Your top ten worst weeds.

The Continental Op

I just wonder if we can cobble together a list of the top ten worst weeds (we don't need to stick at ten).

Mine would have to include

Weeds that I'd consider moving house to get way from

Mares tail or horse tail

Japanese Knotweed - although it can be beaten I've proved that.

Oxalis - never managed to get on top of it

Other worst weeds that aren't so bad I'd consider moving but are a right pain.

Ground elder

Scutch grass - UK Couch grass

Creeping buttercup

Bind weed

Cleavers aka clivers, catchweed and sticky willy etc

Rosebay willowherb and any other willowherb

Bluebells - I love the native bluebell but not in every bed in the garden

There are loads of others but they are more of a nuisance than anything and with work can be dealt with my top 10 are ones that take more up more time that any other weeds.

Igotadose

Blackberries - uggh. Just. Uggh. They can be beaten into submission but eternal vigilance is still necessary to keep them from returning.

Thistle - damn things are impossible to keep down.

Nettles - another plague.

I'd add +500 to the scutch grass. I've had it sneak into (what I thought were) sealed bags of compost left outside. Open the bag up, and it's full of roots. B*stard plant.

The Continental Op

If I could eliminate just one weed on my list from our garden then it would be scutch.

put_the_kettle_on

Alchemilla ( sp ) mollis I'd add. I don't know why anyone would deliberately plant it in their gardens it's such a spreader.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119281322#Comment_119281322

We always cultivated it under trees in when we lived in the PNW, it was great groundcover. One man's weed...

Lumen

Bindweed is the only one that I'd like to wipe off the face of the earth.

I'm sure it has some ecological purpose but I don't care.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119281340#Comment_119281340

Once saw a video by Charles Dowling where he cleaned the bindweed out of garden bed it had invaded. He had a huge bale of the stuff when he was done. Vile evil stuff

Dowling, of course, composted it. But still. I see it, it gets the roundup treatment. No quarter. It's not terrible here, unlike the endless scutch grass/blackberry/thistle/nettle assault

put_the_kettle_on

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119281330#Comment_119281330

Very true re one man's weed.

It self seeded I think from my neighbours garden and took over a rockery. No matter how carefully I weed it out it comes back again.

The Continental Op

I can easily live with Alchemilla mollis its a weed but I think the problem arises because its an attractive weed so people don't immediately weed out its seedlings so it becomes a nuisance. Once you know better its easy to kill it as soon as you see it growing where you don't want it.

looksee

I have planted alchemilla in an area that I want it to invade - in full knowledge, I had it in a previous garden.

However worst weeds in my current garden - creeping buttercup, scutch, common hogweed (lots of it), ivy, cleavers, brambles. And a plague of hawkbit this year, though it is easy to pull up.

There are lots of others but I am happy to live with them, and some I encourage. Two large areas of nettles are fine - if you don't want them they are easy to pull up and in quantity they look ok too.

Edit, oh and that straggly little weed with tiny white flowers that fires seeds from long pods if you touch it. Can't remember what its called but its a nuisance.

B.A._Baracus

Man, I totally misinterpreted this thread.

ZX7R

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119281799#Comment_119281799

Flick weed otherwise know as hairy bittercress

coillsaille

It's against 3 B's that our main battles are fought here, with some minor skirmishes against others.

Bindweed, Bracken and Brambles.

ZX7R

Nettles ,dandelions, thistles,

bindweed more of a love hate relationship some variants have spectacular flowers

Just adding ornamental cabbage plants when the seed they spread like feck

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119281880#Comment_119281880

I'm currently waging a hopefully short war against Bracken. Basically it consists of a daily walk over the infested ground while using a 4 ft length of alkathene water pipe to bash any newly emerging bracken shoots. Its taking longer every time for the new shoots to emerge and they are getting shorter and thinner. They also get a regular hit with 2,4-T which I'm using to keep the brambles and blackthorn down.

nevik

I managed to get on top of a bindweed infestation by sheer persistance, digging it out and painstaking use of a sieve.

My latest pain is a small purple oxalis, very invasive, and hard to spot against the soil colour. Don't think I will ever get on top of it but I will limit it's spread.

I can tolerate just about anything but couch grass and ground elder. I’m having a love hate with vetch at the moment. Bees love it, it matches my garden colour scheme but it’s creeping from the wild boarders to the perennials now. I can’t bear to cut it back but it’s beginning to take over a bit!

