Weeds
I'll love your garden so you don't have to
At Pardon Your Garden one of the most common gardening requests we get is for weeding.
Removing weeds isn’t exactly a glamorous topic to discuss but it’s a very popular one.
What Are Weeds?
Put simply a weed is just a plant. What makes it different from the other plants in your garden is that a weed is considered to be a general term for any plant growing where it is not wanted. Therefore, what one person considers to be a weed another won’t- neither are wrong.
Why should you care?
Weeds are a problem for reasons far beyond that they make your outdoor area look messy, uncared for and bring down the value of your home. Weeds are the enemy of the things that you actually do want to grow in your garden. This is because weeds will steal from your garden:
- Water
- Light
- Space
- Nutrients.
Conversely, they can also give to your garden…but not anything you want:
- Plant diseases
- Insect pests
- Poison
- Invasive root systems that have the potential to strangle the life out of plants
- Harmful seeds that get stuck in your furry loved ones and cause injury or illness.
(source: Encyclopedia Britannica)
Learn more about these garden enemies at Weeds Australia.
Couch Grass
Couch grass, usually pronounced cooch grass, is often regarded as a weed, but then again, it’s also often intentionally used as lawn and when well maintained, it can make your garden look great.
Couch grass is a popular choice for lawns because of how hardy and fast-growing it is. However, these are the same things that make it an incredibly challenging weed to deal with. This is because Couch grass:
- Has roots that grow up to 20cm deep
- Is perennial, meaning it’s designed to stick around regardless of the season
- Stores unusually large amounts of energy, so it can continue to grow and survive for long periods of time without energy from the sun
- Has growth networks both underground and aboveground.
- Spreads between gardens very easily.
(source: Royal Horticultural Society)
Once couch grass has earned its weed status in your garden it’s incredibly important to act quickly- the longer you wait to deal with it, the bigger and more impossible job it’s going to become.
Treating couch grass is much like treating any other weeds, however it’s way more time consuming due to its extensive root system and the critical importance of getting every last little bit of it out- leave even a tiny piece of root behind and it will most likely regrow.
Treatments
At Pardon Your Garden we usually use three main weeding treatments:
- Manual (by-hand, with tools, and/or using a whipper snipper)
- Chemical spray products
- Organic spray products.
Each of these approaches comes with pros and cons and we think it’s important for you to have all of the facts when it comes to deciding what you want your Pardon Your Garden service to include. We’ve summarised these common weeding approaches below.
If you’re still unsure or would like to know more about these treatments and how they’d work in your space, we’re happy to help- please get in touch with us.
I Can Help
At Pardon Your Garden I consider myself to be a bit of a pro when it comes to weeding. In fact, I’ve never met a weeding challenge that I couldn’t overcome, so if your outdoor area is a jungle of weeds, never fear because Pardon Your Garden can help. Weeding is automatically included in all Pardon Your Garden Garden Maintenance Services.
If you’re someone who’s pretty happy with most of your garden except for your weeds, then we’ve got the perfect service perfect for you. It’s called the Garden ENEMY service and it’s an intensive weeding-only service. Visit the Garden Maintenance Services page to learn more about the ENEMY service and check-out real-life examples of it, and my other weeding work in the Gallery.
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