Killing pavement weeds - best method?

LionAquaLooper · September 2023

Weedkiller? Which weedkiller is best?
Burn them? Pluck them? I hate the effing things.
What works best for you?

Stratavarious · September 2023

Killed off plenty to the roots with your basic supermarket weed killer.

i usually spray them two or three times over a week or so.

Kittyfrisk · September 2023

LionAquaLooper said:

Weedkiller? Which weedkiller is best?
Burn them? Pluck them? I hate the effing things.
What works best for you?

Are you intending of eradicating all pavement weeds throughout the UK or thinking of a smaller area?
Small areas, boil a kettle & pour over the offending plants. Don't rinse, but repeat as needed.
Or sprinkle weeds with salt before or after using hot water.
Forget about proprietary chemical weedkillers until you absolutely need them.

Neilybob · September 2023

Boiling water. Works a treat!

ICBM · September 2023

Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Unfortunately sodium chlorate is now banned. That was very effective for drives and paths where you just want to eradicate all plant life and not have it come back.

Nowadays I have just learned to tolerate the odd bit of greenery in my driveway... I pull out the bigger ones but I'm not very thorough about it.

EricTheWeary · September 2023

You can use bicarb, takes a few days to kill them and keeps them away for a few weeks and won't kill pets/wildlife. You can buy bags online (be expensive to do it with the tiny tubs from the baking section in Tesco).

merlin · September 2023

ICBM said:

Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Unfortunately sodium chlorate is now banned. That was very effective for drives and paths where you just want to eradicate all plant life and not have it come back.

Nowadays I have just learned to tolerate the odd bit of greenery in my driveway... I pull out the bigger ones but I'm not very thorough about it.

Which is such a shame because mixed in equal parts with sugar it made the greatest explosive powder ever. We used to mix it and pour it into a short piece of aluminium or copper pipe with a small hole drilled in the middle, hammer the ends closed, make a fuse of the mixed powder....light and run. Biggest bangs ever.

Now they add flame retardant so it won't burn/explode. Boring health & safety gits.

ICBM · September 2023

merlin said:

Now they add flame retardant so it won't burn/explode. Boring health & safety gits.

That was a long time ago. It was banned outright in 2010 - not just from sale, it was illegal even to keep any.

axisus · September 2023

Dennis the Menace?

Danny1969 · September 2023

I've tried all kinds of things on my drive. Burning them, digging them up by the root, boiling water. Nothing seems to work they just come back. I've heard bleach is the answer but I don't want to harm any wildlife so won't use it.

Kittyfrisk · September 2023

Danny1969 said:

I've tried all kinds of things on my drive. Burning them, digging them up by the root, boiling water. Nothing seems to work they just come back. I've heard bleach is the answer but I don't want to harm any wildlife so won't use it.

Syringes with long large diameter needles & very small amounts of (insert poison of choice) delivered as far into the root as possible should work.
Less is more in all instances.
Or, get a female dog to piss on your weeds... terminal.

Sassafras · September 2023

My sister in law uses one of those little flame thrower things. She seems to think it's effective.

Kittyfrisk · September 2023

Sassafras said:

My sister in law uses one of those little flame thrower things. She seems to think it's effective.

It is cosmetically, but it doesn't bother the weed beneath the surface.
Try cutting (stabbing) dandelions in a lawn to up to about 10cm below the surface.
They will grow back...

TheMarlin · September 2023

Hasn’t week killer been linked to cancer. I seem to remember Roundup lost a court case in the USA

Edit: Looked it up. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53174513

Brio · September 2023

Weedkillers you can buy without a spraying license are pretty shit. Burn them.

Grampa · September 2023

Commercial strength Glyphosate. It's the main active ingredient in Roundup without all the added crap and pretty packaging used to entice the garden centre brigade. Nothing touches the now banned Sodium Chlorate (Creosote was pretty good for killing weeds too) but this stuff comes close.

Bellycaster · September 2023

I never had any problem getting weeds to shrivel in 24hrs up until Glyphosate was removed from most commercial Weedkillers.

The stuff is fucking useless now, you spray them and they are still upright 24 hours later with no sign of wilting. May as well have watered the fuckers.

