As this is the pinned comment i'll share here that in order to search Google more accurately, you need only use the correct symbols. For example, if you search for "weeding" (including the "__" symbols) it will only return results which exactly include the term weeding. If you type "weeding" -wedding, it will also remove all results including the word wedding. This is known as boolean search logic, if you wanted to search it to find out more about this. Hope this helps someone!
Hi Alexandria. I'm a professional gardener myself. I love your channel. It's so informative. An additional way I've found to be the best way to decrease my weeds and/or weeding by least 75% is by using a cheap serrated steak knife and cutting the top of the weed just below the soil surface then cover with mulch or compost. I don't leave any foliar growth above soil level so my weeds can't photosynthesize and dont grow back. I never pull out weeds. There are billions of dormant weed seeds underground and around weed roots. If you bring the soil up and disturb it you've just exposed all these weed seeds to the sun and now they will germinate. Disturbed or bare soil=weeds. This approach works wonderfully. 😊 Thank you!! 💖
I just LOVE how gardening TH-camrs just see each other as resources and colleagues rather than competition! Such a positive collaborative online space 😁😁
I am a new gardener at the age of 53, trying to make up for lost time. I find your videos a tremendous source of information and very pleasant to watch
Thank you. I love how you promote other experts ( maybe other influencers wouldn’t do it fearing losing followers). I think your confidence comes from your experience, knowledge, love gardens and over all, you are aware how much the way you choose topics and edit them are helping many people around the world. I’m from Japan, even though the climate is different I learn a lot from your site, thank you.
I live in a city, and this year I decided not to remove the weeds growing in the sidewalk cracks. Until last year, the house across the street had been empty for years, and untended, and the back yard was a paradise for little birds. Now that they don't have that resource, the seeds of the little sidewalk weeds are important to them. Lately, there have been PSAs warning against feeding bread crumbs to birds of all sorts, because their appropriate food is seeds. And it's a delight to see the tiny birds hopping around their inches-high "farm."
I randomly searched for a video on weeds and stumbled upon this. I have a love-hate relationship with my garden. The humorous opening is classic. Who would think the subject of weeds could be such a pleasure? I'm a bit more motivated to go outside and try to tackle this! A sincere thank you!
I’m also a new gardener, trying to do my best at the age of 64 I’m fed up cleaning the weeds, three times a year even more This video really helped me to think what I should do. Thank you very much for your advice😘🇬🇷
Yes to native plants (aka weeds)and especially those that feed pollinators and us. You are blessed if you have dandelion, chickweed, and clover. Just say no to chemicals and plastic. So much better (in my experience) to use newspaper and cardboard in place of landscape plastic with applied composted leaf mulch on top, or any mulch. Fabulous video.
👌👍❤ I am 80 yrs old Just retired from work but now courting the garden. Gardening is enjoyable but it is like dealing with a difficult partner. needing to keep with all difficulties in this partnership buy hoping for the happy ending. Happy ending does happen. Loved all the tips. Thank you.
For those times when a weed killer is necessary, I have had great success applying it with a paintbrush, which spares the surrounding plants from overspray damage. Thank you for very enjoyable content!
Thanks for your informative videos. Tip for weeding. I bought very cheap hand forks & leave 1 in every bed so that if I see a weed when I'm passing by I can remove it quickly without getting my hands dirty.
This video took so much organizing. I really appreciate it. What you were getting at in the end reminded me of something the American garden designer Tracy DiSabato-Aust wrote. I originally read Tracy years ago for her amazing work on perennial pruning, but the line I'm thinking of is to do with weeding. She said, "instead of calling it weeding, how about we just call it gardening." That stuck with me and shifted my attitude. If you really love working in the garden, weeding is simply another part of being out there.
Beautiful video! Your conclusion is exactly where I have landed -- that weeding is a part of my own health and relationship with my garden. I've also loved to think of reciprocity as Robin Wall Kimmerer describes it in her writing, and it's brought me to have a great amount of gratitude in weeding, that I am fortunate to be able to tend to the little patch of earth where I live and to have that earth give back to me! Also, I have a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old, and it's important for parents to remember that every child is so very different! My eldest is out every morning, sometimes before I am, to check on his plants, observe the pollinators, train vines, and, of course, remove weeds. He can identify so many plants and weeds and is so very capable! And my younger child... While he loves to be outside putzing around, he really doesn't care for the work of gardening or the specifics of the plants! Perhaps he will learn later, but for now I'm glad to have him exposed to gardening, even if he mostly sits and digs up anthills.
My 80 year old father tended our 50 year mature garden until his recent ill health, I have since taken up the baton and didn't have much of a clue about what I was doing, I'm a new subscriber I've learnt so much from you, thank you so much you are amazing and very inspirational xx
Really nice. Love how much you collaborate with others and introduce us to new people to follow. Im newish to gardening and I’m trying to go for the reclassify/give nature a space in my garden. Would never trust my children to weed- my daughter has a habit of tipping plant pots upside down on the raised beds and announcing “Sand Castle!” Shes two and loves getting her hands dirty.
thank you for all the useful information, and thank you to the commenters with additional insight and inspiration ~ sometimes i say to myself (regarding weeding or mowing) ~ today i'm going to make my garden pretty! it's a mindset. greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Hi. I am a Japanese woman and have found this video very instructive. I myself have weeded my small garden (not middle-sized like yours) composed of conifers, turf and roses for three years. Your four basic tips are what I am vaguely aware of from my own weeding experience, but your explicit statement in this video has convinced me that it is right. What is more useful tip for me is the story of the garden owner who removed a weed at the moment she found it. Your statement has really urged me to do so on a daily basis. Your mention of your daughter who is refreshed and revitalized by weeding at the end of her work is really impressing. I do not like weeding, but I am vaguely aware during gardening that contact with the nature always gives me energy. Your statement that even weeding refreshes and revitalizes a weeding person has surprised me. This has completely changed my perception of weeding. Weeding has become an enjoyable task. Thank you very much.
