GREEN FINGERS, RED FACE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 17

GREEN FINGERS, RED FACE

As anyone with a garden knows, come weeds are much easier to discourage f.ian others. Groundsel, for example needs only to be cut off at ground level; black nightshade has to be pulled out by the roots; dock must be - :t off well below ground level, and if possible the root removed; the root of dandelion must always be completely removed. Weeds with creeping underground stems such as convolvulus. California thistle and the twitch grasses need the soil around them sifted to make sure no tiny piece

remains, for every piece will swiftly grow into a complete plant. Fortunately, the chemists have been active of recent years and most of these tenacious weeds may now be destroyed by appropriate weedkillers. In certain cases, however, the weedkillers can be deleterious to other plants, inch •’ those set out in a piece of soil where the killers were used to evict the previous tenants. Thus, when a friend of ours decided to convert a piece of wilderness to lawn he used selecti’e hormone weedkillers on the broadleaved weeds

but would not risk poisoning the twitch in case he made the ground unsuitable for subsequent grass planting. He therefore spent many hours laboriously tracing the twitch leaders and pulling them out one by one. At last th< plot was all ready for the sowing. As will now be obvious he is a careful man, and he went to the trouble of asking his seedsman for a recipe for grass mixture to suit hts particular soil rather than chance a commercial mixture.

The first item in the seed recipe was: 'Forty per cent twitch ~. ”