Forget Burning Weeds – how to be hot stuff at weeding!

One of the gardening jobs everyone seems to hate is weeding. I can understand why. After all it can feel a little relentless. You’ve no sooner pulled them all up and back they come! Consequently people look for magic bullets – weed killers, boiling water, burning weeds and so forth. But you don’t need to resort to all that to stay on top of your weeds. Here are my 10 top tips…

1. Acceptance

First up I think it’s important to recognise that you are not going to get rid of weeds. They are a gardener’s fact of life. So, whatever you do, you will have to weed from time to time. Just like in your home you have to hoover the carpets and dust occasionally.

So don’t waste your time trying to find some magic cure. Burning weeds, sticking down gallons of toxic chemicals, using the latest Japanese gardening implement…none of these is going to eradicate weeds from your life. They will come back. They’re a natural part of a garden – indeed some of them are rather beautiful. So instead I’d concentrate my efforts on minimising the task, or making it not feel like a task at all.

2. Squeeze them Out

My first tip on the minimisation front is planting. The less space you leave in your planting scheme, the less opportunity (light and room) there is for the weeds to grow. I’ve certainly found this the case in my sunny border, which I swear I hardly have to weed.

You can achieve close planting through two key techniques. You can either ignore the planting distance advice given for plants, and position everything close together. If you do this, you will need to move and divide plants as they grow – and outgrow the room you’ve allocated to them. That’s fine with perennial plants like phlox, sedum and achillea. Indeed, I’ve written before about how to divide perennials. However, some plants like hellebores and eryngiums (sea holly) don’t like root disturbance. So do check which camp your plants fall into before following this strategy.

Another thing to consider with close planting is air circulation. If you have plants growing cheek by jowl, the opportunity for air to circulate will be limited, and this may cause fungal problems such as mildew. So be watchful. Perhaps, while keeping things very close together at the base of your plants – thus preventing room for weeds – you could cut a few of your plants higher up their stems. Almost a Chelsea chop. That way you will allow some air into the border.

Ground Cover Plant Will Help

Another way to squeeze weeds out is to grow ground cover plants or annuals in between your other plants. This fills the gaps and smothers the possibility of weeds. In my semi-shaded bed I’ve Sweet Woodruff, (Galium odoratum) doing this job beautifully. Whilst in my new raised bulb bed I use lambs ear (Stachys byzantina) to provide a blanket keeping weeds at bay but through which my tulips, irises and alliums can rise up.

The trick with such plants is to choose something which complements your other plants rather than dominates them. Think about how tall the ground cover grows and make sure it isn’t invasive.

3. Mulch

Mulch is so good for the garden. It feeds your plants, stops your beds drying out in the Summer, protects plant roots and …drum roll… massively inhibits weeds. That’s why mulching is one of my top March gardening jobs.

So, before you resort to the palaver of burning weeds, I’d definitely suggest you add mulch to your weed-busting regime.

You can use a number of things as a mulch – bark chippings, leaf mould, well-rotted farmyard manure, or straw (Strulch) which I think smells delicious! By putting a good thick layer of mulch down, between your plants, you’re depriving weeds which might otherwise germinate, of sunlight. Even the few weeds which do come up will be so much easier to pull up as they will have germinated in the loose, nutritious mulch.

If you want to doubly smother potential weeds when mulching, you could put down a layer carboard or newspaper under your mulch. Giving it a good water before you put the mulch on top. I don’t bother with this, as for me mulching alone works well, but I’ve heard others recommend it.

Now I should add at this point that I’m not saying leave loads of weeds in place and simply mulch over the top of them or plant things close together around them. You should weed first, so you’re starting with a nice ‘clean slate’ so to speak. Then adopt the close planting and mulching techniques. They will massively prevent future weeds.

4. Limit Soil Movement

Another way of preventing weeds is to limit how much you disturb the soil. Most weed seeds only germinate in the top few inches of soil and need light to get going. (Which is why mulching is so effective). If you dig deeply over your beds between your plants, you may think you’re making everything look fresh and cared for, but you will be disturbing weed seeds which have been deep in your soil waiting for the opportunity to germinate. I’ve read that some can live in soil for 20 years!

So I don’t dig at all! I’m not going to encourage the blighters!

Obviously if you’re planting something or creating a new border you have to dig. So in that instance have some good old mulch ready and mulch the area immediately after digging – to supress any seeds you’ve distrubed. Weeds aside, I think it’s a good idea when you’re putting in a new plant to give it a bit of mulch. What could be better, after watering it in then adding a lovely layer of nutritious mulch around it? The mulch will help keep the water in – so important for a new plant – and you will prevent the weed seeds you’ve disturbed from germinating.