Great video! My parents always thought me that a "weed" is just a plant we haven't found a use for yet.... That mind set saves you a lot of time and energy, and makes you appreciate nature on an all new level.
My Mom loved dandelions as they were so nutritious. My neighbors frown on my growth but they are such cheerful reminders of finding value in what others dismiss as worthless. We ate them regularly growing up. My neighbor treat their yards with chemicals s I d not trust mine are not impacted by ground waters and over spray😥
Thank you! I appreciate your way of teaching, assuming we are brand new to gardening and providing us with enough info to "catch us up" if we are behind on other instruction or videos. I also appreciate you sharing other good informative videos and books! Wonderful content!!
Im alone in my place since march 8, that intro on googling weeding was epic. I laughed so hard thanks. What serious research you do, i love your attitude! Thanks
Thank you for this video. I have tried a home-made solution using vinegar and also bought an organic weed-killer containing vinegar and neither took out the strong weeds. I was recently given 2 bottles of 20 or 30% acetic acid vinegar and a bottle of 70%, bought from a grocery shop. It was your comment about vinegar that encouraged me to look it up. I had no idea that it could be so dangerous - I was going to use it for pickling and weed killing! So, thank you for talking about vinegar.
The 20% acetic acid vinegar does work, and it's also scary. Before I bought an all-plastic sprayer to apply it to weeds in a gravel driveway, some friends who were visiting one very hot day had the idea to experiment with the vinegar and one sturdy perennial we were looking at by applying it with a paintbrush. That weed wilted so fast it took our breath away. Note: After spraying the driveway weeds in early summer for three years, the edges of the lawn where it had been oversprayed remained brown. So there is some redidual effect. Not glyphosphate, at least!
It's so funny when you learn English watching this video😂 I use Polish and we have two very different words describing these two things: weeding= odchwaszczanie, wedding= ślub😉 Alexandra, I think I will remember word weeding😍
I love your videos including how you always end them with the most sweet, lyrical goodbye! My go-to mulch is living. Densely planted evergreen groundcovers like periwinkle (Vinca minor) and sweet violets have gotten rid of nettles, thistles, and bindweed in our garden. It does take several years for the groundcovers to get established, but eventually they become robust enough to snuff out all weeds. Our vegetables are planted very close together in block beds. Early on in the season, some weeding is required, but soon the veggie's own leaves block out sunlight to the competition.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I have also always used periwinkle but to my shock and horror, I have discovered that half my vinca is actually wintercreeper. I live in Virginia where it is a problem. At this point, I'm not sure I can save my beautiful rhododendron and azaleas. As I now try to pull up the well-established wintercreeper, everything is getting pulled up in the process. Gardening advise would be appreciated, but at this point I think I need an exorcist.
Greetings from Cleveland, Ohio. I just found this video and it's so helpful. I feel like I can go back out there and conquer the world, or at least the weeds in my garden. Thank you 🌱
I do two things that cut my weeding down to 15 minutes per week once the plants are established. I rototill my soil once in spring and then again in the fall to incorporate grass clippings and a bag of compost per garden box. It doesn’t take long for the green grass clippings to break down, and the compost enriches the soil and helps it become lighter and looser. I put 24” rebar at all 4 corners of the boxes ,and cut 1” flexible irrigation pipe into 8ft. Lengths and thread them over the rebar to make hoops. This accomplishes 2 things as I put 6 mil clear plastic over the hoops to warm the soil earlier in spring and the plastic over the hoops keeps weed seeds floating in the air from landing in the grow boxes. I use the high density planting method so each box is packed with plants and plants grown from seed, so again when I need to remove the plastic, the plants keep floating seeds from landing on the dirt, so there is very little weeding to be done. Watering is also easier because I can flood the box as needed with a wand on the end of hose. Hope this helps.
Thank you and the contributing you tubers. I'm really not a middle sized gardener because i have 6 acres, but some of it is wooded so I have to live with weeds. I usually get out the gas powered equipment and go to town chopping. In the cultivated areas i pull them out, but now I'm going to look for the hand tool you use. Our garden centers will be opening next weekend in Michigan and I can hardly wait. Thank you again and I'll be looking up the guests you tubers.
For anyone intending to use weedkiller. It's more practical to apply weedkiller with a course, larger droplet spray. This means less air pressure within the spraying unit. It is much less likely to drift onto nearby, cherished plants. A good tip also, is to initially get a feel for any new weedkiller applicators spread and handling using water only, spraying onto a hard surface to literally get a visual example of it's drift.
Very informative as always. It can be fun to miss a weed and find out that it is a plant that you like. I had this happen with wild Ageratum. I had been pulling it up for years and one time I missed some. That's when I discovered it has a lovely blue blossom that blooms late in the season. Since then I have spread it around the garden for late season color. Durham, NC, USA
Haha, just thought you might like to know that I Googled "weeding your garden" (this is Apr 2021) and THERE YOU WERE! I'm still trawling through your older stuff, love it! Cheers from Oz! 🦘
The one weed I leave alone is alkanet. It seeds from uncultivated gardens either side of mine. The bees go crazy for the nectar in the small, pretty blue flowers, especially in early spring when there is very little else about. The bonus is that the plant is relatively short-lived and easy to pull up.
Here for the first time, I’m a plant novice and this summation truly presents a helpful variety of strategies. I enjoy the pace and personal asides, thank you 😊
My mother was a wonderful gardener & she also had a habit of picking out weeds when she saw them. A word of warning she pulled one & fell back breaking her scapular! She was ill at the time but old habits die hard.
Loved your intro! Had me smiling! Sometimes it's hard to find the topic you're looking for on the internet. Also found the therapy information interesting with the microbes assisting in our serotonin production. Nature has such a beneficial way of providing for everyone!
