Big weed problem
Josh1
Posts: 1
Hello everyone,
My wife and I moved in to our house last year and the garden was a real mess, just completely overgrown with grass and weeds, no borders or flowerbeds.
We managed to strim it all back, then kill everything off using rosate and rotorvate the garden with the idea of starting again and laying turf as well as making flower beds.
Unfortunately before we got round to laying the turf the garden just completely grew back with weeds and I'm not sure what to do. I don't know if we kill everything off again and lay the turf whether the weeds will just grow through or whether it would be ok. Or this there anything else we can try to eliminate the weeds? The two photos below are what the garden looks like now (complete with next doors kids football) and what the most common weed is.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
Posts
It's too late to do anything right now. Weed killer applied now won't be effective. You have 2 options, you can cover it for the winter with a weed suppression fabric, or leave it till spring when you can apply a weedkiller. The main weed is clover which will die off after treatment. Use a glyphosate based weed killer, and treat when weeds are actively growing. Don't rotavate the soil again, doing so only redistributes weed seed and roots. Give the weedkiller 2 weeks to work, then you can start preparation for the turf.
Look on the bright side - if the clover wasn't there you'd just have a load of mud by the time the winter weather has finished with it.
Clover takes nitrogen from the air and fixes it in its roots, so when you kill it off and dig it in next spring it will provide nitrogen for your grass - just as a green manure would. In fact some varieties of clover are grown just for that purpose.
Explain to anyone who asks about your lawn that growing clover over the winter is intentional as it will provide long term benefits to the soil
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.