BellBind

[TexMex]

I have had a look at my mothers back garden. Been sadly neglected for a few years. It is entirely covered with a blanket (about 30" thick) of BellBind. Any suggestions for getting rid of this. Strimmers just get tangled up in the stuff. Sheers are a lot of hard work, and besides, would just be a very temporary measure. I'm sure, if you stand quietly enough, you can actually hear it growing.

I've pretty much given up any hope of salvaging any existing plant life in this garden. There is one blackberry bush, I would like to save. Would it be best just to spray the entire garden with Potassium Chlorate, or perhaps, go over the whole area with a blow torch.

This garden has had BellBind, to some degree, for at least 50 years. I remember as a kid, helping my father extract a root about 4" in diameter that went down over 5 foot. I would love to exterminate the stuff completely. Am I fighting a loosing battle.

We've also had an invasion of Holly Hocks. They've sprung up all over the place, various colours. They weren't planted and none of the neighbours has ever had them. Most of these are about 8 feet tall. Are these going to be another incurable plague?

 

[breezer]

what about a sythe, chemicals will kill it, but not remove it

 

[TexMex]

I want to do both. (Kill it and remove it). I think some of these new fangled treatments rely on the foliage to carry the toxins into the root system. Hopefully, once it's dead, it will be easier to remove. At the moment, it's like trying to cut through rope netting, and there's litterally tons of it. The slightest bit left behind (root, stalk, or leaf), is enough to start another forrest.

But what I know about gardening fits onto the back of a postage stamp. I have been considering buying a few sacks of Lime to spread over it, then, once dead, yanking the stuff up and burning it. After a few downpours of rain I should be able to lay some turf over it? maybe?

I don't want to hard landscape the entire garden, but if I can't get this monster under control, it's my only option.

 

[john.a.page]

If it's any help I had this problem a few years ago in the garden of my previous home and an old 'professional' gardener told me the trick was to sow grass seed ove the whole lot. The constant cutting of the grass would eventually kill it because no plant likes to be constantly cut back close to the ground. To my amazement it worked!

After about 18 months I just dug the whole thing over and, apart from a small piec here and there, the problem was solved.

 

[TexMex]

Brilliant, I'll just heave of the surface three foot of growth first though. let it dry out and have a bonfire. Do you think it would be worth putting some topsoil over the top of it, before the grass seed?

 

[john.a.page]

You could put some top soil on I suppose but all I did was to 'broadcast' a reasonable quality grass seed by hand having first turned over the soil to a depth of about an inch with a 'Chillington Hoe'.

Once the seed had germinated I cut the grass quite close with a hover mower at least once a week for a whole year, and again the following spring before digging it all in. That had the desired effect.

 

[TexMex]

Once the seed had germinated I cut the grass quite close with a hover mower at least once a week for a whole year, and again the following spring before digging it all in. That had the desired effect.

You mean, that lawn that you had lovingly tended for about a year, you just dug back into the soil? Did you need to reseed again then?

 

[john.a.page]

Mmmmmmmmm perhaps it would have helped if I had explained that I used a cheap grass seed, with rye grass I think, that didn't give a good quality lawn. After all I was going to dig it up after 18 months anyway so I wasn't looking for a bowling green, so it was a kind of green fertiliser!

Having dug it all in I then laid out the shape of the new lawn and re-seeded it with a good quality seed. The space left became a vegetable plot and flower borders. I suppose I could have used turf but it would have cost an arm and a leg due to the size of the lawn.

 

[TexMex]

Sounds like the way to go, I'll get onto it sometime this week. Thanks for the advice.

The hollyhocks surprised me. Where on earth these came from is anyones guess. It's like an invasion of the tryfids. Just this year they appeared from nowhere. I could understand the odd one or two but they've appeared all over the garden, Mainly through gaps in the concrete path and between the path and the house walls. Seems like nature is trying to reclaim this garden and is taking no prisoners!