Weedkiller... is Roundup the best I can get?

[Tail End Charlie]

I have used vinegar as weedkiller. It does kill plants, especially grass and green leafy types. You need to use the distilled (clear) stuff, but doing a bit of Googling I found that you need 10% acetic acid concentration to stand any chance of killing the roots, but the stuff available in shops is only 5%. There is information available on the internet, as I recall, many people recommend mixing it with salt and washing up liquid, because not much survives salt and the washing up liquid helps the fluid stick to the leaves.

I also made some of my own weedkiller by mixing about 2kg of salt into a large bucket of boiling water, stirring to dissolve the salt and then adding a bottle of cheap bleach. It worked quire well, but the weeds eventually grew back. have recently used one of those pressure cannisters of Round Up, which can be refilled, so when the Round Up is gone I am going to try using the cannister to spray my own concoction.

Tbh @Roadhump I'd be worried about the residue in the soil, I do have to grow something! Even on my paths I might get run off onto the beds.

 

[PK99]

I have a particular problem with horsetails. Of course pulling them up is useless as there is always some root left behind that just regrows. Any advice as to what might be effective?

A small nuclear device perhaps?

Repeated repeated repeated application of glyphosate.

Spray.
Leave a week.
Hoe off.
Wait for regrowth.
Spray
.......etc

It's a plant, it needs green bits to survive and grow. Continually deprive it of green bits and spray the active regrowth which sucks the glyphoste down to the roots and you MUST weaken the plant.

It takes time but I cleared border in a client garden that way (in that case I wiped the tails using glyphosate covered pvc gloves)

Similar technique works for ground elder, but in that case alternate weekly sprays of glyphosate translocated root acting) and Weedol (contact acting) is the most effective.

Bindweed, let it grow 1 - 2 m lengths and coil insides a food bag sprayed with glyphosate bruising as you coil, seal with rubber band and stuff into the border foliage. It sucks the killer right down to the root mass over the week the top growth takes to die.

(I used to charge people good money for doing this stuff! )

 

[classic33]

Tbh @Roadhump I'd be worried about the residue in the soil, I do have to grow something! Even on my paths I might get run off onto the beds.

Nearly all weedkillers become inactive upon contact with the soil. But not all.

 

[Dave 123]

[QUOTE 4303243, member: 259"]You'd be wanting to pass the project on to your grandkids to start having an effect on horsetails![/QUOTE]


It'll stop him wasting his life on an Internet forum though.....

 

[classic33]

It'll stop him wasting his life on an Internet forum though.....

Watching grass grow!

 

[MontyVeda]

Will Roundup or anything like it kill ivy?

i got my hands on a bit of paraquat for that ...and it worked.

 

[MontyVeda]

all interesting stuff cyclechatters... @Roadhump , your concoctions... do they require a drenching or a bit of a spray like a 'proper' weedkiller?

 

[Roadhump]

all interesting stuff cyclechatters... @Roadhump , your concoctions... do they require a drenching or a bit of a spray like a 'proper' weedkiller?

Until now I have used a watering can with a rose nozzle but I may try the Round Up pressure sprayer next time. I haven't had any problems with the soil becoming contaminated, as long as you are careful and don't let it get on plants you want to keep, you should be okay - at least that has been my experience. The main place I have used it is behind my garage where it gets overgrown, but I have had to do it again the next year.

Having said that, I also used it on the stump of a Lime tree that kept sprouting millions of shoots and that I had tried unsuccessfully to kill for about 5 years and it did the trick. Then again, I had another Lime tree stump that was cut down the same time but was surrounded by plants I wanted to keep so on that one I just laced the shoots with a few kg of Tesco Value salt and it also did the trick.

 

[classic33]

Watering can wouldn't give a fine enough mist, whilst a pressure sprayer can cause the finer mist produced to travel further, but can be better controlled.

 

[classic33]

i got my hands on a bit of paraquat for that ...and it worked.

Needle and syringe, used near the base but clear of the ground.

 

[coco69]

Boiling water

 

[classic33]

Boiling water

How do you spray it on?

 

[Roadhump]

How do you spray it on?

I have used boiling water for individual dandelions and it kills them quickly. When I looked this up on Google, the article I found said that boiling water effectively cooks the weed including the root. However, for deep roots I'm not sure it would get down far enough. The other problem is that to keep the water at maximum temperature you have to apply it straight from your kettle, or saucepan so this makes it labour intensive and probably expensive. I would imagine it would be quite impractical for large areas of weeds.

 

[awomaninsane]

Will Roundup or anything like it kill ivy?

Yes. I'm in the process of killing off an ivy. You need to scrunch the leaves before spraying it on but for added measure I used a little saw and sawed into the roots and poured the neat Roundup straight in. The whole thing is turning brown now and on its way out. Finally!
I'm also trying to kill a tree with it but this is going to take quite a few applications I think.

 

[furball]

My neighbour poisoned my cat by spraying with agricultural Roundup. The cat survived but was very poorly.