Your post evoked some thoughts about plants, which I've written down. I love your collection of baby plants and the making of the blue/purple border and the white border. If you've got a lot of weeds then one way to treat them large-scale is to cover them with a thick layer of cardboard and mulch and/or compost. I haven't done it myself - it will take a lot of time to wait for the weeds to die and rot down. See e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/alys-fowler-lasagne-gardening . I find by the way that the next best thing to gardening is to read about gardening. Perhaps you could think about ways to create a wildlife garden, with a more informal look?
You could try gardening with thugs, but it's slightly risky. One of my current borders is a mix of Geranium macrorrhizum with ground ivy (glechoma hederacea) supplying ground cover around oak-leaf hydrangeas. The macrorrhizum geranium is a very nice spreading geranium, and really is a weed-smothering carpet, perhaps not very colourful. Ground ivy can be rampant, it requires some control.
Another border has Japanese anenomes, Geranium renardii and Acanthus as robust fillers. Renardii supplies dense cover, does not spread fast but has offsets that can be used for increasing. This border is bordered by low (lonicera nitida) hedges, lawn and a terrace so it has natural boundaries.
It is also possible to use a thug as a weed-barrier at the farthest reaches of your garden. For example, lady's bedstraw is a little too thuggish for me (or my aspect), but in many ways it is a lovely plant. For the same purpose you could use plants like borage and symphytum -- great for wildlife, and they could potentially soak up slugs and snails, being nigh unkillable and providing good hiding places. These have deep tap roots and are very hard to remove. In some aspects they run (seed) rampant. Pulmonaria is another dense spreading plant.
For sunny aspects there are plants like thyme and creeping thyme, sedum and creeping sedum. I like thistles such as Echinops bannaticus and Eryngium, both quite robust and possibly hard to eradicate (I don't know, I haven't tried yet). A spectacular thug is Macleaya microcarpa or Macleaya cordata. It is a long-lasting herbaceous performer and creates magnificent 7-8 foot stems with large glaucous leaves and big plume flowers (it's called plume poppy).
Alchemilla mollis is an easy and good looking plant. Ferns, once established, are low maintenance. Vinca minor can be nice in the right place. Sages are a rewarding family. Leycesteria formosa is an easy plant with dramatic impact, and self-seeds in a somewhat controllable way.
I've had some plants popping up that are perhaps weeds to some, but I love them and they are easy to control so far: fumaria purpurea (fumitory) and vicia sativa (vetch). There are a few plants that I avoid: those are linaria purpurea (purple toadflax), lunaria (honesty), aquilegia (columbine) and oregano - they self-seed like mad.
If you go onto the RHS website they have a list of plants considered to be 'invasive'. Most of them are not the 'normal' garden weeds. I would have thought it would be reasonable to take that list as a guide to what counts as 'invasive'. If you have bittercress, dandelions and thistles - and who doesn't - they aren't on the list.
I think you are overthinking it - but if it really worries you then best bet is to put them in a black bin liner (no holes) and put them in a corner for a few months so they rot down.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Regarding the weed/bin issue Sally, our council sends out a calendar every year of collection dates with a list on the back of what you can and can't put in. The only banned weed shown is Japanese Knotweed, the rest of the list includes bricks and rubble, plant pots, plastic bags and....garden furniture
Maybe check their website to see if they have a similar list. I think you will be fine disposing of a bag of general weeds in your green recycling
Posts
Your post evoked some thoughts about plants, which I've written down. I love your collection of baby plants and the making of the blue/purple border and the white border. If you've got a lot of weeds then one way to treat them large-scale is to cover them with a thick layer of cardboard and mulch and/or compost. I haven't done it myself - it will take a lot of time to wait for the weeds to die and rot down. See e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/alys-fowler-lasagne-gardening . I find by the way that the next best thing to gardening is to read about gardening. Perhaps you could think about ways to create a wildlife garden, with a more informal look?
You could try gardening with thugs, but it's slightly risky. One of my current borders is a mix of Geranium macrorrhizum with ground ivy (glechoma hederacea) supplying ground cover around oak-leaf hydrangeas. The macrorrhizum geranium is a very nice spreading geranium, and really is a weed-smothering carpet, perhaps not very colourful. Ground ivy can be rampant, it requires some control.
Another border has Japanese anenomes, Geranium renardii and Acanthus as robust fillers. Renardii supplies dense cover, does not spread fast but has offsets that can be used for increasing. This border is bordered by low (lonicera nitida) hedges, lawn and a terrace so it has natural boundaries.
It is also possible to use a thug as a weed-barrier at the farthest reaches of your garden. For example, lady's bedstraw is a little too thuggish for me (or my aspect), but in many ways it is a lovely plant. For the same purpose you could use plants like borage and symphytum -- great for wildlife, and they could potentially soak up slugs and snails, being nigh unkillable and providing good hiding places. These have deep tap roots and are very hard to remove. In some aspects they run (seed) rampant. Pulmonaria is another dense spreading plant.
For sunny aspects there are plants like thyme and creeping thyme, sedum and creeping sedum. I like thistles such as Echinops bannaticus and Eryngium, both quite robust and possibly hard to eradicate (I don't know, I haven't tried yet). A spectacular thug is Macleaya microcarpa or Macleaya cordata. It is a long-lasting herbaceous performer and creates magnificent 7-8 foot stems with large glaucous leaves and big plume flowers (it's called plume poppy).
Alchemilla mollis is an easy and good looking plant. Ferns, once established, are low maintenance. Vinca minor can be nice in the right place. Sages are a rewarding family. Leycesteria formosa is an easy plant with dramatic impact, and self-seeds in a somewhat controllable way.
I've had some plants popping up that are perhaps weeds to some, but I love them and they are easy to control so far: fumaria purpurea (fumitory) and vicia sativa (vetch). There are a few plants that I avoid: those are linaria purpurea (purple toadflax), lunaria (honesty), aquilegia (columbine) and oregano - they self-seed like mad.
If you go onto the RHS website they have a list of plants considered to be 'invasive'. Most of them are not the 'normal' garden weeds. I would have thought it would be reasonable to take that list as a guide to what counts as 'invasive'. If you have bittercress, dandelions and thistles - and who doesn't - they aren't on the list.
I think you are overthinking it - but if it really worries you then best bet is to put them in a black bin liner (no holes) and put them in a corner for a few months so they rot down.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Regarding the weed/bin issue Sally, our council sends out a calendar every year of collection dates with a list on the back of what you can and can't put in. The only banned weed shown is Japanese Knotweed, the rest of the list includes bricks and rubble, plant pots, plastic bags and....garden furniture
Maybe check their website to see if they have a similar list. I think you will be fine disposing of a bag of general weeds in your green recycling