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 and that
couch grass was coming though. I managed to keep partly on top of it
the next year but last Summer I was quite ill and couldn't do any
gardening at all. Sadly this means that the couch grass has now pretty
much taken over in some areas (those that I dug out the last - I must
have been getting too impatient to get all the little rooty bits out!)
It's growing up right through some of my beloved plants (mostly
perennials with a few shrubs, clematis and a couple of roses) while a
few seem to hae been smothered and haven't reappeared at all this
year.

I can't see any solution but dig them out, clean off the roots, pot
them up temporaily, use weed killer on the border and replant,
possibly laying some weed control fabric over the whole area too.

I know this probably isn't the ideal time of year to be doing this,
but I'm really only a June-August gardener as I'm a teacher and can't
find the time for big jobs like this at any other time of year, OH
isn't interested in gardening so it's all up to me. I admit to being
quite daunted by the whole thing, to be honest.

Any tips for the following would be hugely appreciated:

1. successfuly removing the twitch
2. what chemicals to use (we have cats)
3. whether more than one treatment would be necessary
4. advisability of weed control fabric to help prevent recurrence
5. care of existing plants while digging up, potting and replanting
6. anything else I've overlooked!

Very many thanks in advance,

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

"scorpy66" wrote in message
...
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 and that
couch grass was coming though. I managed to keep partly on top of it
the next year but last Summer I was quite ill and couldn't do any
gardening at all. Sadly this means that the couch grass has now pretty
much taken over in some areas (those that I dug out the last - I must
have been getting too impatient to get all the little rooty bits out!)
It's growing up right through some of my beloved plants (mostly
perennials with a few shrubs, clematis and a couple of roses) while a
few seem to hae been smothered and haven't reappeared at all this
year.

I can't see any solution but dig them out, clean off the roots, pot
them up temporaily, use weed killer on the border and replant,
possibly laying some weed control fabric over the whole area too.

I know this probably isn't the ideal time of year to be doing this,
but I'm really only a June-August gardener as I'm a teacher and can't
find the time for big jobs like this at any other time of year, OH
isn't interested in gardening so it's all up to me. I admit to being
quite daunted by the whole thing, to be honest.

Any tips for the following would be hugely appreciated:

1. successfuly removing the twitch
2. what chemicals to use (we have cats)
3. whether more than one treatment would be necessary
4. advisability of weed control fabric to help prevent recurrence
5. care of existing plants while digging up, potting and replanting
6. anything else I've overlooked!

Very many thanks in advance,

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

RoundUp will see to the couch - should not harm cats

scorpy66 wrote:
[...]
Any tips for the following would be hugely appreciated:

1. successfuly removing the twitch
2. what chemicals to use (we have cats)
3. whether more than one treatment would be necessary
4. advisability of weed control fabric to help prevent recurrence
5. care of existing plants while digging up, potting and replanting
6. anything else I've overlooked!

What they said. On (4) above, forget it. Couch spreads sideways, and
will just pop out at the edges and all the holes you make for your
plants. The stuff has its uses, but it doesn't replace gardening
operations -- in fact it can hinder them. Use Roundup, and when you're
sure it's all gone, use a conventional mulch as Janet suggests. You'll
still have to walk round every weekend to nip out any weeds that
appear, but it shouldn't be too much trouble if you've prepared
properly: you should be able to do it while Him Indoors does the
hoovering.

--
Mike.

On 4 Jun 2006 16:45:39 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:


In article ,
"Adagio" writes:
|
| RoundUp will see to the couch - should not harm cats

It can be painted on, and grasses are very sensitive to it (it was
designed to kill couch), so it should be possible to kill the couch
without killing the plants.

As you say, it is not significantly poisonous to mammals, once
applied.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Thanks Nick - the couch is pretty well entangled through a number of
plants so I'm concerned about keeping them safe. Do you know if I'd
need to paint pretty much every blade of the couch for RoundUp to be
effective or would, say, a 50% hit rate still do the job? If so,
perhaps I won't need to dig them out after all.... crossing fingers!