I'm inside, taking a break from weeding, and thrilled that I found your You Tube channel and this excellent weeding video! I was just telling my husband that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the weeds. And our very large lawn is certainly not only grass -- more and more weeds every years. I'm trying to be OK with this for the most part. In fact we plan to plant red fescue and Dutch White Clover to create a "bee lawn." Thanks for all the links and introductions to other gardeners who share their expertise. I've subscribed to your channel and look forward to following along with you! Stay well!
So nice to read about someone going for a "useful" lawn rather than the standard useless one! Good luck with a pollinator lawn, that sounds fun. Prairie Nursery, in Wisconsin, has a mix of fescues that forms a no-mow lawn of long grasses that lay down and block out any weeds, and only needs mowing three times a year. I'm in favor of switching to flowering plants, myself; but anything that takes you away from the standard "perfect lawn" is a wonderful thing.
Great vlog. Really there's very little information out there about the skills of successful weeding. Regarding weed controll; yes keeping an eye on edges and boundaries is essential, particularly lawns, hedges, the foot of fences and neighbouring wild grass verges or neglected ground which usually are infested with creeping perennial weeds. Many new Gardeners don't understand the difference between annual and perennial weeds because they haven't been informed. There is a fair amount to learn about the subject but once broken down into separate headings/topics it's all quite easy to take on board. The problem is that there are very few Gardeners in the media giving sound advice about this less glamorous yet necessary aspect of Gardening. Well done for tackling this much neglected subject. Great start and I'd like to see you make more videos about weeding because so many keen new Gardeners are put off because they become overwhelmed by the 'task' (doesn't have to be) of weeding of their gardens. Once under controll, I agree that the strategy of little and often is best and, weeding can be very satisfying giving a sense of achievement. The Middle-Sized Garden Horticultural Advisor, Thankyou again.
Loved this video! I agree that my garden has mead my Corona time very manageable! I have loved the time outside in the sun and fresh air and am so grateful for the birds and their songs! What a gift to me and a wonderful therapy during the stress of this pandemic😎
I totally agree and have been practicing several of the weeding suggestions with great success: take a daily walk through your garden with a hori hori knife and dig out all weeds (this includes the tiniest ones as well.) I also use cardboard pieces and then place 3" of mulch on top. Thank you for this video.
It's a pleasure to watch to learn about gardening which I started recently. Your channel is encouraging more flowers to plant using garden tools. There's a super easy tool I've been using is a " homi" for gardening, weeding, planting, and harvesting not even using shovels. You can buy at amazon or Asian market. I want anybody can try out they will be surprised and never get disappointed. Thank you always*¿*
Exceptional presentation on variety of wedding (🥴) hints, tricks, habits or alternate views! I love that you spent a good amount of the video showcasing other gardeners styles or hints. Plus you interspersed their clips! It provided a thorough cover of the topic that saves the reader tons of time, plus all gardeners enjoy more gardening channels! I subscribed for your willingness to share other channels you follow!!
Hi. Thank you for this interesting panel of expertise and advises. Weeding cannot be avoided but it can become annoying. Weeds are relentless and often win the battles! This said weeding is part of gardening and it is better to find the way to “enjoy” this activity as the end of the video suggests. To me, weeding has been an easy and pleasing source of meditation….
Thank you so much for this video. I am a novice gardener and I’ve been wondering how to tackle the plethora of weeds in the garden.Lovely to hear from other contributors as well.
This is a wonderful video! I’ve adopted the philosophy of declassifying weeds into really pretty plants I want to keep. They come up first in the spring in my lawn and feed the pollinators until other plants are available. But I also let the various weeds come up over the seasons, there are different varieties, to live their lives with pollinators and wildlife. Occasionally, the celandine bully the oxalis, so I dig clumps of those out. But I love the “wild” lamium and let it run rampant through the lawn. The only thing I try to keep in line are the dandelions. They really want to take over. The clover keeps to itself. There are so many plants with minute but complicated flowers and I enjoy them as much as things I plant. I watched your video on making your front garden into a meadow, and I thought it was lovely even without large clumps of daffodils - which will come later. I think it’s natural that things come along slowly. A bird drops a seed that then becomes a single plant and then multiplies. Any real gardener will see what you’re doing, and anyone who thinks your front garden is unkempt? Who cares about them?!
Very well done. Often it is recommended to plant a ground cover for weed suppression. However, I have found the most obnoxious weeds take hold in the ground cover. One ends up with a larger job of ridding both from the garden.
Going to research the hori hori knife. I really like the fact that you give a very well balanced video. I share my own opinions with the folks in the last 10 mins....... most so-called weeds are so pretty, so diverse, and most importantly, so vital for wiildlife. Buttercups, Daisies, Forget-me-nots, Red and White dead nettles, Speedwell. ....the list goes on and on. The REAL weed in my garden is Couch grass!! Can't stand the stuff! It's all through my borders. But even then, I leave an 10" wide grass border underneath my neighbour's border Leyland hedge. The hedgehogs love it, as they can snuffle around for slugs, and the Palmate newts, and the toads love it too, as it gives a nice damp, shady area for them to hide.
I am very pleased that you mentioned using cardboard as a mulch, much better than black plastic as it will biodegrade and not leave you with black plastic to dispose of. I just spotted that your black plastic looks like it will be reusable at least for a while.
Great intro! I'm a there and then gardener for weeds. But then I have a small garden so it's quite easy. I have no bindweed in my new garden - I had it in my previous garden. I found it an on-going problem. A weed and a plant🤗
I have used an herbicide in this way. I prevent it from hitting anything else by using a piece of scrap cardboard. I put the piece of cardboard between the weed and the plant I want to protect. I may clip back the weed till it’s down to the last two leaves so it can’t touch, then I spray the weed in the direction of the cardboard. Then move onto the next weed. For colonies of weeds I use the black plastic overlay and then put potted plants on top. There are some things that are so hard to kill that these are the only methods which don’t use up massive amounts of time. Time is a thing that you don’t want to be spending weeding, so, I just pick up a piece of cardboard hold it vertically and spray towards the cardboard but have a big enough piece that protects the whole plant behind it. I also work this more in the fall since freezing helps. 😊
Just discovered your channel and happily subscribed. Grateful for the treasure trove of information in the videos! The video format is excellent. Your voice is so soothing! As I was watching this video in my novice garden, a bird took its time splashing about in the birdbath. It is a credit to your calm way of speaking. Thank you!
