Grass Refusing to Die!!
Linzi4
Posts: 1
Hi all
Let me start with I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GARDENING. I am here for advice.
When we moved into our new home, the garden was horrific. The gras was incredibly overgrown and clearly left for years to grow wild. We laboriously strummed it then covered it with "grass killing" tarp and then tonnes and tonnes of stones. It looked amazing. At first.
Now after we strimmed all of the long green grass, it was layers upon layers of dead, brown, tangled long dead grass underneath. Now the grass is growing up trough the stones and I cannot fathom why. There is grass killing tarp and a thick layer of heavy stones on top! How is this happening?? It's driving me mad.
I have exhausted the Google tips. Firstly we started with expensive grass killing liquid. Nope. Boiling hot water. Nope. Vinegar, salt, bleach - nope nope nope. The grass is still growing and as lush and green as ever. We pull the big clumps out by the root and they grow back what seems like A WEEK later.
Any advice would be much appreciated. And as I said, I know literally nothing about this!
Posts
Hi Linzi - I can only assume that grass is seeding in on top of the stones - there will be a nice medium for grass to germinate there as the stones gradually break down a little. that's quite common. Like any other area of a garden though, you need to attend to weeds as they appear.
Having said that, standard grass would easily be killed off by a good weedkiller, so it doesn't sound like it's a standard grass. If it's very coarse, it's possibly couch grass which can be difficult to get rid of. I wouldn't use things like vinegar or bleach - they leach into the surrounding areas and can cause other problems.
Can you take a few pix and that might help with an ID of what you have?
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Linzi4, How long has this been happening, it sounds like a couple or more years so the grass is seeding into the gravel and not coming from underneath unless it is couch grass, if it is couch then that stuff can grow through concrete. The only way would be to dig the lot out and that would mean every tiny bit of root, a big job best done by a jobbing gardener.
Look at any expensive brick drive near you and you will see grass growing through the sets no matter how well they a laid, they have to be jetted out or weed killer put down and it will come back. If what you have is a gravel garden of some kind then do what the Japanese do with them Rake the gravel on a regular basis and lift away weeds and grass. I have some gravel and rake it weekly to remove weeds which if left soon take over. No easy way I am afraid, a little work on a regular basis saves a lot of hard work if you let things go, thats gardening for you.
Frank.