Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I found an old shower tray left behind by the previous owners, so that's in the garden now.

Maybe I will dig a proper pond at some point, see how this goes :)

Got the mini shed up and took another bootload of stuff to the tip (no idea how such a small garden generates so much waste) so garden is pretty much done apart from needing a bit of pressure washing and some more grass seed down.

Any recommendations for comfy, compact and weatherproof garden furniture? Everything seems either massive or fragile with not much inbetween.

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Back on the NGS tip, this Saturday there are a couple of group openings in London:

Hyde Park Estate Gardens: https://findagarden.ngs.org.uk/garden/36045/hyde-park-estate-gardens

Spitalfields: https://findagarden.ngs.org.uk/garden/29826/Spitalfields%20Gardens%C2%A0

I dare say it’s been covered at some point but using the search didn’t help (usual disclaimer about user error applies) so…

Any recommendations for a really powerful weed killer, the sort that would see off bramble roots?

SBK

I tried glyphosate.

I fed the brambles (with leaves) into a 2l coke bottle and taped the top up.

They came back a few years later.

I think you probably need to also dig the roots out.

Edit: reading about Triclopyr, it does sound much better for brambles

I should have said that it’s bamboo, the chap who dug it out said that we needed a strong weed killer, “the sort you’d use for bramble roots”

Can recommend the mix your own 360g/L glyphosate for most stuff. I've been working on the ivy taking over the side of my garden at some really strong concentration

Just going to leave this here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/20/glyphosate-weedkiller-cancer-biomarkers-urine-study

Finally managed some planting in our garden. The grass will eventually become a dense jungle but we underestimated the cost of plants.

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Yep. Same as loads of chemicals. I'll take the risk.

With glyphosate, I believe (from the chats I had with the JKW guy who I was dealing with at my last place) the issue is long term or regular exposure without proper PPE. Because Monsanto and the like probably lobbied for it to be downgraded in toxicity (or whatever the term is), people would just splash it about all over the place. I think there was a case where a groundskeeper for a school or college was able to win a case where it was determined that it was the cause of their cancer. Since then it has had more media coverage.

But as @Grumpy_Git says, there are chemicals we probably use everyday that are more carcenogenic. Glyphosate breaks down in the soil eventually and is not seen as likely to enter the water table because it binds to the soil. What it will do is totally fucking annihilate any plants it touches. When we had the JKW treated, there was a perfect circle of scorched earth around each plant, but the grass came back in the next year or so. The JKW tried to come back too, but it was definitely much weaker and eventually gave up and went dormant.

Use your own discretion, but if you do use it, glove and mask up, especially if spraying. The JKW folks were fully hazmat suited up (but then they do it every day) but said we didn't have to be too wary of the area around the treatment but to give it a bit of space for a week or so. If anything because disturbing JKW can actually kick it back into life again.

I still have an unopened bottle of it in the shed that I panic bought when I first discovered the JKW, never used it. For the brambles and ivy here I pulled it all up by the roots as much as possible. Some of it still pops up from time to time but I'm maybe only now pulling one up every other week or so. Down from about 60 square meters of shoulder high bramble and ivy running all over the place like cables under the whole lawn.

My nan Glyphosated 60 a day and lived to 92yo. Never did her any harm.

Jokes aside, on the glove point - I always like wearing a set of nitrile gloves under my main gloves. That way you can take your main gloves off without getting anything on your skin.

I now do this with quite a lot of things after reading it as tip for using expanding foam years ago.

Glyphosate is probably harming bees, so I would avoid it if I can. Don't know about the JKW, no doubt the internet will have more info?

Pelargonic acid does not seem to harm insects, so I got some for the driveway. I hate spraying but plants with deep taproots between bricks, ugh. And no I don't want to tarmac it over and make the ants homeless / stop water drainage.

I have a shittonne of brambles and the neighbours don't control them, so I dig up what I can and the rest is just cutting out what comes up. As no way killing it with poison stops it long term...

Looks good! May the slugs not eat the hosta :)

And yeah plants costs quickly add up!

Same with brambles. It's the work of minutes a year just to snip them when they pop under the fence.

While glyphosate is probably the way to go if you want chemicals, I have had lots of success in removing bamboo by just allowing it to shoot up and then cut it back to the ground before the leaves unfurl. The plant needs photosynthesis to survive and will die off in a year or so as it runs out of energy... Minimal effort and no potentially harmful chemicals to have to deal with. Obviously if you want to keep some part of it then this won't work as the underground network of roots will provide food to any offshoots.
There was also a video about this method posted in this thread not too long ago...

Does this work with bindweed?

Another plague in my garden, I did dig out the roots where I could and this does seem to help a lot.

But I still have to pick it out every year, if you have soft soil I'd try to get as much of the root as you can. But it's not so bad where I dug out the roots. Don't put them on the compost heap, they don't die easily :D

Looks fantastic. A real nice mix there. Also seconded on the plant costs!

We went a mix of dig and spray. Literally 6+ dumpy bags of root. Still pulling out the odd tendril and root.

It worked for ground elder for me. Every time you see the leaves, whip them off and after a while it doesn’t come back. Will work for most things I reckon, just requires a small amount of effort and patience.

bindweed

No.

But heard a suggestion on GQT to put sticks in the ground for it to grow up so that it is easier to see and pull up.