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Starting a new bed
Mother Hen2
Posts: 41
I am starting a new bed in the garden but it is currently covered in grass and ground elder. I had planned on just digging it all up and trying to get out as much of the elder as possible, I don't think it will be possible to eliminate it all as behind the bed is a hedge and it's running through that and under my fence. But I wondered today if maybe the best thing would be to treat the area with weed killer as it is close to 8m long and it might be more successful with the elder. Any thoughts?
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I think it depends on how effective the weed killer would be on ground elder. If it will clear it - then yes. The alternative would be to edge it, cover in cardboard and 3 inches of compost. Having started a number of borders - I would be very tempted to spray everything off next time.
If you get a dry non windy day, I would spray the lot with glyphosate, so that you can then fork it over during Autumn, and you will have a clean start next year. Ground elder may need two treatments, four weeks apart to get the stragglers.
I have recent experience with a new plot and would strongly recommend using a strong liquid weedkiller across the whole plot, after digging over the soil and removing stones etc. The plot I did was only a little smaller than yours, had been neglected for many years and had a variety of weeds growing in it
I used it as a garden tip while I worked on the rest of the back garden. When I cleared it I also dug down to the base clay, removing most of the soil and seiving the soil before putting it back. I didn't enrich it with compost as I intended to plant it with wild and meadow flowers.
However, what I didn't realise was that the soil had retained seeds and rhizomes/root pieces of some of the weeds, which started growing after I'd seeded it. It wouldn't have been too bad if it had been just a few dandelions or docks, but it had the dreaded Mare's tail and a lot of speedwell (Veronica).
So most of the plants that grew from my seeds have now been severely thinned or pulled out while I've spent the last few weeks pulling and digging out weeds and spraying/re-spraying the Mare's tail.
I'm just about on top of it now but I would have saved myself all these weeks of wasted time and plants if I'd given the ground a good soaking of weedkiller in the beginning.
I agree with Fidgetbones - use glyphosate and allow all the weeds to die off until they're brown before digging over. The ground elder may need more than one application.
I would also put in a vertical barrier of some type (something like this http://www.terram.com/products/geotextiles/rootguard.html ) to prevent ground elder that is amongst the hedge bottom from spreading back into your garden.
Be careful not to spray the hedge when treating the bed with glyphosate.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you for all your input, sounds like the weed killer is the way forward. Thanks for the tip on the vertical barrier Dove, some of that will certainly be purchased otherwise I think I'll have little hope keeping the elder at bay!