Hi Folks! I'm going to rely on this great group of gardeners to help me figure out how to plan my backyard. I moved into this house about 7 years ago and have spent the same number of summers trying to make the backyard liveable. The previous owners were here for 14 years and avoided the backyard at all costs. I'm not sure they even looked out the back windows! My yard opens onto a naturalized ravine and therein lies the problem. There is no barrier of any sort between the ravine and my yard. Therefore, it has become a lush garden of Canada Thistle (eek!!!), dandelions, crab grass, burrs, and every other sort of evil weed that you could possibly name. The grass ("what grass?" I ask) is in such terrible shape that our 2 dogs refuse to walk on it. We have spent 7 summers working as a family of 5 weeding, weeding, and ddoing more weeding only to have it all come back each year. I GIVE UP! My thought is to turn the area into a pea-gravelled yard with various seating areas. I already have put in 2 large raised planting beds that with constant vigilence I am managing to keep 'under control'. Not weed-free, but under control with daily summer-time weeding. The one area of grass that seemed to be doing a bit better with less weeds has now succumbed to grubs. Since our summers here in Southern Ontario are so short I am looking for a solution that would still be earth-friendly and beautiful for us to enjoy during the cool evenings. It is too hot for me to be outside in the summer during the day. (Yeah, we freeze in the winter and boil in the short summer. Canada, gotta love it!) There is a young scrubby looking oak and a baby maple tree in the yard that both seemed to have started from seed that blew in from the ravine. I approached my sister about the Canada Thistle issue and she basically shook her head and said a flame-thrower wouldn't even work. (She lives in Manitoba and works for the Dept. of Agriculture). Apparently, Canada Thistle is the bane of farmers and causes them to lose $$$$$$ on their crops each year. No easy eradication. Do you think a grass-less yard covered with black landscape fabric/pea-gravel with assorted seating areas would work? I put what I had hoped would be a barrier between the ravine and my yard with a border of the fabric and large river rock. It has helped some but the Canada thistle still comes up (even after having applied soil sterilent). What to do?? Ideas??
We have an area out back with lots of weed and no grass. We spread out thick, black plastic bags, made sure they overlapped well, weighed them down with rocks, and left it like that in the hope that the lack of air would stifle anything growing, and the sun heat (what little we get) would roast the seeds still in there. It's been sitting for two or three years now. We haven't checked underneath it yet, it's on this year's agenda. Other people who have tried this method report that it's working well, so I guess you'll just have to try.
Oh Droopy! The landscape fabric I was talking about is really black PLASTIC! The Canada thistle comes up right through it. It pokes holes (I guess with the points of the thistles) and comes right through. I am so desperate. It is like a monster plant. They should make a horror movie about it!
I wonder if you get that thick cement plastic and then use black landscape fabric plus pea gravel it would stop it? Have you tried to use Weed and brush killer on the thistle?Just spray on a still day or hold plastic around it so it wont drift to other plants or do as cajunbelle and cut out the neck of a plastic jug and put it over the thisle and spray down in the jug to the plant.
The problem is that killing the plant on the surface does nothing to the roots below ground. They have long roots that run parallel to the surface that go on and on and on. If I kill the one plant, I have done nothing to affect the many feet of underground roots. My sister says farmers have tried burning their whole crops but it does nothing because the roots are everywhere underground. Help!
Usually if they feed the roots off of the plant the poison goes to the roots.I do understand what your saying as wisteria vines do the same thing here.They go up trees and the roots run under ground and come up and make new plants.Its impossible to kill them out.
Oh, dear, that thistle sounds like the ultimate horror! I've never fought anything behaving like that. I'd probably force feed every rosette poison by inserting tubes into them and put up some kind of constant drip.
