Hedgerows in County Meath

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

I've been thinking about weeds a lot since seinfeld started this thread, and because I've been trying to persuade them to vacate my lawn lately.

If the weather is good at the weekend, I'm going to spend an hour photographing loads of weeds. They're all growing like mad this time of year. Also, there are weeds in Meath that I have never seen in Portmarnock, and vice versa.

Can we have a Weed Solidarity day on MN ?

I bought a yoke in Lidl last week that's really good. Its a bit like corkscrew. You drive it into the weed and just twist it out. It takes the root with it, even for very shallow weeds.

It does leave something of a hole in the grass, however, so it mightn't be the best job if you're going for a prize lawn.

Ah the odd hole in the grass wouldn't bother me at all. Good for airation. Pop a bit of sand soil mix in and the job is oxo. Does it take out dandelions ? They are my Lawn Nemesis.

There's a good weedkiller you can get that is safe to spray on lawns called Verdone.
It's got some kind of fish oil in it so it rolls off the blades of grass but sits in the weeds. It wouldn't be strong enough to kill very well established dandelions, but you can spot treat them with Roundup.
You would need a sprayer though.

I have to say that I haven't seen any evidence of dead hedges in my region of Meath.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Ah the odd hole in the grass wouldn't bother me at all. Good for airation. Pop a bit of sand soil mix in and the job is oxo. Does it take out dandelions ? They are my Lawn Nemesis.

Wait until there has been plenty of rain and then go and ease the root out with an old kitchen knife or similar. They will come out very easily. Grass keeps them out so if you are fussy you could drop a bit of compost and grass seed in the hole. Weeding is very easy after rain - as easy as removing dead weeds after roundup.

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Ah the odd hole in the grass wouldn't bother me at all. Good for airation. Pop a bit of sand soil mix in and the job is oxo. Does it take out dandelions ? They are my Lawn Nemesis.

Wait until there has been plenty of rain and then go and ease the root out with an old kitchen knife or similar...

Like NOW would be a good time. I have a big screwdriver for that job. Sometimes the dandies get very deep though and I lose the bottom of the root.

AfricanDave wrote:

There's a good weedkiller you can get that is safe to spray on lawns called Verdone.
It's got some kind of fish oil in it so it rolls off the blades of grass but sits in the weeds. It wouldn't be strong enough to kill very well established dandelions, but you can spot treat them with Roundup.
You would need a sprayer though.

Roundup scares me. Its very effective, but it plays havoc with wildlife, particularly frogs. My garden is infested with frogs, which is brilliant, but its very hard to cut the grass without decapitating the odd one.

I try and make a lot of noise before I start, and work out rather than in, but some of them just aren't that smart, poor buggers.

A lot of weeds just cut out of lawns if you mow them regularly. I suppose the other question is what is a weed. My husband looking out of the bedroom window this morning said "what are all those little white flowers in the grass. Their nice." .....Some people would view daisies as a plague and try to weed them out. Clover and camomile in a lawn can be very pretty and scented. I carefully mowed around 3 cowslips this year in the hope that they would self-seed for more next year. If you can learn to love your wild flowers you may not have to weed.

We need to genetically engineer black flowers in order to absorb the heat and light from the sun so the planet won't get subject to random lumps of heat trapped in the atmosphere and elsewhere by co2. They would be engineered to thrive where there are higher concentrations of co2 than the IPCC regard as safe. Black flowers everywhere...

Solar panels everywhere might do something like that too, though.

Auditor #9 wrote:

We need to genetically engineer black flowers in order to absorb the heat and light from the sun so the planet won't get subject to random lumps of heat trapped in the atmosphere and elsewhere by co2. They would be engineered to thrive where there are higher concentrations of co2 than the IPCC regard as safe. Black flowers everywhere...

Solar panels everywhere might do something like that too, though.

Apparantly it's a myth that colours have any practical effect on heat retention.