Thanks Alexandra this such a great channel, you always bring the community together & I love connecting with the other youtubers. Your videos are always very timely
I have an acre of garden here in Normandy. This is laid to traditional English country cottage garden and a very large coppice-fenced vegetable and fruit garden. We also have a business which involves looking after other peoples! Some interesting tips here but I have a few things to add. One thing that i didn't hear mentioned was WHEN to weed.a complete bed. By that I don't mean time of year...which is mentioned...I mean the condition the soil is in. We have a light clay soil which can veer between being claggy and slippy if too wet or hard as concrete when too dry. neither is good for weeding. There is an optimal soil condition which makes pulling the whole weed out easier....otherwise it breaks off and you are back to square one in no time. In my experience it is better use of energy to wait till better conditions so you can remove the whole weeds and their roots. I do 'patrol' my whole garden every day and always make sure I have a couple of hand tools with me to remove anything that has sprung up unnoticed. (at the same time as i snip off dead heads as i go etc. Lastly....allowing your husband to weed the path because 'everything that grows there is a weed whether it is a weed or not' isn't necessarily a good idea. Many of my clients have large areas of gravel paths etc and so i know that, along with weeds, lots of plants settle into the gravel and it is a terrible pity to waste them. I planted a new border entirely stocked from geums, lavender, rock-rose, aubretia, bell-flower etc etc which had self-set in gravel.
Thanks for sharing, I have gardened for approximately thirty years, and over those years the garden has grown in size. I love flower gardens favouring English style. I now find myself changing plants to lower maintenance style, arthritis knee plays a big part in that decision. A question for you, what should or what do senior gardeners do to off set the lack of energy / movability to keep their gardens in check?
I think gardening in short bursts - 'little and often' - is probably the best strategy - and perhaps to look at planting low maintenance shrubs as you're already doing. I'm sure you already have kneelers or knee pads, which I have found very helpful. I don't know if you saw this video on knee and back pain, if not that might help: th-cam.com/video/mCueffhgnts/w-d-xo.html But I know what you mean - I am always wishing I had more time or energy.
Very interesting and useful information, thank you!! I can only garden in containers, so I can only hand pull the weeds, and I do end up leaving some alone, especially the ground covering ones. I've been doing some research on the weeds, seems as if there are a few benefits to them, as long as you keep them somewhat controlled. Have a wonderful Sunday!! ☺️
In addition to your years of observation, analysis, and reading, your delivery is so very well paced, relaxed, and without a trace of arrogance. So refreshing! So glad to have found you!
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
This is a fabulous video. I love that you've also included contributions from other channels as well. Well done indeed :)
Thank you!
As this is the pinned comment i'll share here that in order to search Google more accurately, you need only use the correct symbols.
For example, if you search for "weeding" (including the "__" symbols) it will only return results which exactly include the term weeding. If you type "weeding" -wedding, it will also remove all results including the word wedding.
This is known as boolean search logic, if you wanted to search it to find out more about this. Hope this helps someone!
Hi Alexandria. I'm a professional gardener myself. I love your channel. It's so informative. An additional way I've found to be the best way to decrease my weeds and/or weeding by least 75% is by using a cheap serrated steak knife and cutting the top of the weed just below the soil surface then cover with mulch or compost. I don't leave any foliar growth above soil level so my weeds can't photosynthesize and dont grow back. I never pull out weeds. There are billions of dormant weed seeds underground and around weed roots. If you bring the soil up and disturb it you've just exposed all these weed seeds to the sun and now they will germinate. Disturbed or bare soil=weeds. This approach works wonderfully. 😊 Thank you!! 💖
Very good tip, Will try it.
That’s the way I weed.
Love the intro and the distinction between weeding and wedding 😂😂
I just love Alexandria and her humour and practical no nonsense approach! Incidentally her advice is sterling!
Thank you so much!
I just LOVE how gardening TH-camrs just see each other as resources and colleagues rather than competition! Such a positive collaborative online space 😁😁
I am a new gardener at the age of 53, trying to make up for lost time. I find your videos a tremendous source of information and very pleasant to watch
Thank you. I love how you promote other experts ( maybe other influencers wouldn’t do it fearing losing followers). I think your confidence comes from your experience, knowledge, love gardens and over all, you are aware how much the way you choose topics and edit them are helping many people around the world. I’m from Japan, even though the climate is different I learn a lot from your site, thank you.
Thank you! Japanese gardens are so interesting and have quite an impact on our gardening style
I live in a city, and this year I decided not to remove the weeds growing in the sidewalk cracks. Until last year, the house across the street had been empty for years, and untended, and the back yard was a paradise for little birds. Now that they don't have that resource, the seeds of the little sidewalk weeds are important to them. Lately, there have been PSAs warning against feeding bread crumbs to birds of all sorts, because their appropriate food is seeds. And it's a delight to see the tiny birds hopping around their inches-high "farm."
I randomly searched for a video on weeds and stumbled upon this. I have a love-hate relationship with my garden. The humorous opening is classic. Who would think the subject of weeds could be such a pleasure? I'm a bit more motivated to go outside and try to tackle this! A sincere thank you!
Thank you!
I’m also a new gardener, trying to do my best at the age of 64
I’m fed up cleaning the weeds, three times a year even more
This video really helped me to think what I should do.