Thanks again,

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

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

On 4 Jun 2006 11:59:54 -0700, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:


scorpy66 wrote:
[...]
Any tips for the following would be hugely appreciated:

1. successfuly removing the twitch
2. what chemicals to use (we have cats)
3. whether more than one treatment would be necessary
4. advisability of weed control fabric to help prevent recurrence
5. care of existing plants while digging up, potting and replanting
6. anything else I've overlooked!

What they said. On (4) above, forget it. Couch spreads sideways, and
will just pop out at the edges and all the holes you make for your
plants. The stuff has its uses, but it doesn't replace gardening
operations -- in fact it can hinder them. Use Roundup, and when you're
sure it's all gone, use a conventional mulch as Janet suggests. You'll
still have to walk round every weekend to nip out any weeds that
appear, but it shouldn't be too much trouble if you've prepared
properly: you should be able to do it while Him Indoors does the
hoovering.

Cheers Mike, I've never tried the weed control fabric and, given that
two of the main problem areas are along the edges where there's fence
or a wall, from what you say I can see that it wouldn't help there
anyway. Off to buy some RoundUp....

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

In article ,
scorpy66 writes:
|
| Thanks Nick - the couch is pretty well entangled through a number of
| plants so I'm concerned about keeping them safe. Do you know if I'd
| need to paint pretty much every blade of the couch for RoundUp to be
| effective or would, say, a 50% hit rate still do the job? If so,
| perhaps I won't need to dig them out after all.... crossing fingers!

50%, for a grass, should be ample.

You may need to repeat a few times, to get out the rhizomes you missed.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Hi! scorpy. Why not try out the RHS for best advice.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile...asscontrol.asp

Round-up is very powerful stuff, do be careful. Trouble is it's not very
clever, - can't tell a weed from your treasured perennials. And of course
at half strength it will be only half as effective, so you will have to do it twice as many times. ( Of course you could try potato pealings, not kidding, it does
work, - just depends on how many years you want to wait to see the result. And just how many you can eat!!!.
All the very best of luck with your endevours
Heath

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from K contains these words:
|
| Are you sure of that? exactly half?
| There is rarely a linear relationship between dosage and effectiveness.
| Round-up (dimethoate) is a systemic which is transported through the
| plant for action - increasing the dose can make it *less* effective, so
| it is conceivable tht there are situations where a lower dose will make
| it *more* effetive.
|
| I was recently at a talk by the head gardener of a very famous
| English garden. During question time, he recommended using glyphosate at
| half strength, which he said is just as effective for half the cost.

MORE effective. With ground elder and bindweed, I find that full strength
just burns the leaves off. Half strength works a lot better.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from K contains these words:
|
| Are you sure of that? exactly half?
| There is rarely a linear relationship between dosage and
effectiveness.
| Round-up (dimethoate) is a systemic which is transported through the
| plant for action - increasing the dose can make it *less* effective,
so
| it is conceivable tht there are situations where a lower dose will
make
| it *more* effetive.
|
| I was recently at a talk by the head gardener of a very famous
| English garden. During question time, he recommended using glyphosate
at
| half strength, which he said is just as effective for half the cost.

MORE effective. With ground elder and bindweed, I find that full strength
just burns the leaves off. Half strength works a lot better.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren
I have created one allottment fom an old comfrey field-comfrey with many
nettles with some couch grass, and also recovered an allottment which was
heavily overgrown by couch. You have to work at it, the roots are easily
recognised, by sight and touch so you can recover precious plants by digging
up the rootball, and disentangling the couch roots which are easily
recognised.
In areas overgrown by couch I tackled one area of 50 square yards by
rigorous digging, sieving and taking out as many of the root fragments as I
could find.
Inevitably there were a few fragments left, but these could be dealt with
with relative ease as the characteristic shoots of fresh growth appeared.
Planting potatoes ASAP is a good growth supressant.
Digging is tiring and time consuming so I used round up for the next
50square yards at the recommneded dosage for couch. After a month I was left
with a mass of brown dead roots which could be turned in, but there were
occasional paler patches of root c 1inch long from which new shoots were
appearing. Round up was faster than rigorous digging and sieving but not
100% effective, and you still need to follow it up.

Regards
David T