This blog is all about the more tricky weeds, the ones that aren’t easily mulched or planted out. I kick off with my 6 basic strategies then launch into my tried and true solutions in my Rogues Gallery below.

1. Change your mindset!

Weeds are mineral rich powerhouses that are, on the whole, healing your soil by bringing to it exactly what it needs. Do your best to relax about them, and to stop trying to eliminate them as such, more fade them away where they are a hassle and maybe live with a few here and there where they aren’t. For peace of mind it helps greatly to relate to them as an ongoing thing, and in some cases, a friend.

2. Improve soil

Weeds proliferate in certain conditions, so as you improve soil e.g. sort drainage, compaction and plant lots of trees, you’ll loosen the weeds grip.

3. Smother

Lay black plastic or carpet over tricky weeds. Lift off once the weed has fried and died and plant up immediately.

4. Outcompete

Apart from vining weeds and runner grasses, most weeds can be outcompeted with taller shrubs or trees and competitive groundcovers. Sometimes they need to be smothered first.

When a weed is no longer dominant, rather interspersed amongst other plants that you love, you’ll stop worrying about it so much. You may need a few stabs at it to work out the best plants for outcompeting, but keep at it!

5. Be choosy about seedheads

*In larger gardens for goodness sake (literally), let less-bothersome, nourishing, soil improving weeds like dandelions, chicory and wild carrot seed away!*

Leave the seed heads you want, to ripen and fall. Chop off the ones you don’t want, before seeds ripen – hurrah! Saved the day!

6. Use animals

Goats for thistle and blackberry, chickens for clearing vegie beds and beneath berries, and pig for convuluvlulus. Create animal runs along fence lines where incoming weeds arrive from your lovely neighbours.

A Rogues Gallery

Runner grass isnt easy! My initial solution is to spread compost beneath this young lemon, and use carpet as a grass suppressing mulch. The rest of the grass I will chop and drop and hopefully once the tree grows, the runner grass will fade in the shade beneath. I am wondering if I can turn this into a chicken run. Meantime the carpet buys me time!

Here are the weeds I have lived with and worked with. These are my tried and true solutions. Though weed management, like everything!, depends on context. By that I mean your unique environment, your energy, how much land you have and the scale of the weed.

Blackberry

Blackberry is an edge weed and if you have a large amount of it you may always have it on the sunny edges – consider it pie filling, and hold it back with animals or a scrub cutter.

On an acre or less grub out the blackberry, then plant trees to shade it out.
On more than an acre clear it out with a digger, then use goats, or cut’n’paste on the regrowth while planting it out or transforming the area into grazing or animal runs.

Buttercup, inkweed and dock

Cut seedheads off dock during the growing season – whizz round with the weed eater. Use a tractor mower on a larger block.
Plant lots of tap roots, trees, shrubs to aerate and improve soil, and outcompete, and these three rogues will fade away.
Handweed On small sections grub or dig after it’s rained – trust me its easier this way.

Convulvulus

*Large scale vine removal is a full on mission! Clearing ground like this requires an immediate follow up with seed or plants, and/or a plan to graze or mow, otherwise it’ll be back en force.*

Vines are tough customers. At my place, nourished in our clay base soil – convulvulus winds for miles and miles, smothering all in it’s path. We have tried every trick in the book.

Small areas or bare ground lay clear plastic over top the patch and use planks to seal the edges. In the heat the new growth will shoot away but it’ll quickly fry and die. When no greenery remains, go over the area with a garden fork and get up as much root as you can. Either burn it or seal it in a black plastic bag until it has rotted. Plant the cleared space up straight away. As new bits appear, patiently follow the root back to source and whip it out. It’ll become easier and easier as the soil improves.

Pigs love convulvulus root and we use Nellie our kunekune, to root up those protein rich roots over winter along our south and east fencelines. This isn’t a long term fix, she needs to do it every year or the fenceline goes under.

Where convulvulus winds through existing plants – well, we’ve got a problem Houston. The roots twist through existing roots and set up a home. This is what we have along our northern line and to date my best solution has been cutnpaste, a roll on glyphosate developed by kiwi park ranger Andy Spence. Every year in December we dab the ends of the new growth and every year less arrives. I’m hopeful we will see the end of it in this way.

Oxalis

High on your list as a pernicious weed, and I understand it is annoying! But it’s so small and shallow rooted that’s its easily outcompeted. Oxalis thrives on disturbance so best leave it be as much as possible. Lay card on top, thick mulch, then plant with perennials, defo not annual vegies!

Runner grasses

*Rotten hay mulch is a great way to transform an area overcome with runner grass.*

Kikuyu spreads out via runners below and above ground while couch (or twitch) runs below the topsoil. They are both really determined grasses.

In open areas knock the grass back by laying plastic on top for summer and autumn — or until it’s died off, then lay cardboard thickly, pile the mulch on and plant equally determined perennials – soft, gentle annuals will not do it! Fast growing trees teamed up with vigorous tap roots and tenacious groundcovers to make like a forest, works a treat. Don’t turn your back while the trees establish.

If these grasses are in your vegie patch, keep on keepin’ on with weeding them out, at the same time adding compost and hay mulch to loosen their grip on the soil. The roots that peg them down will get further and further apart, making them easier to manage in time. Little and often weeding for the win, and a long term view.

If you have a sizable tract of land, keep kikuyu in check (notice I don’t say eliminate!) with a combo of grazing and forest style plantings as above.

Tradescantia (wandering willie)

This little weed is serious in bush because it puts a halt to regeneration, flourishing in the light gap made when a tree dies and stopping new natives coming up.

Chickens love tradescantia. They’ll clean the area up for you in the best way possible.
If you are chicken-less rake it all up, hunting out every last scrap. Stuff it into a black plastic bag and leave it down the back of the garden somewhere for a year or more. Turned to sludge, it’s a nutritious addition to your compost.
Alternatively I’ve had good success with laying clear plastic over the infestation and letting the sun fry it.

Whatever route you choose, be sure to plant it up straight away! The usual recipe for outcompeting applies – vigorous, evergreen, perennial groundcovers + trees. While new plantings establish, keep on top of bits that come through. Once the ground is well and truly covered it wont be a problem.

A One off taming spray

In all my years consulting I’ve only twice recommended spraying. At all costs, I try everything to avoid it, but sometimes in some contexts I run out of tools e.g. steep-as ground, lack of access or the sheer intensity of the weed. Spray-as a one off tool teamed with cunning design, dense plantings of fast growing trees, grazing animals, diverse groundcovers – a plan to change the soil and environment and move the weeds on.

There are ways and means to temper the impact of glyphosate, check in with Integrity Soils or Quorum Sense or the Soil Food Web Lab for more.

All the while keeping it real that spray impacts health and is insidious – the particles and vapour spread far and wide “95% – 98% of sprayed -icides miss their target, reaching nearby people and wildlife, waterways, soil and air” Source: Miller GT (2004), Sustaining the Earth, 6th edition. Thompson Learning, Inc.

Spray Free Solutions for Tricky Weeds