SpoonMan · September 2023

Bellycaster said:

I never had any problem getting weeds to shrivel in 24hrs up until Glyphosate was removed from most commercial Weedkillers.

The stuff is fucking useless now, you spray them and they are still upright 24 hours later with no sign of wilting. May as well have watered the fuckers.

It usually takes a week or two.

It's important to spray in the right conditions for it to be fully effective.

Grampa · September 2023

Bellycaster said:

I never had any problem getting weeds to shrivel in 24hrs up until Glyphosate was removed from most commercial Weedkillers.

Luckily you can still buy it as a stand alone item....
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elixir-Gardens-Glyphosate-Root-Killing-Concentrated/dp/B0BSNRJFVC/ref=d_pd_sbs_sccl_4_1/259-5761666-1473238?pd_rd_w=SOrbc&content-id=amzn1.sym.c633ef94-5925-4800-8916-1372f3be4382&pf_rd_p=c633ef94-5925-4800-8916-1372f3be4382&pf_rd_r=M6X7B3MXTPQRA8ETX4HE&pd_rd_wg=owvkp&pd_rd_r=186343fa-c674-4101-920a-c81d3ddd3cef&pd_rd_i=B0BSNRJFVC&psc=1

hollywoodrox · September 2023

Mums been buying Glyphosate on eBay , I tried to persuade her against it as it’s pretty nasty stuff for the environment but she wouldn’t have it . She’s been diluting it in a jug of water & tipping it on

SpoonMan · September 2023

hollywoodrox said:

Mums been buying Glyphosate on eBay , I tried to persuade her against it as it’s pretty nasty stuff for the environment but she wouldn’t have it . She’s been diluting it in a jug of water & tipping it on

Best to spray a fine mist so it sticks to the leafs. If you just pour it on like that most (all) of it will run off into the soil.

One of the biggest mistakes is to try and soak the weeds. It just ends up beading and running off. A quick pass with a fine spray is the most effective. Although not so fine that it blows away.

SpoonMan · September 2023

It's best to spray when the weeds are growing strongly. If it's been very hot and sunny they won't be. Plus the water will evaporate before the weedkiller is absorbed. Don't cut or damage the weeds before spraying. It's absorbed through the leafs so if there aren't any it won't work.
The bigger, stronger, faster they are growing the more they will absorb and the more effective the weedkiller will be basically.

For Glyphosate anyway.

It's effective at killing weeds but doesn't stop new ones growing.

blobb · September 2023

Burn 'em with a flame weed killer. Much more fun. You only have to touch them with the flame.

ICBM · September 2023

I wonder if it's possible to buy Agent Orange on Ebay...

blobb · September 2023

ICBM said:

I wonder if it's possible to buy Agent Orange on Ebay...

Agent Orange you say.....

SpoonMan · September 2023

^ especially if you do it regularly and get them when they are little seedlings.

Edit - That was aimed at blobb not agent orange!

Cranky · September 2023

Please no glyphosate. It’s poison for the environment and carcinogenic for us.

Even weeds draw carbon out of the air. They’ll even flower if you let them. Let them live. It’ll be fine.

Tannin · September 2023

* First, ask yourself if you can't simply live with the weeds. You don't have to make everything lifeless and sterile.

* Second, look to mechanical methods as your first option. A half-hour with a spade or a hoe twice a year is good for your health, does no harm to anything (except weeds) and might be all you need.

* Third, don't even think about the half-arsed "creative" "household remedy" tricks. Sure, many common household chemicals can kill weeds, if you use enough of them. But that is the point: you are using vastly more to achieve vastly less. It is not only expensive, unreliable, and inefficient, it is environmentally stupid. Far, far better to use a tiny amount of designed-for-purpose herbicide than the (relatively) enormous amount of (e.g.) table salt you need.

* Fourth, do not use "path weeder" or other :"long-term solutions". The herbicides which work for months and years are quite nasty and you don't want them anywhere near your house. Be especially suspicious of anything with "zine" in the name (Simazine, Atrazine, etc.) - there may be a decent non-nasty herbicide ending in "zine" but if so I have not heard of it.

