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Kill weeds with ground sheeting

brynthomas.ukbrynthomas.uk Posts: 21
in Tools and techniques
Hi, as you can see my garden is full of perennial weeds and some others. Every time I pull them up they slowly re-inhabit the area. I was told that I can get rid of them permanently by covering them with a covering impenetrable to light (ideally permeable to water). Have had a look in amazon and it seems ground cover fabric often fails and the weeds grow through. Can anyone recommend a material that I should use and if it is likely to work if left covered till spring next year? Any other wisdom also welcome!

Posts

  • glasgowdanglasgowdan Posts: 632
    Weedkiller in spring if you want effective, easy quick, cheap and safe. Anything else is going to be a compromise.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    I'd agree with glasgowdan for that particular problem. It looks like either groundelder or borage from the pic which might die down over the winter, then re-shoot. Dig out anything nicer you want to keep and spray very carefully on a non-windy day when rain is not forecast.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Even if you put down a high quality, porous, weed suppressing membrane grit and dust and enough material will accumulate on it for weed seeds to germinate so you also need a very thick layer of a god, dust free mulch in which nothing will grow.  I have yet to see one.

    If you put down a solid plastic sheet you stop water getting in and persistent weeds such as bindweed, couch grass, brambles and thistles will survive but the ground will be dry and that will make it inhospitable for good soil organisms such as worms, micro-organisms and beneficial fungae.  

    Believe me - we have both in our garden, the former left by previous oawners and the latter tried by the under-gardener who discovered the other day that his head gardener was right about plastic.    O th eother hand, where we've put down cardboard the soil is lovely when we come to plant.

    The only thing you can usuefully do is clear the weeds, taking out all their roots too and then plant things you like.   If you can't plant straight away put down some cardboard held in place with pegs or stones then, when you can plant, add a decent mulch of well-rotted compost and/or manure and plant through the cardboard.

    After that you have to treat it like a newly cleaned and painted room in your house that needs a weekly dust and vac except in this case it will be a regular bit of hoeing to remove any weedlings.   Not exactmy hard work and very satisfying when your treasures grow and grow.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • SmudgeriiSmudgerii Posts: 185
    Several layers of cardboard and newspapers..

    keep layering up as it rots down.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Black plastic will work but it will not work over winter, I've found that it takes a full year to kill everything under black plastic and remember that anything with spreading roots will still instantly reaper if it is present in your neighbors gardens. I do NOT find that black plastic dries the soil significantly and I use it on a small commercial scale sheets 50m by 20m in size. it gets small holes in it within weeks of being put down and water does move through soils anyway. What it will do though is channel water off it, so in that sized garden you would have to be very careful which way the overflow went to avoid flooding anyone.
    woven plastic also works to kill weeds but as others have said if you leave it down weeds will grow on top of it. Doesn't mean it cannot be used as a temporary solution like straight plastic sheeting.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    I suspect we are a lot dryer than you @Skandi.   The osil under OH's alstic sheet is drizabone but still growing bindweed, arum italicum and the local wild apple mint roots and runners.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • WilderbeastWilderbeast Posts: 1,415
    We had good success using 2 layers of the heavy duty woven membrane and then large amounts of tree surgeons mulch over the top, it starts of about a foot deep but sinks down to a solid mass about 4 inch deep in a few weeks. Water can still penetrate but it seems to be enough to suppress and kill the weeds. We then use the mulch as part of our compost mix the following year, this give me loads of browns to mix with all my grass clippings hence we haven't used our green waste bin in 2 years. 
  • RilesJasmineRilesJasmine Posts: 6
    Try a good weed killer, when I was in a similar rut, the Roundup Extended Control did the trick for me just fine. Read more on it here, I think it's worth a shot at least https://popular.reviews/best-weed-killers/#2_Roundup_5725070_Extended_Control
  • glasgowdanglasgowdan Posts: 632
    RilesJasmine said:
    Try a good weed killer, when I was in a similar rut, the Roundup Extended Control did the trick for me just fine. Read more on it here, I think it's worth a shot at least https://popular.reviews/best-weed-killers/#2_Roundup_5725070_Extended_Control

    Don't know why someone has marked this post as spam, it's clearly not! Just someone recommending a product they've used. 
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited December 2019
    Oooops! that was me with Fat Finger Syndrome ... I did it accidentally while scrolling through my phone ... I thought I’d amended it but obviously I hadn’t .... I have now. 
    My apologies 😬 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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