overgrown borders

Happy_Sloth

Hi there, 

i've got a couple of overgrown borders that i haven't managed to get on top of they are badly overgrown with lots of grass seed. 

While i've manage to get on top of most of the garden the sheer amount of grass in these borders makes them a losing battle.  There are a lot of good perennials in the borders i'd like to keep which is why i haven't just gone at it with weed killer on mass.   I keep going out there and try and pick out the grass blade by blade is killing me and honestly i'm losing the battle each time i go out there is seems worse than the time before.  

Any ideas on how to get on top of this? 

twopenny

It would be an idea to dig the plants and grass out a small area at a time and clear the roots of the grass out as much as possible but its the wrong time of year to do it. A sunny autumn spell would be best.
So for this summer could you clip the grass down and cover with weed control fabric or old carpet?
If appearance is a necessity then cover the matting with bark or cheap compost that you could dig in after.
Ideal time to do that and keep the moisture in the soil.

theoretica

Blade by blade will just come back - you need to dig the grass up by the roots.

Davesnave

A photo is worth a thousand words. It may be couch grass that spreads via underground runners. It needs digging out for full control.

As a temporary measure you could let the grass grow for a while, put a rubber glove inside a cotton one and use your gloved hand to carefully apply a glyphosate weedkiller mix to the grass only. You don't need much and drawing the grass through your closed hand once is enough. This is the 'Glove of Death' method and it will take about 3 weeks to show results. Any spilled/dripped glyphosate will kill any plant it touches, so care is needed, but I successfully killed-of a small couch invasion into our woodruff ground cover a few weeks ago with this technique.

Farway

Davesnave said:

A photo is worth a thousand words. It may be couch grass that spreads via underground runners. It needs digging out for full control.

As a temporary measure you could let the grass grow for a while, put a rubber glove inside a cotton one and use your gloved hand to carefully apply a glyphosate weedkiller mix to the grass only. You don't need much and drawing the grass through your closed hand once is enough. This is the 'Glove of Death' method and it will take about 3 weeks to show results. Any spilled/dripped glyphosate will kill any plant it touches, so care is needed, but I successfully killed-of a small couch invasion into our woodruff ground cover a few weeks ago with this technique.

If only we could perfect a "Stare of Death"

Davesnave

Farway said:

Davesnave said:

A photo is worth a thousand words. It may be couch grass that spreads via underground runners. It needs digging out for full control.

As a temporary measure you could let the grass grow for a while, put a rubber glove inside a cotton one and use your gloved hand to carefully apply a glyphosate weedkiller mix to the grass only. You don't need much and drawing the grass through your closed hand once is enough. This is the 'Glove of Death' method and it will take about 3 weeks to show results. Any spilled/dripped glyphosate will kill any plant it touches, so care is needed, but I successfully killed-of a small couch invasion into our woodruff ground cover a few weeks ago with this technique.

If only we could perfect a "Stare of Death"

Oh I know who does one of those...
but she probably likes nettles!