Dempo1

Anything that upsets my Lawn, can't stand Dandelion or Daisy, have a pathalogic hatred of both, yellow clover a Pox and Moss (is it a weed 🤔) but can't abide it.

I'm not into this rewilding of lawn areas, I've ample flowering plants and shrubs, wild flowers etc for the bees and birds are fed better than me 😁

Dank Janniels

1-Horsetails

2-Horsetails

3-Horsetails

4-Horsetails

5-Horsetails

6-Horsetails

7-Horsetails

8-Horsetails

9-Horsetails

10-Bráiste 😀

looksee

I have never heard of yellow clover, is it the same as black medic (Medicago lupulina)?

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119282175#Comment_119282175

As I pointed out in the OP, thats one (10) I'd consider moving house over.

Reckless Abandonment

Bind weed (I just pull it up every month or so) it spreads so easy.

Self inflicted, pheasant grass has turned Into a pain.

Tree

Willowherb (where does so much of it come from?!) (more quantity being a problem than it being difficult itself)

Fennel (it doesn't blow in on the wind, but damn I should never have planted that fcker)

Nettles I don't mind so much, they're handy to pull and more importantly keep animals and small humans out of the way. Same for dandelions, if i pull them early from the beds they're grand and I'm happy for them to be in the "lawn".

looksee

I had forgotten fennel. It was in residence when I took over the garden. It will always be in residence!

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119282264#Comment_119282264

I have a fair bit of it but I don't find it difficult to control, and I think it's quite attractive. It will take over a space where there's not much competition, but if I want to clear an area a few minutes with some roundup will get rid for a couple of years.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119282711#Comment_119282711

Which Horse Tail do you have? I suspect Equesitum Arvense is the one that is difficult to control and than Equesitum palustra is somewhat more controllable.

magicbastarder

Bluebells - I love the native bluebell but not in every bed in the garden

not difficult to control though?

i planted native bluebell in a tiny woodland section of the garden about seven or eigh years ago and it's barely spread. the wild garlic does a much better job of spreading.

The Continental Op

Very difficult to eradicate. Easy enough to hoe the tops off but you can do that for years and years before they finally give up.

I've never been unlucky enough to have wild garlic so can't say on how easy or otherwise it is to control, I believe its a bad one?

magicbastarder

i was looked at like i had two heads when i asked did they stock it in the garden centre.

i had been given 'wild garlic' bulbs prior to that, which turned out to be three cornered leek, but i'm pretty much on top of that now; ten minutes every few weeks yanking them and they're largely under control.

jaffa20

Grape hyacinth, Muscari Armenicanum. Don't plant it in your soil. It seeds everywhere and spreads like mad! I inherited a garden with it and it's everywhere even when I try to dig it out every year. The leaves take forever to die down in late spring and i spend forever pulling them out.

joujoujou

1. Blackberry
2. Blackberry
3. Blackberry
4. Blackberry
5. Blackberry
6. Blackberry
7. Blackberry
8. Blackberry
9. Soft Rush (Common Rush)
10. Soft Rush (Common Rush).

While #9 and #10 not so annoying if lawn is cut frequently, with getting rid of 1 to 8 I failed miserably. Sometimes I think the only solution I didn't try yet is Napalm.

looksee

We had three cornered leek, but one session of taking out bulbs - and the daffodils they were hiding between - sorted them almost totally. The daffs were replanted and they came back no problem.

looksee

The previous garden owner had planted cultivated blackberries then left them to get on with it. They merged/crossed with the prolific wild ones in the garden and the whole place was just covered in huge mounds of brambles. My daughter patiently cut back the vines - 12 and 15 ft up trees, or in arching impenetrable mounds, and left them in heaps till they dried out and were a fraction of the volume - they were mostly put through the chipper after that. Then we dug up the root balls, dried them out and burned them (yes I know, but they burn like crazy once they are dry). There were not nearly as many root balls as there appeared to be from the top growth. We still get the odd bramble coming up, but I reckon we reclaimed about a quarter of the area of the garden, there are still some in a few wild patches around the perimeter, but they are easy enough to control.

The Continental Op

I'd be OK with Blackberry because I've almost totally got rid of it along our river bank where it was a real pain. Took about 5 years of strimming it twice a year before it was totally under control. It still pops up but never rarely gets more than a couple of foot long before the strimmer is into it again.

dePeatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283302#Comment_119283302

I’ve never had that problem but I deadhead, is it the bulbils that spread?