Thank you very much for your advice😘🇬🇷
Yes to native plants (aka weeds)and especially those that feed pollinators and us. You are blessed if you have dandelion, chickweed, and clover. Just say no to chemicals and plastic. So much better (in my experience) to use newspaper and cardboard in place of landscape plastic with applied composted leaf mulch on top, or any mulch. Fabulous video.
👌👍❤ I am 80 yrs old Just retired from work but now courting the garden. Gardening is enjoyable but it is like dealing with a difficult partner. needing to keep with all difficulties in this partnership buy hoping for the happy ending. Happy ending does happen. Loved all the tips. Thank you.
Thank you and I agree!
For those times when a weed killer is necessary, I have had great success applying it with a paintbrush, which spares the surrounding plants from overspray damage. Thank you for very enjoyable content!
That's a good tip.
Thanks for your informative videos. Tip for weeding. I bought very cheap hand forks & leave 1 in every bed so that if I see a weed when I'm passing by I can remove it quickly without getting my hands dirty.
That's an interesting tip!
This video took so much organizing. I really appreciate it.
What you were getting at in the end reminded me of something the American garden designer Tracy DiSabato-Aust wrote. I originally read Tracy years ago for her amazing work on perennial pruning, but the line I'm thinking of is to do with weeding. She said, "instead of calling it weeding, how about we just call it gardening." That stuck with me and shifted my attitude. If you really love working in the garden, weeding is simply another part of being out there.
Excellent point. I will remind myself every time I feel grouchy about weeding.
What a selfless, noble heart !!!! No words to appreciate yr deed . Love and gratitude from Sri Lanka !!! 🇱🇰
I love Charles Dowding!! He is the most brilliant gardener ever!!
He is, indeed.
Beautiful video! Your conclusion is exactly where I have landed -- that weeding is a part of my own health and relationship with my garden. I've also loved to think of reciprocity as Robin Wall Kimmerer describes it in her writing, and it's brought me to have a great amount of gratitude in weeding, that I am fortunate to be able to tend to the little patch of earth where I live and to have that earth give back to me!
Also, I have a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old, and it's important for parents to remember that every child is so very different! My eldest is out every morning, sometimes before I am, to check on his plants, observe the pollinators, train vines, and, of course, remove weeds. He can identify so many plants and weeds and is so very capable! And my younger child... While he loves to be outside putzing around, he really doesn't care for the work of gardening or the specifics of the plants! Perhaps he will learn later, but for now I'm glad to have him exposed to gardening, even if he mostly sits and digs up anthills.
So true. And perhaps your youngest will be a wildlife expert!
So many of my favourite TH-camrs in one video!!! 🌿👍
Thank you!
My 80 year old father tended our 50 year mature garden until his recent ill health, I have since taken up the baton and didn't have much of a clue about what I was doing, I'm a new subscriber I've learnt so much from you, thank you so much you are amazing and very inspirational xx
Really nice. Love how much you collaborate with others and introduce us to new people to follow.
Im newish to gardening and I’m trying to go for the reclassify/give nature a space in my garden. Would never trust my children to weed- my daughter has a habit of tipping plant pots upside down on the raised beds and announcing “Sand Castle!” Shes two and loves getting her hands dirty.
Sweet!
I paused this video to buy a hori hori. Never heard of it before but it's the tool I've always needed.
thank you for all the useful information, and thank you to the commenters with additional insight and inspiration ~ sometimes i say to myself (regarding weeding or mowing) ~ today i'm going to make my garden pretty! it's a mindset. greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Hi. I am a Japanese woman and have found this video very instructive. I myself have weeded my small garden (not middle-sized like yours) composed of conifers, turf and roses for three years. Your four basic tips are what I am vaguely aware of from my own weeding experience, but your explicit statement in this video has convinced me that it is right. What is more useful tip for me is the story of the garden owner who removed a weed at the moment she found it. Your statement has really urged me to do so on a daily basis. Your mention of your daughter who is refreshed and revitalized by weeding at the end of her work is really impressing. I do not like weeding, but I am vaguely aware during gardening that contact with the nature always gives me energy. Your statement that even weeding refreshes and revitalizes a weeding person has surprised me. This has completely changed my perception of weeding. Weeding has become an enjoyable task. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much!
Great video! My parents always thought me that a "weed" is just a plant we haven't found a use for yet.... That mind set saves you a lot of time and energy, and makes you appreciate nature on an all new level.
So true!
My Mom loved dandelions as they were so nutritious. My neighbors frown on my growth but they are such cheerful reminders of finding value in what others dismiss as worthless. We ate them regularly growing up. My neighbor treat their yards with chemicals s I d not trust mine are not impacted by ground waters and over spray😥
Chockablock full of useful info again Alexandra, thank you so much for inviting me to participate.
You're welcome, really good tip of yours about focussing the weeding where it really needs to be.
Thank you! I appreciate your way of teaching, assuming we are brand new to gardening and providing us with enough info to "catch us up" if we are behind on other instruction or videos. I also appreciate you sharing other good informative videos and books! Wonderful content!!
You are so welcome!
Im alone in my place since march 8, that intro on googling weeding was epic. I laughed so hard thanks. What serious research you do, i love your attitude! Thanks
Thank you! I hope we all get some better news soon and are able to move more freely but safely.
Thank you for this video. I have tried a home-made solution using vinegar and also bought an organic weed-killer containing vinegar and neither took out the strong weeds. I was recently given 2 bottles of 20 or 30% acetic acid vinegar and a bottle of 70%, bought from a grocery shop. It was your comment about vinegar that encouraged me to look it up. I had no idea that it could be so dangerous - I was going to use it for pickling and weed killing! So, thank you for talking about vinegar.
The 20% acetic acid vinegar does work, and it's also scary. Before I bought an all-plastic sprayer to apply it to weeds in a gravel driveway, some friends who were visiting one very hot day had the idea to experiment with the vinegar and one sturdy perennial we were looking at by applying it with a paintbrush. That weed wilted so fast it took our breath away. Note: After spraying the driveway weeds in early summer for three years, the edges of the lawn where it had been oversprayed remained brown. So there is some redidual effect. Not glyphosphate, at least!
