Killing Off Creeping Plants

[Arfie]

I used to have a gardener, mainly because although I like a nice garden, I don't much enjoy gardening Anyway, he's got more useless as time has gone on and he's added loads of creeping plants to the borders/rockeries and left them to it His idea of controlling them was to strim them down th result is, that I now have loads of plants all ober my garden with weeds like dandylions and grasses growing in between.

Well I've sacked him and now I've slowly been working around the garden, cutting things down and digging up, but today I've started on the lilly of the valley (so my neighbour tells me) and i've tried digging it out, but there are tons of roots left in there.

Am I safe leaving them in there and just turning the soil over, or is there some trick/treatment I can use to ensure they are killed off. Anything I do must be pet safe due to the rescence of my stoopid cat who'd eat or lick anything dangerous

The intention is to clear the borders and either seed them with grass or maybe get turf bought, either way, they will become grass, but I'd prefer not to have to keep pulling plants out, any ideas?

Could I just grass it and let the mower/strimmer keep any plants chopped to 1" high? would that eventually kill the plants off?

I'm in the UK so any treatments must be available here

Cheers
Arfie

 

[Opcn]

I'm afraid that will not due for getting rid of lilly of the valley, the way I see it you have two options, light starvation, and herbacide.

There is a fairly good shortlived herbacide sold in the states under the tradename of Roundup its active ingrediant is glysophate and it either has to touch fine roots or leaves to kill the plant but it works systemically and under growing conditions it breaks down within hours of hitting the soil. The downside to this is that if you are uncareful with the spray and some drifts to the nieghbors roses they die slowly over two weeks and there is nothing that can be done to stop it . However you would be good to plant in 3 days

Light starvation is quite a bit more selective, you simply take out Newsprint, cardboard, or black plastic and lay it down ontop of the offending area, and then put either soil or rocks or furniture or somethign over it to hold it down, you can even stake it into the ground if you like, then you leave it, most plants are gone in a month durring the summer, but dandelions can hang on tanaciously, sometimes as many as 3 months if the roots are well established.

Now, once you have the area cleared there are other options outside of turf, if its a sunny area you can plant all sorts of useful food crops, if you have a fence on the edge you could mulch some of the ground to make room for some grapes, or hardy kiwifruit, both of which require only yearly pruning to get rid of non fruiting 3rd years spurs, or Hops if your into bewing, they shoot straight up at a high rate of speed giving you a lush column of foliage sometimes 3-4 feet wide, dieing back to the ground every winter, if its partial shade there are many varieties of squash that would do just fine but they wouldn't surve for a crisp garden look, more of a meanderings vine they are, I just urge you not to go with grass, if you grow your own food not only do you get healthy tastey and gratifying food but its cheaper and its good for the environment because it doesn't have to be shipped to you.

That or you could dig it all up and make a pond

 

[Arfie]

Cheers Opcn

I'm pretty sure we have round up here too I'll check at the garden centre. I know the light depravation would work but was unsure as to the length of time it would take, so cheers for that.

The area's I'm talking about are borders betwen lawns and paths and to be honest, theyll just be grassed over. I don't like gardening, though i'm OK with a lawnmower, so I'm intending to grass as much as I can maybe adding plants in troughs/pots at a later date. It's just an overgrown mess at the moment and I need it to look half decent.

I've dug as much of the lilly of the valley out as I could and have dumped a load of grass seed in to test if it can work that way.

Cheers

Arfie *off to buy a truck load of roundup *

 

[Opcn]

Be careful that you do not spray your grass and remember that roundup is not a good choice for spot treatment . Also, a raised bed with strawberries would be a great option in a raised bed, Yum Yum, plus the ladies would love some homegrown strawberries with cream .

Edit: And since its that kind of a border, think about how great it would look to have a stream running by your path!