Weedkillers do not kill the weeds in my garden

What weeds are you talking about? Dandelions, daisies? Why not just leave them? I don’t like manicured lawns and much prefer to see grass interspersed with weeds.
To me there’s no such thing as a weed.

Yay LaCrepescule I agree with you a weed is just a persons concept

I trained with the RHS and the best piece of advice I've ever received was this old gardener's joke.

When's the best way to tackle mares tail/bindweed?
Weed on Sunday.
Which Sunday?
Every Sunday.

50 years of gardening have proved this true.

I garden organically and never use weed killer. Only persistence really works and then only temporarily. Nature will always win.

A carder bee - entirely dependent on the early flowers that we call weeds.

I am entirely organic and no chemical is used in my bit of land.

At present the sparrows and tits are busy stripping roses etc of aphides. Later they will tackle the emerging caterpillar population. Slugs and snails tend to wax and wane with the rain level last year - holes and stalks galore! This year, flourishing brassicas and hostas.

LaCrepescule

What weeds are you talking about? Dandelions, daisies? Why not just leave them? I don’t like manicured lawns and much prefer to see grass interspersed with weeds.
To me there’s no such thing as a weed.

Dandelions would completely take over the whole garden if you let them.
Daisy lawns are pretty.

Bindweed can be a problem, karmalady and we are told not to put it in with our garden waste.

Whitewavemark2

A carder bee - entirely dependent on the early flowers that we call weeds.

I am entirely organic and no chemical is used in my bit of land.

At present the sparrows and tits are busy stripping roses etc of aphides. Later they will tackle the emerging caterpillar population. Slugs and snails tend to wax and wane with the rain level last year - holes and stalks galore! This year, flourishing brassicas and hostas.

You’re absolutely right. We garden organically and try to have something flowering throughout the year. Tricky in the winter, but winter flowering clematis, winter jasmine, the odd left over rose and early flowering quince do well.

Many moons ago, my much loved, dearly missed elder sister had a pocket handkerchief lawn that her children had scuffed almost out of existence with their playing. She decided that she would re-seed it so she went to the local hardware shop which sold various types of loose grass seed. When shop keeper asked her what sort of grass seed she was looking for, she said “The sort with daisies in it!” I think it made his day!

I'm growing pretty wildflowers in my borders .
But when it comes to dandelions in the lawn -no thank you .
I tried them in salads .
They are vile
But perhaps useful for those who want a natural diuretic.
I bruise or cut each dandelion then pour over a thick washing up liquid such as Fairy then pour over some salt .
This seems to work though I'm not sure about the tap root underneath .

Our green areas, front and back, have daisies, dandelions, clover and at the front muscari, very pretty they look too particularly during no mow May.

Churchview

I trained with the RHS and the best piece of advice I've ever received was this old gardener's joke.

When's the best way to tackle mares tail/bindweed?
Weed on Sunday.
Which Sunday?
Every Sunday.

50 years of gardening have proved this true.

I garden organically and never use weed killer. Only persistence really works and then only temporarily. Nature will always win.

I was horrified when I realised there was a small growing mares tail weed in my garden one time. But the thing was I go by the best way to deal with a weed problem is the "gardeners eye" - ie regular inspection of a garden and one spots the problem early on.

So I spotted it when it was still just one plant and just a few inches high. It was in between the old paving stones and cracked concrete my garden had when I bought this house. So I literally got out my nail scissors and cut it down right down to the ground, poured boiling water over it a couple of times and then covered it up with a spare bit of old paving stone.

I repeated that once or twice and that did the trick and it never got any further. The old spare bit of paving stone was so that it couldnt receive any light to help its growth along.

Also there are some sycamore trees not that far away and I have always spotted sycamore seedlings trying to establish themselves here when they were just a few inches high - and, at that height, one quick tug on them and you've pulled them up and can bin them. My garden would have a noticeable number of young sycamore trees a few feet high by now if I didn't check it out regularly for troublesome stuff like that.

Nature provides the 'weeds' and it will also provide the solution as to how to control them and as you have already realised it isn't weedkiller.

I only use weed killers on hard surfaces - and that infrequently. I am not sure what else one can do. Lay concrete paths everywhere?

Just don’t understand the dandelion hate, how is this not beautiful in a lawn? Why are daisies considered pretty and dandelions not?
All in eye of the beholder I suppose. But as others have said, remember their to value to pollinators

Its not the yellow dandelion flower that people dislike. It is the blow away seed head that follows and scatters all over the garden and gives even more dandelions the next year.

Like tourists, you can have too much of a good thing.

Weed killers kill all manner of wildlife that we desperately need to encourage. Very helpful advice advice available on the RHS website. You don’t need to be a member to read it….

M0nica

Its not the yellow dandelion flower that people dislike. It is the blow away seed head that follows and scatters all over the garden and gives even more dandelions the next year.

Like tourists, you can have too much of a good thing.

I agree.

Pretty flowers, then suddenly the clocks are blowing everywhere! Before you know it, they've taken over the garden. There are plenty of insect and bee-friendly flowers we can plant, in fact bees seem to prefer the blue and purple ones in our garden.

I try to keep a lot of variety of flowering plants in my garden, some are native, some aren't & they flower from feb to november. But if I let weeds grow unchecked I would pretty soon have bindweed, that creeping blue calendula, dandelions, brambles +++ & not a lot else.
The only thing I use weedkiller on is the calendula, it runs riot & seeds in this garden. Don't think it's a native anyway, & I do dig it up as well.

I only mind them much when they grow on my patio and some cracked concrete on the drive, cant afford to have it "redone", which is slabs but the gaps grow weeds in them, its impossible to cut roots outs they have got under slabs which must have been laid before I came without properly covering the earth.

Dandelions were adored until recent decades They are a wonderful source of so much
Read up on them

www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/

That’s lovely BlueBelle. Maybe we should start a dandelion appreciation society!

M0nica

The problem is that these weeddkillers have been made less and less powerful. Either there are bans stopping domestic consumers using certain weedkillers available to farmers or it is so diluted it is useless.

I find that the solution is to double or triple the amount of weedkiller for every litre of water in the spray. I did this this morning and last night and all the weeds on my gravel access road and on the garden paths are shrivelled and brown. However it does work out very expensive. But now I have knocked the spring flush of weeds, next week and thereafter I will be going around with my weed burner.

Weeds in gravel and paths can be killed with cooking salt. Just sprinkle over each one and they dry put and die in a few days. Cheap and environmentally friendly.

BlueBelle

Dandelions were adored until recent decades They are a wonderful source of so much
Read up on them

www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/

I love my dandelions ... and the buttercups. Beautiful splashes of yellow.

Oooo buttercups! I bet we all remember shining them under chins to see if we liked butter! 😆

Interesting article Bluebelle, thanks.
I'll add point number 11. A dandelion is called a pissenlit in French, because you'll wet the bed if you eat one! 😆 (mentioned in point 3).

Salt isn't good for wildlife. It harms amphibians, birds, gets into the food chain and runs off into ponds and streams where it harms fish. It also washes into the soil and harms other plants.