5. Little and Often

The following tips are all around making weeding not feel like a task. The first secret to this is to weed as you wander around the garden. Anyone who follows me on social media will have seen yellow buckets creeping into lots of my photos! That’s because I always have a yellow bucket on the go, with my trusty fork, secateurs and old knife in it ready to tackle any weeds or dead flower heads, as I see them. My friends are quite used to me bending to pull up a random weed as I’m talking to them.

By pulling or digging up weeds ‘on the hoof’ as I spy them, I rarely have weeding on my gardening ‘to do’ list! The only times it does feature is when I’ve been away on holiday and I need to get the blighters back in check – or when I need to sort out my drive.

6. Act Early

It’s a really good idea to thoroughly weed from March through to early Summer as that’s when the weeds are emerging. After that, you’ll need to weed less.

7. Hoe

Weeds fall into two camps – annual weeds and perennial ones. For the annuals, hoeing can be a neat solution which makes weeding easier. Your aim is to sever the top of the weed from its roots which are just below the soil’s surface. Then leave it in the sun to wither and die. Choose a time when the soil is nice and dry. That way you’ll create a layer of dust which will act like a further mulch, inhibiting new weeds from germinating. Note, hoeing won’t kill deep-rooted or perennial weeds – digging up is the only answer for them.

8. Be Thorough

When removing a perennial weed, take care to get up its roots, not just its greenery. There are lots of implements you can try to do this. I use a hand fork and for weeds with deep tap roots a garden fork. You want to get every bit out. This won’t stop other weeds returning, but if you’re thorough, that particular weed won’t make a come back.

9. Call in Agatha Christie

My driveway is one of those times/places when I do need to do some serious weeding. It’s about 30 metres long – Mr F-W just paced it out for me. And as I don’t do a lot of gardening towards the end of this driveway other than watering my lovely stone trough (above) I’m rarely wandering around it enough to do my ‘little and often’ technique.

As a result the weeds on the drive can accumulate. The drive is gravel and rock hard so the weeds that do grow are pretty feeble, but there can be masses of them. Despite this I still don’t resort to burning weeds or weedkiller. I call in Agatha Christie!

How the heck can she help I hear you ask! Essentially, I accept that the weeding has to be done, I can’t leave them to flower and seed, and with a 30 metre long drive to sort it won’t be quick. So I make the task as pleasant as possible. I get an audio book or radio play going on my phone, something that’s easy listening and I crack on. I did exactly this only yesterday – listening to the Agatha Christie story – Mrs McGinty’s Dead! The plot was familiar to me, so it didn’t really matter if I missed bits. Poirot may have had his little grey cells, but I had my yellow bucket and copious cups of tea. And at the end of three hours I’d murdered all those pesky weeds and my gravel drive was looking tip top again!

I know this is a slightly irreverant tip but it underscores an important point. While I’m not suggesting you learn to love weeding, I truly think that you need to find ways to not hate it, as you mustn’t avoid it. I positively looked forward to listening to that daft story, and so enjoyed the weeding!

10. Dispose of the Bodies

My final tip is about disposal. I know some people wait until their annual weeds are dead and then put them on their compost heap. I don’t trust myself to do this right, so daren’t risk it. Instead I put all weeds into the green waste bin. And I do this immediately. Don’t leave those weeds in a bucket somewhere as they may still go to seed and send those seeds all over your garden.

What about Weedkillers or Burning Weeds?

“This is all well and good” I hear you say, “but what about weed killers or burning weeds?” Well, of course there are chemicals you can try, but these really should be your last resort. There’s a high risk with weed killers that they will also damage the plants you love. And they are not good for wildlife. There are lots of alternatives to chemicals.

Some people rave about natural methods such as boiling water, vinegar and so forth. But putting lots of vinegar onto your garden isn’t good for it, it’s still a chemical. Meanwhile, I feel that by the time you’ve faffed about with kettles etc you may as well have pulled the weeds up! It’s probably quicker and easier!

Burning weeds between paving slabs and on driveways by blasting them with a flame gun is an option – but the weeds are going to return, so I tend to feel I may as well learn to adopt and enjoy the easier techniques. I’m sure if I had a stately home with a massive drive way I’d have a different view, but most of us don’t have that level of weeding to worry about. (Thank goodness!) If you are going to go this burning route, the experts say to only use this method when the foliage is dry and allow sufficient burn-time for deep-rooted weeds, such as dandelions, to be killed.

So that’s it…my top tips for dealing with weeds. I hope these help turn what is an inevitable task for us all, into much less of a chore.