Garden Q&A: What's the best way to deal with weeds?

Whether you're a gardening beginner or expert, Irish Examiner columnist Peter Dowdall has the answer to your questions

Yellow dandelion flowers blooming in a summer garden. File picture

Question

I have loads of weeds growing in my lawn. What can I spray on them that will kill the weeds and not the grass?

Answer

When I first started my career in gardening, back in the last century, at this stage, I used to answer this question quite sheepishly, suggesting that you could learn to love the weeds. Now I am no longer shy about it; rather, I shout it from the rooftops as that message has become as mainstream as news itself.

The only definition that we have for a weed is “a plant growing where we don’t want it”, and so, if you can recalibrate to see those “weeds” as beautiful and not as a menace to have poison poured upon them, then your problem is fixed by doing nothing. More than that, you are also having a positive effect ecologically.

However, gardens and gardening are individual and if that is a bridge too far, and you simply want a lush green lawn without the wildflowers, then that too is fine; the important thing to remember is not to blanket bomb gardens with poisonous chemicals in the pursuit of this.

Cancel the gym membership and get out, scarify the lawn in autumn or spring, and this will pull up a lot of the easier weeds and moss, then with a hand trowel or fork and you will be able to remove the remaining weeds by hand.

After that, the best way to keep the lawn weed-free is with healthy grass growth, so concentrate on the future on keeping the soil beneath healthy and in optimum condition for grass.

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