Most hated weed.

[Elaine]

Hi everyone. Just out of interest, what is your most hated/dreaded weed? I hate couch grass and bindweed as it just keeps on reproducing whatever you do to it.
I mostly dread marestail or horsetail appearing on our plot as it is almost impossible to get rid of....we haven't any, thankfully, neither has anyone else on our site.Cheers.

[Victoria]

Marestail - mare's tail - is rampant on all our allotments, the roots go on for miles, nothing seems to work. I read recently you have to 'bruise' the weed before spraying with weedkiller, so will have to try that, but so many other demands on my time on the allotment.

[Primrose]

Mine must be either oxalis or alkanet. I have to blame myself for much of the alkanet spread in our garden. A few years ago I transplanted what I thought were a lot of foxglove seedlings into various borders, only to find that when they started to grow a little bigger, they were alkanet seedlings. They look very similar when very young. And no matter how regularly or how carefully I dig out all the little oxalis plants and rooting nodules, the little blighters still regrow with monotonous regularity. If I didn't keep at it, the garden would be swamped with the stuff, despite the fact that I'm ultra careful to put the disgarded weeds in the dustbin instead of the compost bin.

[alan refail]

I have plenty of weeds (mostly due to my increasing laziness ). I can't say there are any I particularly hate. However, given that a "weed" is a plant that is growing where it is not wanted, I must confess to a problem (in the polytunnel) with tomato seedlings coming up from fallen fruit from the previous year's crop in bed I am using for something else (often very closely sown salad leaves - and a mixed salad including tomato leaves is not to be recommended).

[Marken]

I dont mind oxalis as they are small and do look quite pretty (the red leaved kind with yellow flowers). I think I may even have carefully nurtured seedlings of this at one time!
Mares tail is awful as it grows from the tiniest piece of root left in the ground. Couch grass and bindweed are just one of the perils of gardening. Actually I often think that if bindweed was a tender tropical plant, we would all be trying to cultivate fit in our summer borders and admiring its large trumpet flowers...

[Primrose]

And another one which I really shouldn't count as a weed as all the catalogues sell it as Morning Glory. But mine self-seeds and over-winters like crazy to the point where it has now become a weed and seems to be popping up everywhere, far away from the original adult plants. It's now entangling amongst my climbing bean vines. The dark purple is very pretty, but if the flowers lasted more than just a few hours, I could just about live with them.

[Marken]

Primrose, if the morning glory is in a shady place the flowers may well last all day, I've noticed seedlings do pop up in odd places too. They set so many seeds so I'm not suprised.

[Bren]

My pet weed hates are couch grass, fat hen and a pink small flower it might be honesty not sure and flowers that seed themselves in the centre of other flowers are campanula persicifolia a lovely flower but in the wrong place also macleaya popping up everywhere and it grows to 7/8 feet.
Bren

[glallotments]

I hate goosegrass or cleavers or whatever else you may like to call it!! I hate it because when I am weeding it seems to really enjoy clawing at my arms and making them look as though I have been in a cat fight!! I don't like fat hen as the leaves feel really yuk! Bindweed is also well up there too.

A pretty flower that has gained weed categorisation in our garden in linaria muralis. A purple and creamy flowered toadflax that was a tiny plant bought at an alpine nursery. One planted it just spreads everywhere and is almost impossible to eradicate. It should have come with a health warning!!

[macmac]

Oh Primrose wish I had your problem,I love morning glory and struggle to get more than a few plants

[alan refail]

I don't like fat hen as the leaves feel really yuk!

So you won't be eating it then
Missing a treat

http://www.sacredearth.com/ethnobotany/ ... arters.php

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/pro ... 32235.html

[glallotments]

It says it is a spinach substitute and I don't like that either so double yuk! And it absorbs pollutants and can damage kidneys treble yuk!

I was a bit offended when the article said it preferred "waste grounds and other grimy places" though. Cheek my plot is lovely!!

I like it even less now!!!

[madasafish]

Rosebay willow herb.

The seeds drift in on the breeze and germinate in all the out of the way places.

I can eradicate mares tail, dandelions, buttercup etc: they are all either easy to kill or do not seed quickly.. but rose bay willow herb just keeps coming...

[Tony Hague]

Must be equisetum arvense, the horesetail or marestail. All the others you can eradicate by digging or herbicide. Even a year under black polythene is not enough to kill horsetails.

Of course, I don't have Japanese knotweed to consider !

[Marken]

dEar madasafish, you say that you can eradicate horesetail. Please pass on your secret, I cut them down as soon as I see them but they just keep coming.