Timfy

1) Gunnera

2-10) See 1

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283822#Comment_119283822

Is it difficult to control? Big leaves to absorb chemicals and big fat buds overwinter that would also absorb chemicals would make them easy targets?

I know it can take off, anyone seen the massive stand of it at Kennedy Arboretum (Wexford).

Timfy

Gunnera is absolutely impossible to control, hundreds of thousands of euro have been spent out here in the West and not made any meaningful impact. If you have one this year, you have a hundred next year. It spreads by releasing thousands of spores and the tap root can be over a meter deep, leaving the core of the plant pretty impervious to glyphosates. If you try to dig it up you only serve to spread the spores more quickly and if one tiny piece is left in the ground and it can regrow to being a 10ft tall monster the following year.

Even good old mortone will only knock it back, ready to return next year.

Areas around here have been absolutely blasted with weed killers, leaving nothing but rocks and within a year or so guess what the first greenery to appear was! The technique of weedkilling is painfully slow, cutting them down individually and painting the stump with weed killer. Add to this the fact that the plant is toxic and it's sap, even just brushing a leaf, will cause skin blistering and photosensitivity.

It sours the ground it grows in and when the leaves die back in autumn you have vast piles of black slimy nastiness. Out here we have vast swathes of them, acres of nothing but gunnera, completely obliterating the local flora and making gardening a misery when they decide to visit your property..

Evil bar-stewards

wildwillow

Any and all Euphorbia. I can't be having it. Cannot understand how anyone would cultivate it.

I was once given this advice: Don't accept any plant from a gardener who say it's easy to grow anywhere. Without exception it will become a nuisance and you will struggle to get rid of it.

Cannot vote often enough for horsetail.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283302#Comment_119283302

I've grown them in a couple of spots for almost 40 years and never had them spreading like that - in fact in one area I wish they would.

For me it's cutch or other coarse grasses in the lawn. Everything else is manageable with regular weeding.

jaffa20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284339#Comment_119284339

I can give you loads of you like. They even grow through cracks of concrete for me 😂

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283813#Comment_119283813

Yes, bulbils everywhere in soil, probably years worth of them. Many of them so young that I don't even get flowers from them yet.

notAMember

Bindweed.

creeping buttercup

ground elder

ash trees and sycamore trees, they reseed everywhere!

bramble

3 cornered leek

And my all time nemesis, buddleja. What a pest of a thing. Comes up in every crack and nook, gutters, drains. My neighbour grows it as an ornamental. I’m not a massive fan of weed killer but would happily knock a bucket of roundup over his wall onto his very annoying buddleja.

The Continental Op

Anyone here know how to set up a poll (PM me) and the maximum number of items you can have in a poll? Might be interesting to list all the suggestions we've had so far and have a vote on the worst ones. Buddleja would have never occurred to me although when working in tree surgery in the UK we did some work on railway embankments and buddleja was the biggest problem weed.

dePeatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284681#Comment_119284681

That’s gas, I wanted to grow more of them and hadn’t realised that bulbils firmed from the flowers, thanks for the tip, am trying to grow lilies As well from bulbils and they take time.

looksee

Absolutely agree about sycamore trees. I have a group of about 8 mature trees in one spot and have already taken out two that were too close to my house and next door's house. There is a massive granddaddy tree on the boundary, which is fine, but its offspring have been allowed to grow and the result is a garden full of dratted sycamores that I would much rather replace with something more interesting.

magicbastarder

ash trees and sycamore trees, they reseed everywhere!

maybe enjoy the former while you can...

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284025#Comment_119284025

That's really interesting, it must be very climate- and/or soil-specific. I had a few groups of it in my garden (east coast) but wife didn't like it so I physically pulled it out wth no care whatsoever and it didn't come back. Same with next door.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283137#Comment_119283137

Equisetum telmateia, I think.

standardg60

For me one plant well on it's way to becoming the next JK around Dublin anyway is winter heliotrope, seems to be everywhere. (There's also a similar growing plant but with a yellow short-stemmed flower that i've yet to identify.)

Creeping cinquefoil can be a real nuisance if it gets into a bed, likewise vetch, and chickweed is the bane of my life in one garden, seems never-ending.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119285570#Comment_119285570

Hmmmmm ;-) So your Mares/Horse Tail is a meter high?

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119285817#Comment_119285817

I dunno, mostly 80cm. I may have misclassified it. What do you think?