couch grass as well.
Unless you are dealing with several acres and have appropriate PPE it
isn't sensible to use more powerful chemicals in a garden setting.

Grass is exquisitely sensitive to glyphosate which is something you
should remember when spraying with it and avoid walking over a lawn with
weedkiller overspray on your boots. The effect is not good.

Time will tell but I am willing to bet that the op did not anticipate
such
a tangled and confused reply.

Possibly not, but that's the way it goes. Ignoring the spat with Harry,
the rest of the advice was pretty consistent. wait for it to regrow a
bit and then treat with SBK brushwood killer, probably a few times.

And when it is bone dry you can torch the dead material after moving it
well away from any fences of sheds. There will be a lot of nettle seeds
on the soil if it has been there for a while. I let some nettles grow on
my boundary for the butterflies - don't tidy up too aggressively.

without chemicals, mowing the nettles etc. regularly will probably kill
them eventually, or cover with heavy duty plastic sheet/membrane and
leave for a year or so (i've done that here successfully in a patch).
Well established Brambles as Sacha said are another kettle of fish.
chemicals, or digging the main roots out would be necessary I guess.

It is usually enough to hit it with glyphosate on a gardening scale wait
two of three weeks and torch the dead material let it regrow and repeat
for an entire season. Things that tended to survive this treatment for
me were waxy seedlings like ivy and holly and for some odd reason
buttercups.

Regards,
Martin Brown