Self seeding garden plants that I want to grow are lovely - I've got loads of little cyclamen hederafolium popping up all over the place at the moment not to mention the foxgloves - that's why it's a skill that needs learning - I leave the little plants I want but weed out the baby groundsell, chickweed, dandelion, dog's mercury, soapwort, bindweed etc when they're tiny - that way the little self-seeded cyclamen get better growing conditions.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I don't get much in the way of weeds, the odd dandelion or rose bay willow herb. Used to get buttercups and clover, but have now disappeared. The nuisance plants in my garden are the creeping potentilla, herb Robert, soapworts. All pretty plants in their own right, but just go everywhere and get tangled up through plants.
In general though I am fairly tolerant of weeds as long as there aren't too many. Everything has its place in the Eco system. I love to see a verge full of dandelions, they look so bright and cheery, such a lovely colour. The field behind us has rosebay willow herb which looks wonderful in flower, the white variety has become a garden plant nowadays. I guess it's back to the old say that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place!
Oh yes, I've got wild areas where cow parsley, white and pink campion, herb Robert and celandine grow, and I let them blend into the borders too - and we're letting a patch of nettles grow in one corner - but I like to know what it is I'm allowing to grow. I don't want to let weeds flourish and then seed or establish strong root systems in my flower beds that become a problem. "One year's seeds = seven years' weeds" someone said that!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Years ago, when I was a beginner gardener, I used to label everything I planted so that I knew it wasn't a weed. I weeded out was was growing between the labelled plants. Then I bought a book on gardening with a weed section and a book on wild flowers and learnt to identify them. There are so many varieties of plants that it's not easy and I never let anyone else weed my flower beds. I don't use weed killers in the flower beds, it's just as quick to dig weeds out anyway. Why fiddle about painting leaves when a quick dig with a trowel will do it?
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
practice makes perfect.you learn which are the weeds when you pull up the wrong ones.If you look at persistent weeds that come up and identifying them.Really its just learning as you go along.
Posts
Self seeding garden plants that I want to grow are lovely - I've got loads of little cyclamen hederafolium popping up all over the place at the moment not to mention the foxgloves - that's why it's a skill that needs learning - I leave the little plants I want but weed out the baby groundsell, chickweed, dandelion, dog's mercury, soapwort, bindweed etc when they're tiny - that way the little self-seeded cyclamen get better growing conditions.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
In general though I am fairly tolerant of weeds as long as there aren't too many. Everything has its place in the Eco system. I love to see a verge full of dandelions, they look so bright and cheery, such a lovely colour. The field behind us has rosebay willow herb which looks wonderful in flower, the white variety has become a garden plant nowadays. I guess it's back to the old say that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place!
Oh yes, I've got wild areas where cow parsley, white and pink campion, herb Robert and celandine grow, and I let them blend into the borders too - and we're letting a patch of nettles grow in one corner - but I like to know what it is I'm allowing to grow. I don't want to let weeds flourish and then seed or establish strong root systems in my flower beds that become a problem. "One year's seeds = seven years' weeds" someone said that!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Years ago, when I was a beginner gardener, I used to label everything I planted so that I knew it wasn't a weed. I weeded out was was growing between the labelled plants. Then I bought a book on gardening with a weed section and a book on wild flowers and learnt to identify them. There are so many varieties of plants that it's not easy and I never let anyone else weed my flower beds. I don't use weed killers in the flower beds, it's just as quick to dig weeds out anyway. Why fiddle about painting leaves when a quick dig with a trowel will do it?
practice makes perfect.you learn which are the weeds when you pull up the wrong ones.If you look at persistent weeds that come up and identifying them.Really its just learning as you go along.