Getting rid of a large patch of nettles?

tanith

I was going to suggest just strimming or consistantly mowing over them they will just disappear... an elderly friend could no longer manage her large garden and thats what the gardener she employed did.. if they do sprout just keep mowing over them eventually they'll be gone.

1940sGal

I forgot to mention, these nettles grow chest high. I'm 5'4.

But I'm definitely going to dig as much up as I can. I might leave some toward the very bottom though

sarah222

We dug our plot at the end of our garden and the following spring they came back worse. We tried to get rid of roots but the smallest bit seems to enable them to survive. I have cover half the plot this year with a carpet and am hoping when I remove it I will have at least half a useable plot that wont hurt my fingers lol we got a strimmer but as we have a number of raspberry canes have we lost a good few of those before we released what we had hit :-(

peter_the_piper

Sorry to be a pain but really the easiest way to erase it is glyphosate on the new growth. Not an organic way but much more certain.

Mollymoonlight

What about if you just kept the ground covered for the next few months? Didn't I read somewhere that putting down cardboard was great for clearing ground because of the light exclusion and the fact that it keeps the ground damp...or is that just grass? I would imagine you'd need to strip first.

1940sGal

We did cover the front garden with that black stuff you can buy to kill off the grass before we covered it in gravel. So I know covering it and blocking the light does work.

Kirri

I get them on the allotment, I just keep digging them up, the roots are yellow so quite easy to see amongst other weed roots. I would rather constantly pull/dig them up than use any chemicals.

Oh and the ones that grow up taller than me around the edges of a neighbouring plot I just strim back they go to nothing once cut and dried out.

torbrex

If you can, turn the soil over now and leave the exposed roots to die back then do the same again at about the begining of March and again in April.
After that it is just a case of cutting back any growth as someone has already mentioned.

Mojisola

Mollymoonlight wrote: »

What about if you just kept the ground covered for the next few months? Didn't I read somewhere that putting down cardboard was great for clearing ground because of the light exclusion and the fact that it keeps the ground damp...or is that just grass? I would imagine you'd need to strip first.

You really need to leave the cardboard/carpet/black plastic down for a year to clear the ground.

If you can't leave it that long but can put something down until after the first month or so of growth in the Spring, you'll find that a lot of the roots are running along the surface when you pull the covering back. That makes it easier to pull them up but the land will still need digging to clear the rest of the roots.

Blackjack_Davy

Just dig them out. The're not like bindweed or ground elder, the roots are shallow and once they're out, they're out.

Work up a bit of a sweat! Not difficult to deal with at all.