Kitchen Garden Forum

My salad patch this year has been infested with a new - to me - weed. I've discovered it's Oxalis Corniculator, which is a native of Brazil Never seen it before this year, though there may have been some last year which I didn't notice. Doesn't cause any trouble, but is very deep rooted. Anyone else had an infestation?
John N

I have experienced this. It's a tricky customer. I've not known it to be deep rooted, but it can appear to be if it gets buried, when the leaves will find their way up through quite a depth to the surface. It seeds explosively, but It also fragments horribly, and it's then that it becomes a nuisance in the plot if it gets dismembered through hoeing, rotavation or similar. Spraying is not particularly effective control as it tends not to stick to the leaves. It may be, though, that the newer pre-mixed Roundup applicators with a foam setting are effective.

I would agree that to an extent it doesn't cause trouble, in the plot at least, but if it gets into borders and especially in potted plants, then it's a pain.

Our garden is infested with it and it's a total pain to eradicate, especially if you don't like to use weedkiller because every time you try to dig it out, some of the little root nodules break off in the soil and regenerate themselves. I've tried hand weeding every tiny plant out of one border and it's been a total failure because nodule bits always get left behind. If you can bear to leave it until the plants are fairly large, the root nodule also gets larger and I find it's easier to dig everything out in one piece without any tiny bits breaking off, but without a good weedkiller, I suspect that once you've got it in the garden, you have it for life. Our garden went years without a sign of it. I suspect mine got introduced in some pot plants I was given without my realising the significance of what I was importing. I'm very careful about buying in potted plants now for that reason.

We have lots of this on the plot in the fruit tree beds. It's very pretty but also very determined.

The one I struggle to remove is creeping cinquefoil!

ack, my garden is infested with the dreaded cinquefoil too. I have no idea how to get rid of it, my lawn is choked with it.

The lottie certainly gets some Oxalis. I pull it out by hand. No doubt it regenerates but at least it doesn't run to seed quicly.