I’m so glad I’m watching this! I wish I would’ve watched this a few months ago before my garden was overrun by weeds! I have a lot of work to do now
It's so funny when you learn English watching this video😂 I use Polish and we have two very different words describing these two things: weeding= odchwaszczanie, wedding= ślub😉 Alexandra, I think I will remember word weeding😍
I love your videos including how you always end them with the most sweet, lyrical goodbye!
My go-to mulch is living. Densely planted evergreen groundcovers like periwinkle (Vinca minor) and sweet violets have gotten rid of nettles, thistles, and bindweed in our garden. It does take several years for the groundcovers to get established, but eventually they become robust enough to snuff out all weeds. Our vegetables are planted very close together in block beds. Early on in the season, some weeding is required, but soon the veggie's own leaves block out sunlight to the competition.
That's a very good point. Thank you.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I have also always used periwinkle but to my shock and horror, I have discovered that half my vinca is actually wintercreeper. I live in Virginia where it is a problem. At this point, I'm not sure I can save my beautiful rhododendron and azaleas. As I now try to pull up the well-established wintercreeper, everything is getting pulled up in the process. Gardening advise would be appreciated, but at this point I think I need an exorcist.
great idea and tip , i just weed my garden by hand and removing them when they are small , it is a lots of work but is fun and excllent meditation
Greetings from Cleveland, Ohio. I just found this video and it's so helpful. I feel like I can go back out there and conquer the world, or at least the weeds in my garden. Thank you 🌱
I do two things that cut my weeding down to 15 minutes per week once the plants are established. I rototill my soil once in spring and then again in the fall to incorporate grass clippings and a bag of compost per garden box. It doesn’t take long for the green grass clippings to break down, and the compost enriches the soil and helps it become lighter and looser. I put 24” rebar at all 4 corners of the boxes ,and cut 1” flexible irrigation pipe into 8ft. Lengths and thread them over the rebar to make hoops. This accomplishes 2 things as I put 6 mil clear plastic over the hoops to warm the soil earlier in spring and the plastic over the hoops keeps weed seeds floating in the air from landing in the grow boxes. I use the high density planting method so each box is packed with plants and plants grown from seed, so again when I need to remove the plastic, the plants keep floating seeds from landing on the dirt, so there is very little weeding to be done. Watering is also easier because I can flood the box as needed with a wand on the end of hose. Hope this helps.
Thank you and the contributing you tubers. I'm really not a middle sized gardener because i have 6 acres, but some of it is wooded so I have to live with weeds. I usually get out the gas powered equipment and go to town chopping. In the cultivated areas i pull them out, but now I'm going to look for the hand tool you use. Our garden centers will be opening next weekend in Michigan and I can hardly wait. Thank you again and I'll be looking up the guests you tubers.
Thank you!
For anyone intending to use weedkiller. It's more practical to apply weedkiller with a course, larger droplet spray. This means less air pressure within the spraying unit. It is much less likely to drift onto nearby, cherished plants. A good tip also, is to initially get a feel for any new weedkiller applicators spread and handling using water only, spraying onto a hard surface to literally get a visual example of it's drift.
Thank you, that's interesting.
You're so well spoken. You get right to the point. You're so informative. Thank you!
You are so welcome!
I always find it's easier to weed after a good rain...especially in harder clay soils like mine😊
When you said " I check up the internet even if I have been doing it.." that really earned a great respect from me. Thank you so much
Thank you!
Excellent video. Easy to understand and well planned. Thanks!
Very informative as always. It can be fun to miss a weed and find out that it is a plant that you like. I had this happen with wild Ageratum. I had been pulling it up for years and one time I missed some. That's when I discovered it has a lovely blue blossom that blooms late in the season. Since then I have spread it around the garden for late season color. Durham, NC, USA
Thank you!
Haha, just thought you might like to know that I Googled "weeding your garden" (this is Apr 2021) and THERE YOU WERE! I'm still trawling through your older stuff, love it! Cheers from Oz! 🦘
I am SO glad I came upon these videos! So informative & practical &delivered in such a delightful, friendly way! Thank you Alexandra.
Thank you!
The one weed I leave alone is alkanet. It seeds from uncultivated gardens either side of mine. The bees go crazy for the nectar in the small, pretty blue flowers, especially in early spring when there is very little else about. The bonus is that the plant is relatively short-lived and easy to pull up.
I do pull alkanet out, but that doesn't deter it, and as you say, the bees love it.
I love how you so generously shared all those great TH-cam gardening channels and books. Thank you.
Thank you from Canada❤️🇨🇦 I have a small perennial garden and I really enjoyed this video❤️🇨🇦
Here for the first time, I’m a plant novice and this summation truly presents a helpful variety of strategies. I enjoy the pace and personal asides, thank you 😊
Thank you!
This is the best gardening advice channel on TH-cam, well done 👏
You’ve inspired me. I have a new perspective toward the daunting task…even toward bindweed.
Bindweed! The worst...
Thank you for all the homework you did for us. This is perhaps the most useful video about weeding I have stumbled upon to date.
Thank you!
My mother was a wonderful gardener & she also had a habit of picking out weeds when she saw them. A word of warning she pulled one & fell back breaking her scapular! She was ill at the time but old habits die hard.
Loved your intro! Had me smiling! Sometimes it's hard to find the topic you're looking for on the internet. Also found the therapy information interesting with the microbes assisting in our serotonin production. Nature has such a beneficial way of providing for everyone!
Thank you!
I'm inside, taking a break from weeding, and thrilled that I found your You Tube channel and this excellent weeding video! I was just telling my husband that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the weeds. And our very large lawn is certainly not only grass -- more and more weeds every years. I'm trying to be OK with this for the most part. In fact we plan to plant red fescue and Dutch White Clover to create a "bee lawn." Thanks for all the links and introductions to other gardeners who share their expertise. I've subscribed to your channel and look forward to following along with you! Stay well!
