I am fed up of being told I am a useless gardener because I won't use a hoe
on ground elder. 'Just keep on doing it. If it can't photosynthesize it will
die.' he says. I accept that in an empty patch of ground, in a dry area, if
I had time to hoe every day, that might possibly work, even on ground elder.
However I still work five days a week and I live in relatively soggy North
Wales and the wind blows too often to use glyphosate accurately enough. I
shall continue to try and remove the ground elder from bulbs, soft friut and
herbaceous perennials by hand!
Thank you for 'listening'. I feel better for a good grumble.

On 22/04/18 08:42, Tahiri wrote:
I am fed up of being told I am a useless gardener because I won't use a hoe
on ground elder. 'Just keep on doing it. If it can't photosynthesize it will
die.' he says. I accept that in an empty patch of ground, in a dry area, if
I had time to hoe every day, that might possibly work, even on ground elder.
However I still work five days a week and I live in relatively soggy North
Wales and the wind blows too often to use glyphosate accurately enough. I
shall continue to try and remove the ground elder from bulbs, soft friut and
herbaceous perennials by hand!
Thank you for 'listening'. I feel better for a good grumble.

You could always use glyphosate gel on specific elder plants. You also
don't have to use glyphosate as a spray - you could use it from a
watering can with a bar head. That won't be affected by wind anything
near as much as spray.

I rarely use a hoe as the flower beds are covered with several cms of
woodchip. The hoe tends to catch on the larger pieces and rise up well
above the surface, missing the weeds completely.

--

Jeff

On 22/04/2018 08:42, Tahiri wrote:
I am fed up of being told I am a useless gardener because I won't use a hoe
on ground elder. 'Just keep on doing it. If it can't photosynthesize it will
die.' he says. I accept that in an empty patch of ground, in a dry area, if
I had time to hoe every day, that might possibly work, even on ground elder.

So will regular close mowing but a combined chemical and physical attack
will see it off very much quicker. The problem with ground elder is that
the tiniest piece of healthy thick white root will form another plant.
If it has been poisoned first you don't have to be quite so meticulous.

I can't think of a weed less suitable for control by hoeing or
rotivator. Dig it out every time you see a new leaf showing (or hit it
with the gel/wax formulation weedkiller if you don't have time).

Never allow it to have leaves in the sunshine without dealing with them.

However I still work five days a week and I live in relatively soggy North
Wales and the wind blows too often to use glyphosate accurately enough. I
shall continue to try and remove the ground elder from bulbs, soft friut and
herbaceous perennials by hand!

You can get glyphosate and broad leaf specific weedkiller formulations
in gel and wax which can be applied precisely to where you want it.

Thank you for 'listening'. I feel better for a good grumble.

I tend to hit ground elder with whatever weedkiller I have going and dig
out any larger shoots with as much brittle white root as I can get. It
has all but gone apart from right at the field boundary now.

Same applies to bindweed in hedges.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 24/04/2018 10:44, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:19:01 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:


I tend to hit ground elder with whatever weedkiller I have going and dig
out any larger shoots with as much brittle white root as I can get. It
has all but gone apart from right at the field boundary now.

Same applies to bindweed in hedges.

With bindweed, I find that just pulling the long vines from time to
time, so that you get a good length out, weakens them and eventually
they disappear after a few years. It's not something I try and cure at
one attempt, and in broad terms I'm fairly relaxed about it.

I am too - have to be since spiny stock proof hedges are hard to weed. I
just rip off what I can get to and poison the rest. I try not to ever
let it set seed. ISTR convolvulus seed viability is almost infinite.

I actually rather like the pink and white flowers of the less vigorous
field bindweed and don't persecute it half so much.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
says...
Subject: Ho hoe ho
From: Martin Brown
Newsgroups: uk.rec.gardening

On 22/04/2018 08:42, Tahiri wrote:
I am fed up of being told I am a useless gardener because I won't use a hoe
on ground elder. 'Just keep on doing it. If it can't photosynthesize it will
die.' he says. I accept that in an empty patch of ground, in a dry area, if
I had time to hoe every day, that might possibly work, even on ground elder.

So will regular close mowing but a combined chemical and physical attack
will see it off very much quicker. The problem with ground elder is that
the tiniest piece of healthy thick white root will form another plant.
If it has been poisoned first you don't have to be quite so meticulous.

I can't think of a weed less suitable for control by hoeing or
rotivator. Dig it out every time you see a new leaf showing (or hit it
with the gel/wax formulation weedkiller if you don't have time).

Never allow it to have leaves in the sunshine without dealing with them.


Our rainfall is increasing; to counteract the swamp effect I've been
raising the height of some beds with compost and mulches. A (gardening-
clueless) neighbour who meant well, offered me a load of winter topsoil
which a contractor was excavating from his garden. The contractor was
glad to dump it here for free; I was glad to take it and spread it
around three beds.

Come spring, abundant ground elder and horsetail sprung from the free
topsoil :-(((( Probably among the top three weeds dreaded by gardeners.
Just grateful he didn't donate Japanese knotweed.

It's taken two seasons of meticulous prompt hand+fork extraction of
every new sprout but I have finally, totally eliminated both.

Janet

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On 24/04/2018 13:02, Janet wrote:

Come spring, abundant ground elder and horsetail sprung from the free
topsoil :-(((( Probably among the top three weeds dreaded by gardeners.
Just grateful he didn't donate Japanese knotweed.

There is some not far from me you can have if you like. Not on my land
thank heavens.

It's taken two seasons of meticulous prompt hand+fork extraction of
every new sprout but I have finally, totally eliminated both.

I always had the impression that horsetail was incredibly deep rooted.
Not known it propagate from broken bits of rhizome to anything like the
same extent as with ground elder and bindweed. The latter are only a
problem because of inaccessibility of their roots in shrubs and hedges.
In open ground they are quite easily dealt with - not so horsetail.

It takes lots and lots of digging and aiming for horsetail and control
is all you can hope for with horsetail if it likes your conditions. It
doesn't seem to like our heavy clay at all. The places where I have
struggled with horsetail have been well drained and sandy. YMMV

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
says...

On 24/04/2018 13:02, Janet wrote:

Come spring, abundant ground elder and horsetail sprung from the free
topsoil :-(((( Probably among the top three weeds dreaded by gardeners.
Just grateful he didn't donate Japanese knotweed.

There is some not far from me you can have if you like. Not on my land
thank heavens.


It's taken two seasons of meticulous prompt hand+fork extraction of
every new sprout but I have finally, totally eliminated both.

I always had the impression that horsetail was incredibly deep rooted.

Me too. But in my garden, the newly acquired HT infestation arrived
in 6" of soil I'd spread on top of the bed, so was relatively shallow.
I kept extracting each root as soon as its location was given away by an
emerging stem bud, so the roots were not getting any encouragement from
photosynthesis and never managed to get down deeper than fork tines.

Janet.

Not known it propagate from broken bits of rhizome to anything like the
same extent as with ground elder and bindweed. The latter are only a
problem because of inaccessibility of their roots in shrubs and hedges.
In open ground they are quite easily dealt with - not so horsetail.

It takes lots and lots of digging and aiming for horsetail and control
is all you can hope for with horsetail if it likes your conditions. It
doesn't seem to like our heavy clay at all. The places where I have
struggled with horsetail have been well drained and sandy. YMMV




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