Keep on top of weeds

Anne Swithinbank’s masterclass on: problem weeds

- Anne Swithinbank

Q We have moved into a medium-sized, well-laid out garden, but it has become very weedy. I’ve noticed some ground elder, couch grass and bindweed. What should I be doing over winter to control these weeds?

Emily Pritchard, Sawston, Cambridgeshire

A Perennial weeds will have spent autumn absorbing nourishment back into their creeping underground stems known as rhizomes, though we tend to refer to them as roots. Leaves will have withered, but as you have spotted where they are growing, it is worth using periods when the ground is neither frozen nor waterlogged to loosen the soil using a fork, and winkle out as many roots as you can. Come spring, regrowth will be sparse and easier to deal with.

In my experience, perennial weeds infest different borders in a garden, so you might have an outcrop of bindweed here and couch grass there. Avoid the temptation to move cultivated plants around, because they are likely to have tiny portions of weed rhizome hitching a lift on their roots. In spring, take basal cuttings of Michaelmas daisies, lupins, phlox, anthemis, penstemons and other perennials, and once they’ve rooted, dispose of the weed-infested parent plants. The roots of perennial weeds must not go on the compost heap, as few domestic heaps reach temperatures high enough to kill them off.