So nice to read about someone going for a "useful" lawn rather than the standard useless one! Good luck with a pollinator lawn, that sounds fun. Prairie Nursery, in Wisconsin, has a mix of fescues that forms a no-mow lawn of long grasses that lay down and block out any weeds, and only needs mowing three times a year. I'm in favor of switching to flowering plants, myself; but anything that takes you away from the standard "perfect lawn" is a wonderful thing.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Great vlog. Really there's very little information out there about the skills of successful weeding. Regarding weed controll; yes keeping an eye on edges and boundaries is essential, particularly lawns, hedges, the foot of fences and neighbouring wild grass verges or neglected ground which usually are infested with creeping perennial weeds.
Many new Gardeners don't understand the difference between annual and perennial weeds because they haven't been informed.
There is a fair amount to learn about the subject but once broken down into separate headings/topics it's all quite easy to take on board.
The problem is that there are very few Gardeners in the media giving sound advice about this less glamorous yet necessary aspect of Gardening.
Well done for tackling this much neglected subject. Great start and I'd like to see you make more videos about weeding because so many keen new Gardeners are put off because they become overwhelmed by the 'task' (doesn't have to be) of weeding of their gardens.
Once under controll, I agree that the strategy of little and often is best and, weeding can be very satisfying giving a sense of achievement.
The Middle-Sized Garden Horticultural Advisor, Thankyou again.
A dirty little secret is, some of us enjoy weeding! (But don't let it out...)
Very nice summary on the weeding and it is practical. Good advice on benefits of being in the garden.
Glad it was helpful!
Loved this video! I agree that my garden has mead my Corona time very manageable! I have loved the time outside in the sun and fresh air and am so grateful for the birds and their songs! What a gift to me and a wonderful therapy during the stress of this pandemic😎
I totally agree and have been practicing several of the weeding suggestions with great success: take a daily walk through your garden with a hori hori knife and dig out all weeds (this includes the tiniest ones as well.) I also use cardboard pieces and then place 3" of mulch on top. Thank you for this video.
Oh, yes, the cardboard tip is excellent!
It's a pleasure to watch to learn about gardening which I started recently. Your channel is encouraging more flowers to plant using garden tools. There's a super easy tool I've been using is a " homi" for gardening, weeding, planting, and harvesting not even using shovels.
You can buy at amazon or Asian market. I want anybody can try out they will be surprised and never get disappointed. Thank you always*¿*
Exceptional presentation on variety of wedding (🥴) hints, tricks, habits or alternate views! I love that you spent a good amount of the video showcasing other gardeners styles or hints. Plus you interspersed their clips!
It provided a thorough cover of the topic that saves the reader tons of time, plus all gardeners enjoy more gardening channels!
I subscribed for your willingness to share other channels you follow!!
Thanks so much! 😊 It's great to hear that people appreciate hearing about other channels.
Hi. Thank you for this interesting panel of expertise and advises. Weeding cannot be avoided but it can become annoying. Weeds are relentless and often win the battles!
This said weeding is part of gardening and it is better to find the way to “enjoy” this activity as the end of the video suggests. To me, weeding has been an easy and pleasing source of meditation….
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this video. I am a novice gardener and I’ve been wondering how to tackle the plethora of weeds in the garden.Lovely to hear from other contributors as well.
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent tips. Thanks so much. 👌🌹❤️😘
This is a wonderful video! I’ve adopted the philosophy of declassifying weeds into really pretty plants I want to keep. They come up first in the spring in my lawn and feed the pollinators until other plants are available. But I also let the various weeds come up over the seasons, there are different varieties, to live their lives with pollinators and wildlife. Occasionally, the celandine bully the oxalis, so I dig clumps of those out. But I love the “wild” lamium and let it run rampant through the lawn. The only thing I try to keep in line are the dandelions. They really want to take over. The clover keeps to itself. There are so many plants with minute but complicated flowers and I enjoy them as much as things I plant. I watched your video on making your front garden into a meadow, and I thought it was lovely even without large clumps of daffodils - which will come later. I think it’s natural that things come along slowly. A bird drops a seed that then becomes a single plant and then multiplies. Any real gardener will see what you’re doing, and anyone who thinks your front garden is unkempt? Who cares about them?!
You always put a smile on my face, I appreciate your humour
Thank you!
Very well done. Often it is recommended to plant a ground cover for weed suppression. However, I have found the most obnoxious weeds take hold in the ground cover. One ends up with a larger job of ridding both from the garden.
I agree, and I forgot to mention that. But you are right, that bindweed gets in to even the most densely planted border.
I am in the process of ridding our garden with vinca my mother planted forty years ago!
Thank you 🙏 I love pulling bind weed up, I also love the plant so It makes me smile both ways 🤗
It's very satisfying to get a really long root out.
I've now got an area in my garden that i thought of as full of weeds but I've let it grow this year and I'm very surprised how lovely it is.
And the wildlife are very grateful too, I expect.
This was absolutely fantastic! I love the way you share other gardeners. Will watch this again. So happy I found you. ❤️
I’m American but I just love Monty Don and his advice! Thanks for a great video!
Going to research the hori hori knife.
I really like the fact that you give a very well balanced video.
I share my own opinions with the folks in the last 10 mins....... most so-called weeds are so pretty, so diverse, and most importantly, so vital for wiildlife. Buttercups, Daisies, Forget-me-nots, Red and White dead nettles, Speedwell. ....the list goes on and on.
The REAL weed in my garden is Couch grass!! Can't stand the stuff! It's all through my borders. But even then, I leave an 10" wide grass border underneath my neighbour's border Leyland hedge. The hedgehogs love it, as they can snuffle around for slugs, and the Palmate newts, and the toads love it too, as it gives a nice damp, shady area for them to hide.
