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Nettle jungle
Native58
Posts: 46
Hi
I'm a new gardener and have no idea how to get rid of the jungle of nettles that are taking over my garden. I've totally ignored the garden for around 8 years, but now have a greenhouse and a new interest in gardening.
I've tried pulling the nettles up, but they seem to double their number each time I do this.
Help, please!!!!
0
Posts
The organic way is just to keep pulling them with as much root as possible whenever they appear. They will eventually weaken and be less invasive and easier to deal with. One consolation is that they indicate your soil is fertile and not too heavy and, if you dry them out first, they will make an excellent addition to you compost heap as they are full of nitrogen which promotes leaf growth. You can also soak fresh nettles in buckets of water (covered for the smell) for a few weeks and then dilute the resulting brew 1 part to 10 of water and use it as a liquid feed.
The non organic way is to spray with glyphosate as this kills the plants down to the roots. However with nettles and creeping buttercup and thistles and couch grass you will need repeated applications before they surrender. Glyphsate is not selective so protect any plant you wish to keep before you spray the nettles.
I found that you need to dig and try and get rid of as much root as possible, teasing the roots out of the ground as much as possible and then it was a case of being persistent and digging them up each time they started growing again.
They make a good plant food too apparently if mixed with water and left to steep.
I did try a systemic weedkiller which worked to a certain extent too.
Hope that helps and good luck.
Ah Obelixx you obviously type faster than me, just posted and saw that you'd covered everything!
Thank you Obilixx and Teresa for your help. My DH did try the weedkiller route last year, but the nettles seemed to really enjoy the Round Up and grew bigger and stronger! I think this is probably because they were only sprayed once. As the proud owner of a brand new compost bin (to go with my brand new greenhouse!) I think I'll continue to pull them and dry them out as suggested.
I have kept a cluster of them growing behind my shed as the Butterflies love them
They're very persistent. Glyphosate kills them but once they've seeded there's an endless supply of new plants which come up to flower and seed very quickly.
They can't survived being regularly mowed though. I have far too many nettles but none in mown grass
In the sticks near Peterborough
I would dig/pull out as many with roots as you can be bothered to now. Then glyphosate them when they're about a foot high next spring. Any remaining can be sprayed again in June/July. I reckon that will pretty well finish them