* Fifth, work out what the weeds are. For current purposes, plants fall into two groups: dicots (leafy plants) and monocots (grasses). Always use a herbicide that is specific to the plants you are aiming to kill. If, for example, you are targeting broad-leaf weeds in lawn or pasture, you use a broad-leaf specific herbicide which is harmless to grasses (e.g., metsulfuron-methyl, Garlon, MCPA). There are others which don't harm broad-leaf plants and only take out grasses (e.g., Fluazifop). Always use a selective herbicide if you can.

* Sixth, if you need to kill everything, then you are thrown back onto non-selective herbicides. The two most-used ones are glyphosate and paraquat. Glyphosate is the usual go-to. Used according to directions, it is cheap, safe, and effective, and less environmentally harmful than most others. Paraquat is not for home use - indeed, people get killed using it every year, mostly in 3rd-world countries using little or no protective equipment. It remains in large scale use around the world because it is cheap and effective. Farmers doing no-till cropping normally spray with glyphosate before sowing (e.g.) wheat for three or four years in a row, then switch to paraquat (or one of several similar products) for a single year to avoid breeding glyphosate-resistant weeds.

* If you are going to use a herbicide, do it properly. Wear gloves and eye protection, especially when mixing up your tank. Once diluted and ready to spray, most herbicides are pretty benign (you still avoid contact, of course, but it's no big deal). Handling the raw concentrate is the time to take particular care. For example, a standard backpack tank mix for glyphosate is "fifty per ten" which means 50mg of glyphosate per 10 litres of water, or half of one percent. The raw chemical is 200 times stronger than the in-use spray. This is where the mostly-fantasy tales about it being dangerous may have a grain of truth in them ("may" not "do"). If you work every day with chemicals and are careless and sloppy about handling the concentrates, there is a possibility that it may cause you some harm. This is speculative and unproven (despite some shockingly ignorant US jury findings on a par with some of the idiotic musical copyright cases we have seen over the years), but why not handle them properly? It never hurts to err on the safe side.

The manufacturers provide (as they must by law) specific and well-tested instructions for proper use. The herbicide label is a legal document: it is carefully written and the claims made in it must be (and are) thoroughly tested before it can be licenced for sale. Follow the label. Do not use more than the label says (if you follow the correct procedure you don't need to, you are just wasting money and chemical). Do not use less than the label says (you are only wasting time and encouraging herbicide resistant plants to breed).

Spray to the drip - i.e., a fine (but not too fine) mist wetting the entire surface of the plant (or as much as you can reach) and thickly enough to just barely start dripping off. No more than that, no less. This will apply the manufacturer-recommended dose and it will work pretty much every time unless you do something dumb (like not following the directions). Note that there are restrictions re breeze: too much and you get spray drift (bad!), not enough and you get vapour drift (worse!). You need just a little breeze - not still air and not too much. (See the label for details.)

Again, you don't need to use any horrible nasty chemicals (the really nasty stuff is pesticide or fungicide, not herbicide), just regular general-use herbicide. I am licenced to use nearly all the ag chemicals (with one or two you need to do an extra course and have them added to your licence) but hardly ever find a need to use anything that I actually need to show my licence for. In other words, I use the same stuff that any other person can buy over the counter. And it works just fine.

hollywoodrox · September 2023

ICBM said:

I wonder if it's possible to buy Agent Orange on Ebay...

It wouldn’t surprise me

hollywoodrox · September 2023

It amuses her to do it that way, I’d sooner that than her breathing in the mist from a sprayer

boogieman · September 2023

Tannin said:

* First, ask yourself if you can't simply live with the weeds. You don't have to make everything lifeless and sterile.

* Second, look to mechanical methods as your first option. A half-hour with a spade or a hoe twice a year is good for your health, does no harm to anything (except weeds) and might be all you need.

* Third, don't even think about the half-arsed "creative" "household remedy" tricks. Sure, many common household chemicals can kill weeds, if you use enough of them. But that is the point: you are using vastly more to achieve vastly less. It is not only expensive, unreliable, and inefficient, it is environmentally stupid. Far, far better to use a tiny amount of designed-for-purpose herbicide than the (relatively) enormous amount of (e.g.) table salt you need.

