Weeds-weeds-weeds.

[Ricard with an H]

I really do think I have a special problem after trying to tackle this issue for three years.

Preparing an area of ground for sowing seed is impossible here, let me explain. I allow the weeds to grow to a few inches then spray them of, let then die, rake as mush out as possible then sow my mixed flower seed. The flower seed never germinates and a second flush of weeds takes over, I can't pull the weeds because I don't know they are weeds until they are well established.

I have tried this twice in each year on two different patches of ground with the same result, my flower seeds never germinate but the weeds are massive. The seeds I'm trying to sow are boxed mixtures of flower seeds, presumably these seeds are just too slow to germinate and this takes me back to an un-answered question I have asked twice. Some germinating plants inhibit other seedling growth ?

In the case of this latest patch of weeds they are entirely of the same type other than the odd exception though I don't know what are. Later in the day when the light is better I'll take a photo.

The only exception to this has been a new borage patch, hardly any weeds. All borage.

[Ricard with an H]

I took the two close ups around two metres appart, then the long range shot shows a bizarre thing to happen. Those weeds have grown exactly where I sowed the flower mixture. You can a distinct end plus a gap I left for some potted seedlings.

Bizarre ?

[alan refail]

In the middle picture I spot some young fat hen and (possibly) speedwell. Not so sure about the great mass of greenery but it resembles young charlock.

http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/C ... arlock.htm

charlock.jpg (9.42 KiB) Viewed 4300 times

[alan refail]

If it is charlock, there is some bad news, I fear.
"Seed longevity in dry storage is 12 years and in soil is 35 years. Charlock seeds buried in uncultivated soil will remain viable for 60 years and can germinate when brought to the surface by deep ploughing."

https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/weeds/charlock

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks Alan, I have been looking but not found what you found. In fact I have new growth on a flower patch that has been cleared twice already.

I think this plant sends out a chemical signal similar to that of Hungarian grazing rye, it stops the growth of other seedlings. That patch is close to 100% Charlock.

Where the soil hasn't been made suitable for seedlings it still emerges but just odd clumps rather than a plantation..

[snooky]

My borders were full of Herb Robert and Cleavers,cleared them out yesterday.Both seem to have been rather rampant this year.

[Ricard with an H]

Fortunately it's only a problem where I'm trying to grow flowers so I'm using glyphosate to clear it, I'm away for two weeks after Friday and it'll start to flower and seed if I don't deal with it quickly.

I'm not trying to create a suburban garden here, mostly it's wild flowers. Self seeders and perennials, even the most robust struggle to compete with a lot of stuff I don't know the name of.

My veg garden raised beds do have weeds but not at plantation numbers like in the photo and my soil,is so loose they easily come out with a pull if I don't leave them too long.

How can gardeners have two weeks away ? When I come back some of the grasses will be six inches tall.

[Primrose]

You have my sympathy although I!m afraid I don't what the answer is as this year i have a similar very bad problem with oxalis in my vegetable patch. I'm particularly careful to dig it out and dispose of it in a rubbish bin rather than putting it on the compost heap. However I have a suspicion that some time in the past my dear husband , who is a very rare gardener in his occasional efforts to help, may have undone all my good work and added his collection of gathered oxalis to the heap which is how it has been spread in the decomposed compost. . Once it gets a foothold it' s a losing battle as in the thirty plus years we,ve lived here I've never put weedkiller on the soil.

I'm beginning to think now though that I may have to change my attitude before the vegetable patch and veg border turns into oxalis lawn. I can't cope all the bending down and kneeling which is required to dig it all out by hand.

[Monika]

It's amazing how some weeds you just can't get rid of, isn't it? In our garden at home, it's cleavers and on the allotment it's chickweed. Every year I make every effort to stop them seeding, but every spring up they pop again. And getting cleavers out of a very prickly rose hedge is not funny. The recent mild winters probably haven't killed off any surviving seeds either.

Richard, could you not sacrifice the long bed for a year and cover it with black plastic and then try again? If Alan is right, the seeds may of course come up long after that, but it might reduce them a bit.

[Ricard with an H]

Ah, Monica. I forgot to mention.

In another patch where I'm trying to encourage wild flowers I purposely had a bonfire of old dried course cuttings and tree prunings in the belief that no seedlings under the fire in the soil would survive.

Of course I can only guess where the fire was hottest and not so hot on the basis that some underground seeds did survive and germinated. In one part of this patch hardly any weed seedlings have germinated though was this to do with the fact that borage germinates very quickly and is a robust competitor for any weeds. On the side that I'm guessing wasn't as hot I don't see any young plants that look much different to the collection of weeds we have here.

What I'm doing in other places is to regularly kill off the invasive plants then I plant plants that I grew from seed. I started this routine 15 years ago and though the success has been patchy and slow I have managed to introduce wildflower that farming had decimated. Cutting the long grasses back on the banks and at the correct times of year is important for the smaller species to come through.

I have ladies bedstraw established, I can't even remember ever seeing it in the wild and locals say it isn't indigenous. But how would they know ?

[Johnboy]

Hi Alan,
You talk of Charlock which was introduced into the country by the Romans as a medicinal plant and just above me here I have a Roman fort and before the Romans it was an ancient Britons fort.
Above me by the camp a field was ploughed for the first time in living memory and that at the time was 80 years and it took 10 years to get rid of the resulting crop of charlock. Those Romans have a lot to answer for!
JB.

[alan refail]

They were having trouble with charlock (kedlokes) five hundred years ago

John Fitzherbert - The Boke of Husbandry


Kedlokes hath a leafe lyke rapes, and beareth a yelowe floure, and is an yll wede, & groweth in al maner corne, and hath small coddes, and groweth lyke mustard sede.