Worst weeds ever!

Weeds come in all shapes and sizes, with some being less welcome than others, but which are the worst? Graham Rice investigates and explains how to get rid of them

- Graham Rice

WEEDS are a menace, and the worst weeds ever are more of a menace than most so we need to get rid of them. After all, what’s the point of growing flowers or edibles if we allow the weeds to smother them or steal their moisture and nutrients?

“Easier said than done,” I hear you cry. Well, yes. But hard? Not really. The key thing to remember, the one thing always to keep in mind, is this: Be vigilant, be watchful and never drop your guard.

Spreading by seeds and roots

My lawn is more of a wildflower meadow, really, with more flowers than grass, and dandelion seeds are always blowing in from next door. So I’ve just been out with an old kitchen knife, nicely sharpened, to slice them off at the root. True, their flowers provide valuable early nectar for pollinators, but there are thousands of wild dandelions nearby and I’d really rather not have their flat rosettes smothering more delicate flowers. So now, every time I see a flower, out comes the knife.

Bindweed is an especially clear example of the need to get in quick. I reckon that for every 1ft (30cm) of twining bindweed stem above ground, there’s the same amount of invasive root underground. Keep pulling away the top growth, and excavating as much root as you can, and the roots will exhaust themselves trying to make more shoots. But you have to keep at it, and that’s where most of us fail. If you allow the shoots and leaves to develop they’ll fuel underground spread day by day.

And that sums up the two approaches to weed control: don’t allow weeds that spread by seed to actually make any seed. And don’t allow weeds that spread at the root to make any leafy growth to fuel more root growth.