I am very pleased that you mentioned using cardboard as a mulch, much better than black plastic as it will biodegrade and not leave you with black plastic to dispose of. I just spotted that your black plastic looks like it will be reusable at least for a while.
Great intro! I'm a there and then gardener for weeds. But then I have a small garden so it's quite easy. I have no bindweed in my new garden - I had it in my previous garden. I found it an on-going problem. A weed and a plant🤗
Thank you!
I have used an herbicide in this way. I prevent it from hitting anything else by using a piece of scrap cardboard. I put the piece of cardboard between the weed and the plant I want to protect. I may clip back the weed till it’s down to the last two leaves so it can’t touch, then I spray the weed in the direction of the cardboard. Then move onto the next weed. For colonies of weeds I use the black plastic overlay and then put potted plants on top. There are some things that are so hard to kill that these are the only methods which don’t use up massive amounts of time. Time is a thing that you don’t want to be spending weeding, so, I just pick up a piece of cardboard hold it vertically and spray towards the cardboard but have a big enough piece that protects the whole plant behind it.
I also work this more in the fall since freezing helps. 😊
Thank you so much for this video- it was packed full of advice and useful practices. I love your selection of 'weapons' as well!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for compiling this video, it has all the information in one place and saved a lot of searching about for me.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you sooo much for such a practical and well informed advice on all things weeding.
What a wonderful video! Just when I think I know all about weeding I realize there is so much more to learn! 😊
Thank you! I'm just trying to make myself do some every day....not quite succeeding at the moment, though.
Also, love other gardeners sharing their ideas🌷
This was extremely helpful, thank you! It's given me the moral boost I needed to continue tackling the Crown vetch in my yard and garden.
Just discovered your channel and happily subscribed. Grateful for the treasure trove of information in the videos! The video format is excellent. Your voice is so soothing! As I was watching this video in my novice garden, a bird took its time splashing about in the birdbath. It is a credit to your calm way of speaking. Thank you!
How lovely, thank you.
Excellent video…a really thorough and broad approach to the subject. Well done and thank you.
i am grateful for all your tipa...thwy make gardening wasier and more enjoyable.
Thank you!
Thanks Alexandra this such a great channel, you always bring the community together & I love connecting with the other youtubers. Your videos are always very timely
Thank you!
So much information and tips in this video it’s one to rewatch. Thank you for sharing! This is my favorite video you’ve posted
Thank you!
I have an acre of garden here in Normandy. This is laid to traditional English country cottage garden and a very large coppice-fenced vegetable and fruit garden. We also have a business which involves looking after other peoples! Some interesting tips here but I have a few things to add.
One thing that i didn't hear mentioned was WHEN to weed.a complete bed. By that I don't mean time of year...which is mentioned...I mean the condition the soil is in. We have a light clay soil which can veer between being claggy and slippy if too wet or hard as concrete when too dry. neither is good for weeding. There is an optimal soil condition which makes pulling the whole weed out easier....otherwise it breaks off and you are back to square one in no time. In my experience it is better use of energy to wait till better conditions so you can remove the whole weeds and their roots.
I do 'patrol' my whole garden every day and always make sure I have a couple of hand tools with me to remove anything that has sprung up unnoticed. (at the same time as i snip off dead heads as i go etc.
Lastly....allowing your husband to weed the path because 'everything that grows there is a weed whether it is a weed or not' isn't necessarily a good idea. Many of my clients have large areas of gravel paths etc and so i know that, along with weeds, lots of plants settle into the gravel and it is a terrible pity to waste them. I planted a new border entirely stocked from geums, lavender, rock-rose, aubretia, bell-flower etc etc which had self-set in gravel.
So many great tips in ONE VIDEO. Just perfect! Thank you very very much. It's is intensely helpful. Love it❤️
You're so welcome!
Great video, lots of information and helpful advice from experienced gardeners! Loved your intro! Thank you for all your effort and for sharing!!
Well put together, great resources! Thank you so much!
Thanks for sharing, I have gardened for approximately thirty years, and over those years the garden has grown in size. I love flower gardens favouring English style. I now find myself changing plants to lower maintenance style, arthritis knee plays a big part in that decision. A question for you, what should or what do senior gardeners do to off set the lack of energy / movability to keep their gardens in check?
I think gardening in short bursts - 'little and often' - is probably the best strategy - and perhaps to look at planting low maintenance shrubs as you're already doing. I'm sure you already have kneelers or knee pads, which I have found very helpful. I don't know if you saw this video on knee and back pain, if not that might help: th-cam.com/video/mCueffhgnts/w-d-xo.html But I know what you mean - I am always wishing I had more time or energy.
Oh well put together - very useful advise for gardeners of all experiences, take care, Hugh 😊👍🏼🌿
Thank you, hope you're well!
I'm impressed with Mr. Dowding's success with bindweed. It made me move to another property
I love my hori hori knife. It makes weeding less of a chore, and mulch helps.
I must get one.
Alexandra, you will love it!
Me too, I’m going to check on Amazon.
What a lovely video. Not just great information, but very uplifting!
Thank you!
Thank you for your videos. They are very helpful and I watch them often. I have learned much from you and appreciate your work.
Nice compilation of other presenters. That must have been a lot of work to create. Great job! 👍🏼🌻
Thank you! It was during lockdown so I couldn't interview people in person, but it's nice to have different inputs.
Thank you so much very informative xx
Very interesting and useful information, thank you!! I can only garden in containers, so I can only hand pull the weeds, and I do end up leaving some alone, especially the ground covering ones. I've been doing some research on the weeds, seems as if there are a few benefits to them, as long as you keep them somewhat controlled.
Have a wonderful Sunday!! ☺️
Thank you!
Another very informative video .thank you for including other comments
A fun and informative vid. YOU are a lovely lady
In addition to your years of observation, analysis, and reading, your delivery is so very well paced, relaxed, and without a trace of arrogance. So refreshing! So glad to have found you!