* Fourth, do not use "path weeder" or other :"long-term solutions". The herbicides which work for months and years are quite nasty and you don't want them anywhere near your house. Be especially suspicious of anything with "zine" in the name (Simazine, Atrazine, etc.) - there may be a decent non-nasty herbicide ending in "zine" but if so I have not heard of it.

* Fifth, work out what the weeds are. For current purposes, plants fall into two groups: dicots (leafy plants) and monocots (grasses). Always use a herbicide that is specific to the plants you are aiming to kill. If, for example, you are targeting broad-leaf weeds in lawn or pasture, you use a broad-leaf specific herbicide which is harmless to grasses (e.g., metsulfuron-methyl, Garlon, MCPA). There are others which don't harm broad-leaf plants and only take out grasses (e.g., Fluazifop). Always use a selective herbicide if you can.

* Sixth, if you need to kill everything, then you are thrown back onto non-selective herbicides. The two most-used ones are glyphosate and paraquat. Glyphosate is the usual go-to. Used according to directions, it is cheap, safe, and effective, and less environmentally harmful than most others. Paraquat is not for home use - indeed, people get killed using it every year, mostly in 3rd-world countries using little or no protective equipment. It remains in large scale use around the world because it is cheap and effective. Farmers doing no-till cropping normally spray with glyphosate before sowing (e.g.) wheat for three or four years in a row, then switch to paraquat (or one of several similar products) for a single year to avoid breeding glyphosate-resistant weeds.

* If you are going to use a herbicide, do it properly. Wear gloves and eye protection, especially when mixing up your tank. Once diluted and ready to spray, most herbicides are pretty benign (you still avoid contact, of course, but it's no big deal). Handling the raw concentrate is the time to take particular care. For example, a standard backpack tank mix for glyphosate is "fifty per ten" which means 50mg of glyphosate per 10 litres of water, or half of one percent. The raw chemical is 200 times stronger than the in-use spray. This is where the mostly-fantasy tales about it being dangerous may have a grain of truth in them ("may" not "do"). If you work every day with chemicals and are careless and sloppy about handling the concentrates, there is a possibility that it may cause you some harm. This is speculative and unproven (despite some shockingly ignorant US jury findings on a par with some of the idiotic musical copyright cases we have seen over the years), but why not handle them properly? It never hurts to err on the safe side.

The manufacturers provide (as they must by law) specific and well-tested instructions for proper use. The herbicide label is a legal document: it is carefully written and the claims made in it must be (and are) thoroughly tested before it can be licenced for sale. Follow the label. Do not use more than the label says (if you follow the correct procedure you don't need to, you are just wasting money and chemical). Do not use less than the label says (you are only wasting time and encouraging herbicide resistant plants to breed).

Spray to the drip - i.e., a fine (but not too fine) mist wetting the entire surface of the plant (or as much as you can reach) and thickly enough to just barely start dripping off. No more than that, no less. This will apply the manufacturer-recommended dose and it will work pretty much every time unless you do something dumb (like not following the directions). Note that there are restrictions re breeze: too much and you get spray drift (bad!), not enough and you get vapour drift (worse!). You need just a little breeze - not still air and not too much. (See the label for details.)

Again, you don't need to use any horrible nasty chemicals (the really nasty stuff is pesticide or fungicide, not herbicide), just regular general-use herbicide. I am licenced to use nearly all the ag chemicals (with one or two you need to do an extra course and have them added to your licence) but hardly ever find a need to use anything that I actually need to show my licence for. In other words, I use the same stuff that any other person can buy over the counter. And it works just fine.

Paraquat has been banned in the U.K. for a long time as indeed it’s nasty stuff, linked to numerous cases of Parkinson’s in farm workers, although I can remember it still being generally available when I worked in diy retail 30 plus years ago. Roundup works, but again it’s been linked to cancers in farm workers who use it a lot (and presumably without adequate protection).

I occasionally use Pathclear weedkiller on hard surfaces but usually just scrape the weeds out by hand with a wire brush on a long stick doofah. On flower beds I just pull the weeds out by hand or with a hoe. Both take longer but it’s still quicker than waiting for chemicals to work and is definitely safer with our pets around.

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Killing pavement weeds - best method?

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