A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Maybe this will help someone but if you wanna kill everything (and I mean everything) put a clear plastic sheet down over the offending area for a summer. It acts like a greenhouse, heating up and sterilizing the ground, killing the plants (as well as the ground bioculture, but it will recover and killing invasives can be worth it).
I wonder if this works for things like Japanese knotweed.
Is the plant in the meme mint? Just deducing from the comments but idk what I'm looking at. 💀
Just keep cutting/burning it every couple days. It will die eventually.
Lol good luck with that!
Well we had it in our backyard and did exactly that. It's not there anymore.
Then you're lucky. Our government tried this and failed miserably. The rhizomes grow pretty deep and are very resistant, so burning and cutting shouldn't really do much.
Well if you cut it completely every day or every feq days it will run out of stored energy eventually and stop growing.
I feel like we're talking about different plants because that shouldn't work at all. Knotweed can survive very harsh condition. Unless you're digging out the rhizomes, there's no way to "cut it completely" really.
Is it japanese knotweed? I don't know it might be a different plant. I have no clue what it's called in english but it looks exactly like what we had in our garden
Fine, I will plant mint instead.
Actually considering mint for the front garden though. It's a narrow strip of dirt surrounded on all sides by 10+ metres of paved land. Hopefully it would be less thirsty than using pots and tbh all that is growing in it currently is thorns.
We have a thin strip of mint that's exactly what you described. Fresh mint all spring and summer is great for a variety of reasons, plus it smells good. That said, we're constantly fighting runners trying to grow in every conceivable crevice. It tries to grow in the cement expansion joints and in the joint between our house and sidewalk by the door.
The strip of land is a little distance from the house, tbh the thorns currently growing in it try and come up through the gaps in the concrete or snake their way through the gravel. At least mint doesn't hurt.
Sounds like a good place to plant some mint!
That's the only safe place to plant mint.
I just planted Mint into my computer
How is your digital garden now?
Now there is Mint not just on my laptop but also my pc and three other laptops :D
Not culinary but if you're looking for flowers can I suggest mints more prettier cousins nepeta and salvia nemerosa
But the entire point of growing something is to eat it. Or be useful in some way at least, considered bamboo for free canes but it sounds like it can damage concrete around it and even clumping bamboo would try and grow larger than the space I have fairly quickly due to the narrow width.
It would probably need a fair bit of water, too, unless you’re in a more humid climate with summer rains. It is a grass after all.
Unless you planted a tropical clumper, the concrete wouldn’t take damage. A runner would probably pass under it and show up on the other side eventually though. You can stop that by cutting the rhizomes back in summer and fall (think of it like edging a lawn), but it sounds like that space might be too narrow to set that sort of system up well.
Growing food plants to eat, yes, the point is to eat.
Growing non food plants, the primary purpose is to support your ecosystem. Bugs pollinators birds etc. They rely on native plants only, and need them to survive.
Beyond that people also like the look of flowers and having them grow or thrive over time.
Good on you for not willfully growing something invasive or non native like bamboo (assuming it's not in your native range)!
The impression I get is some types of bamboo can grow non invasively, though not native either. But would need more space to grow and may not be a great yield in the first place grown in the UK.
Helping bees is always a bonus, in my back garden I have chives and sage that both get quite a bit of attention from the bees. Also growing thyme and rosemary but they don't seem to care for that. Poppy patch is also loved by bees, was hoping to use the poppy seeds for baking but don't really get that much. Shitloads for growing more poppies but not very useful to eat.
When I planted the lawn (was previously concrete paved across the entire garden) I used a mix of meadow grass and clover, but the clover hasn't really done much which is a shame. Don't care for obsessively treated lawns, it's a space to sit down. Not certain, maybe park grass would have been better? Don't really know tbh, ideally want something that will grow deep roots and is never going to have artificial fertiliser or any other treatments because fuck that effort and money.
Probably never going to water it either, beyond maybe dumping not too filthy waste water on it if available. Currently got 300L combined of rainwater storage, but that is reserved for the plants I can eat.
The mixed lawn is great mostly because it's less maintenance. The clover doesn't really do that much as a flower, it's more the lack of needing to constantly water or use herbicides that make it so beneficial.
Same goes for any non native flower. Yes, generalist bees visit them. It's not helping your ecosystem though. Only plants native to you will benefit the ecosystem. The food source of non natives does not feed all insects nor is as nutritional to the ones who use it. And they can't serve as host for any notable number of beneficial bugs. Instead, they'll displace better native plants, and amplify bad non native bugs (which in turn will further harm native insects)
Obviously a general exception to food plants. Unless it's a known or potentially invasive one (e.g. Bradford pears in southern US cause brutal invasives), you're not going to really get a native food plant, you're growing them for food not for the ecosystem.
While there are less aggressive types of bamboo, the point is it does not belong in your ecosystem. There's better options. Also native plants sited right (light level) will require like no maintenance to keep alive :) It needs help when you plant it esp if you've got a drought, but that's it. Getting a partially grown one from a native store (garden centers don't tend to actually carry natives) is a solid strategy
This finder looked fun: https://buynative.co.uk/plants/
Anyways, overall it sounds like you've been thoughtful about your yard space so you're already doing great ;) send pics!
Clover is native to the UK. It just didn't really grow much in my garden. That site listed daisies though, might see if they like to grow in the lawn instead.
If you haven't had bamboo before, can also spread unpredictably and it's more difficult to get rid of than you expect. The varieties that tend to grow smaller are worse.
Actually it spreads very predictably (in either circles or a collection of straight lines) and if you want to get rid of it, just cut it to the ground and stumpgrind out the rhizomes, which are the only part that can spread the plant (and for most species are found in the top 12 inches of soil). If someone tells you that you need to get out every tiny root, they’re bullshitting you.
I'm speaking from experience, im that guy who said you might have to get out every root. Maybe we were special or maybe it was just the right environment but I started finding it in random patches coming up all over my old back yard. We tried digging it out, burning it, someone suggested tar, but nothing ever quite got ours. I wasn't alone, but I was probably talking to other people who had it bad too. No one complains if everything is fine.
I'm in a new house now, but never again for me.
Let me present you this one:
That is incredibly unsettling. What is it?
Kalanchoe daigremontiana
I know it as Mother of Millions
And they tend to grow in any place, including small spaces or cracks in the floor or walls. They spread through different methods and can quickly fill your yard, your street, your house, and everywhere else.
But they also grow a beautiful flower and attract hummingbirds
We had one, in no time it was popping up in every one of our pots.
As to growing in cracks, Saxifragales, the order to which Kalanchoe belongs, literally means "rock breaker". It's an incredibly morphologically diverse and interesting order.
I didn't know about that. They're even more fascinating than I thought