I have it all along my green lane, and it looks lovely. Often it is the first sign of colour after the winter. I have found that frequent mowing does keep it under control from the path where I don't want it. If you are in a controlled environment such as a garden with it in a nice lawn, the only thing that I know of is a selective lawn weedkiller. I used it in the UK and it did work, but as I don't have that problem these days I cannot say if it would deal with your problem. Weedkillers have been put behind locked doors here in an environmental drive, and I really don't buy anything that says it is not organic anymore.
No I think I just have to tolerate it and selectively weed in the areas i def dont want it.... it goes in a couple of weeks from now... It has spread everywhere and that is with careful weeding
I now tend to control weeds by digging them out or mowing them up. I have recently moved to a "no dig" method which adovates you cover your soil (mulch, bark, even cardboard over winter) and that it stop weeds getting through - whereas digging opens up the soil and encourages new weeds to seed. Too early to tell how effective but I have to say my veg beds this spring have been mostly weed free. We keep a few areas of the garden for wild flowers and weeds to encourage bees butterflies etc.
Back in the 1960's I visited a garden that followed the no dig principle. They covered the ground with 4" of peat and just kept topping it up. Not acceptable to use peat like that these days of course. Many of the small producers here use a plastic or glass fibre type film to grow crops through. Cut a hole, put your plant in, and it keeps the competition away from what you want. Bob Flowerdew an organic gardener places great store in using old carpet. It suppresses the weeds and keeps the soil warm.
What is the definition of 'weed' Leo ? I define it as any plant growing in a place which it is unwelcome - which could include lots of things. If it is edible, usable by bees, or belongs to a different botanic family to the vegetables I am cultivating (or if it draws its nutrition from a completely different depth) then I ignore them. Sometimes the 'weeds' have more nutritious value than the vegetables you are protecting (Garlic Mustard for example). If they are related eg. Garlic Mustard to Cabbage, then I would haul them out - or clover to beans. Or if they really are a danger to a crop, such as Chickweed are to onions. We planted Borage a few years ago - now we have it everywhere, and if it increases bee activity close to the tomatoes, or beans, then we leave it. Although Borage tends to dominate if given free reign. We also get lots of Mugwort, wild carrots and Comfrey growing all over the place - wild carrots taste somehow more 'carroty' than the others, but you need good teeth for them !
My definition of weed is goose grass. No good to man nor beast, smothers everything it can, spreads all over the place, and can scratch bare arms. I gather it up in barrow loads, and the next time I look it is back again.
Took me a while to work out which plant that is Frenchie - I've been here so long that I know the German and botanical names better than the English ones, also wild plants have so many different local names. You wouldn't believe this but goose grass - Kletten Labkraut, is edible and belongs to the same family as coffee. So, if you get desparate you can always eat it. But I know what you mean - it sticks to everything.
I define a weed as a plant that I did not plant growing where I do not want it. Anything good for birds, bees, butterflies or other wild life is very welcome so long as it does not smother and kill plants I choose to grow - whether ornamental or vegetable. I had not heard the term goose grass (galium aparine apparently) but your description matched one of my most hated plants - we call it sticky bud (but looking it up that led me to references on cannabis!!) Also of course bindweed is a nuisance. A plant we had when we moved here - Red Valerian - is lovely - but is becoming a weed in our garden - it is beginning to crop up everywhere. Also if you dig it up its roots have the most foul stench like strong cow manure.
Interesting afternoon at the open garden. The rain came down in bucket loads and the wind blew keeping all the visitors sheltering in the barns. Great shame as it was obvious that the owner had spent a lot of time over the past week trying to have it look its best. However the chatter was good, with people learning from the tales of success and failure we had experienced. One English couple found that when they received the deeds to their house a year ago they were 25% owners of the village pond that formed the boundary to their garden. As the long dry spell continued last summer they kept watering the vegetable plot with water from the pond, but for some reason their side of the pond reduced in level far more than the other three users. When they discussed it with the neighbours they discovered that when the level was reduced you spent a day with the shovel digging the silt out from the bottom and spreading it onto the garden. With the decayed vegetation in the silt it made a good mulch.
Just back from Dorset where things are way ahead. All trees in leave but our birch and oaks are tentatively poking their new leaves out. As for perennial weeds - dandelion et all, I have a pot of made up glyphosate which I paint on plants that are growing close to other plants and cannot dig up. Another trick is to get an empty bog roll and glyphosate spray, put bog roll over plant and spray down the bog roll tube.
Declaration of War: I hereby give notice that war has been officially declared against the Kingdom of the Voles (I don't think they are a republic !). The enemy army is, unfortunately, in partial control of some areas of the battlefield, and has a reproduction programme which Stalin would have been proud of. Weapons which have been used to partial effect so far include: Garlic, liquid manure from elderberry leaves or nettles (undiluted) in the holes, castor oil (used the same way), those ultra sonic things which you bury in the garden (which advertize protection up to 800 sq. metres - but which are only effective up to 2 metres away), broken glass and gravel buried around endangered plants. We do not have a cat (Mrs. Cologne doesn't like them) - we do have 3 goats but I do not want to give them access to the veg. plot etc. ! No means, fair or foul, humane or otherwise, will be ignored. All ideas are welcome - yes, I know I could bury fences around endangered areas, but not at this time of the year. I know the idea of opening up the main tunnel, closing the rest and then using the exhaust from a tractor - but I feel this may do damage to many other things than just voles.
You could try the nuclear option as it is a war. There are some devices here that you put in the runs, and as soon as the little darlings touch them, they explode sending them on a journey to vole heaven or hell.
