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How to kill off grass and persistent weeds between slabs? (Merged Thread)

13

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  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741
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    An ordinary pressure sprayer with a lance (£15 - 20) will do the job OK. I'm not sure how long you should keep the dogs off the weeds, but I'd guess that after 10 days or so under the carpet they'd be pretty unattractive'food.' Glyphosate works by inhibiting photosynthesis, so it might be counter-productive putting carpet over the weeds; I'm really not sure. A big piece of polytunnel polythene weighed down with bricks might be better.

    A further possibility is spraying a test area with vinegar & seeing if that will be effective enough. This is an organic weedkilling solution, but Ive not tried it on cobbled areas etc.

    The weed wand has its followers, but I'm not among them. If you are going to live at the property long term, it might be worth investing in a Sheen Flame Gun:

    http://www.mower-magic.co.uk/acatalog/HandHeld_Flame_Guns.html



  • A._Badger
    A._Badger Posts: 5,847
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    You can get a 5 litre pressure sprayer with a metal lance from Aldi for about £8 and Wilkinsons have something similar, I noticed earlier this week. They're not professional quality but they'll do the job.

    As for glyphosate (which is what I would use) you can buy this in 350ml bottles and mix the quantity you need. I bought my last batch from Wilkinsons and it is vastly cheaper to do it that way than keep buying ready-mixed bottles. Quite a few proipriety weed killers, when you actually look at the ingredients, are only glyphosate anyway, so you might as well buy the 'generic' stuff rather than subsidise some manufacturer's balance sheet!

    Hope that helps.

    .
  • blue-kat
    blue-kat Posts: 453 Forumite
    thanks Davesnave. plenty for me to consider. I'd rather get the whole yeard done at once, rather than risk dogs injesting weedkiller.

    This is our long term home, so thinking about the flame gun. There's a video of using the Sheen Flame Gun, which makes it look a bit complex, and surprised the demonstrator isn't wearing any goggles or gloves.
  • paddy's_mum
    paddy's_mum Posts: 3,977
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    I have the same problem as I also have dogs, a cat, a Welsh Mountain pony and two white geese plus loadsa weeds on the driveway.

    I find the safest and most effective way to deal with small areas of weeds is to use boiling water and salt to kill them. Whenever I cook potatoes, pasta or veg, as I drain them out of the pan, I catch the water and hubby simply spreads the near boiling water along the line of weeds. Costs nothing but a few moments of your time since you are using what is essentially a waste product, one that produces the desired result and no toxicity in sight.
  • blue-kat
    blue-kat Posts: 453 Forumite
    thanks Paddy's mum, I'll try that with spare 'grey' boiling water and salt. another used water tip: add the cooking water to the dogs' dinners. cheers
  • arkonite_babe
    arkonite_babe Posts: 7,375
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    We have a thread similar to this already, I'll add your query to it so all the replies are together. Posts are listed in date order so you'll need to read from the beginning to catch up :)<br><br>
  • Garffy
    Garffy Posts: 3 Newbie
    I just bought a great new Roundup sprayer called pump + go, it was 24.99 but you get £3 back if you send off the coupon. basically you pump it up like a pressure sparyer and then get 3 minutes of spray if you want. So no need to keep squeezing the trigger! :T
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741
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    Garffy wrote: »
    I just bought a great new Roundup sprayer called pump + go, it was 24.99 but you get £3 back if you send off the coupon. basically you pump it up like a pressure sparyer and then get 3 minutes of spray if you want. So no need to keep squeezing the trigger! :T

    That's OK if you want to donate money to global industrial giant, GM manipulator and general bad boy Monsanto, but there's a lot of people on this forum that wouldn't.

    A similar, cheaper and possibly longer lasting solution is to get a decent pressure sprayer with a lance (about £16) and buy generic glyphosate, like the one from B&Q at about £9. I would expect to knock up a lot more than 5 litres with that.

    Regardless, you can still mix up your own glyphosate rather than buying Monsanto's expensive refills in the future. Damn difficult being politically correct isn't it?
  • kittykat500
    kittykat500 Posts: 543
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    You really don't need any chemicals, vinegar etc. just boiling water as one of the previous posters recommended. I try to reuse the washing up water and re-boil it in a saucepan and then tip carefully over the weeds. I find that this clears the area for a couple of months at least.
  • Garffy
    Garffy Posts: 3 Newbie
    Davesnave wrote: »
    That's OK if you want to donate money to global industrial giant, GM manipulator and general bad boy Monsanto, but there's a lot of people on this forum that wouldn't.

    A similar, cheaper and possibly longer lasting solution is to get a decent pressure sprayer with a lance (about £16) and buy generic glyphosate, like the one from B&Q at about £9. I would expect to knock up a lot more than 5 litres with that.

    Regardless, you can still mix up your own glyphosate rather than buying Monsanto's expensive refills in the future. Damn difficult being politically correct isn't it?

    I dont do politics, just want to get rid of my weeds and the roundup stuff did the job. Your solution is ok if you want to mix up concentrates, but i see that this one from roundup is fast acting and the B&Q stuff isnt! Any for me 5L is plenty and I dont to mess about with sprayers and mixing, I just want to spray the weeds once and know that they will be dead soon.
    Thanks for the tip anyway.
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