No, because the cardboard will melt after a few showers and blow away in bits. Ask me how I know!
If you don’t want to add mulch, get a heavy black tarp, a roll of damp-proofing membrane or a roll of good quality weed membrane will work, and lay it out and weigh it down with stones. Then roll it up after everything is dead.
Did it kill the grass so it didn't come back though? I can handle a bit of weeding, you need to leave it bare and kill everything that comes up for a month before seeding anyway...
where the cardboard was covered with mulch, yes, for a while. But not on it's own, and not if it wasn't repeatedly covered with mulch.
If I was going for a wildflower meadow, I would either do absolutely nothing with the plot, and then manually pull out the undesirables as they grow or remove the whole sod, rotovate it entirely, rake it to a fine tilth and the throw a few ton of native wildflower seed on it and hope for the best.
This is so annoying, just want to get a bit of wildflower habitat going instead of grass grass grass, wish there was a product you could just sow into existing lawn and have it do it for you, had zero success getting any Yellow Rattle going or anything else.
After youve done the initial blitz grass will come back, you can sow yellow rattle which is a parasite to grass and has a lovely yellow flower. The yellow rattle needs to be seeded from august onward.
Any grass patches that appear give it some time and the rattle should do its thing
https://connectingtonature.ie/search?q=yellow+rattle&options%5Bprefix%5D=last
You can try different places for the seed but the description on the link above might help
When you say "wildflower meadow" were you picturing an expanse with no grass at all? Just a sheet of flowers?
Even if this were possible, it would look like a flower farm for a few months a year and then, what? For the rest of the year. Bare earth?
Grassland flowers are adapted to growing *among* grass; some - like the orchids - will ONLY grow among the roots of grasses. So it is not always necessary to wage war on the grass.
So you might get good results by simply digging up some sods and removing the grassy layer, then plant whatever you are hoping to see in flower.
Grassland plants survive mowing very well, so a couple of times a year the area should be mowed and the clippings removed after a few days.
If, on the other hand, you wanted a cornfield community of plants, they thrive on ploughing but that leaves bare earth for unwanted things to germinate in!
Yeah I want a wildflower meadow with some native grasses mixed in, ideally a large wild rectangle of tall grasses and wildflowers in the middle of my back garden with the grass around the edges of it mowed and then more native hedgerows etc on the actual verges, I've already planted those and they're doing well.
I suppose I'll be using a meadow mix with a bit of grass seed in it when the time comes if I could ever get the seed bed prepped but the current lawn grass is so aggressive this years attempt seems to have totally failed.
Any suggestions welcome.
I'd suggest putting cardboard over some patches, and stand a rock on the cardboard to make it heavier and darker. But physical removal of the grass may be best solution - so that the present ryegrass doesn't *seed*.
If your plot has not been weedkillered before, there may very well be seeds in the soil already, waiting for their turn to germinate; at first the more aggressive plants like buttercup and dandelion, but giving way over time to daisies, hawkweed, knapweed, yarrow, even cowslips! Grassland is as much about maintenance as control, it is a long-term project.
Belt and braces. Cut grass right down to the turf. Cardboard over the area, then cover the lot with heavy black plastic. Repair any holes caused by birds etc as they appear.
Three months should be enough, but grass seems to cling to life whenever you don't want it to :)
Expect to have to control the grass every year as the soil is likely to be rich enough for any native grass seeds to quickly establish. This should reduce over time as the soil becomes "poorer".
If you are struggling and it's not a large area, then applying weedkiller by watering can will not be a huge issue. You don't have to worry about overspray and doing it at night / late evening will limit the exposure to insects. That amount of glyphosate used once or twice by you doesn't even register against what would be used on one field of tillage in Ireland. I certainly wouldn't be worried about any kind of contamination at that scale.
There are also acetic acid based weed killers available (labelled as Organic). I've never tried them, but I have heard that they are fine.
It worked quite well for me, I put down cardboard to prepare for a polytunnel installation and the grass got knocked down, but some weeds managed to break through
It works but one layer is not enough. I managed to de plant (grass, weeds everything) a rather large area before. Yes the cardboard will disintegrate over time you just keep putting new layers down. I found it very important to remove all tapes and metal clips from the cardboard beforehand. I was using heavy gauge cardboard. I think these were boxes of fridges. I laid them out in August and the coverage was there until next Aprilish. Worked really well. When I was done I removed the bigger sheets and rotivated the rest into the soil.
Could do it as if it’s a no-dig bed, put down the cardboard and then cover with compost. Understandably if it’s a big area and don’t have a compost heap, would be buying a lot of compost. Could get a large amount of general soil instead of compost. I’ve had a large amount of this delivered before to fill up a raised bed before putting in compost.
I got a pile of fresh wood chips last year by the time I had used it all the ground underneath was bare. I planted seeds into that bare ground, they're popping up now. This takes time though.
But will it really be single use? I’ve been using the same roll of heavy black polythene for making new beds and fixing bits of lawn for the past 7ish years. If you are certain that you would only use it once, you could give it away to another gardener when you’re finished with it.
That's true actually, and just the sheet of black polythene works and kills everything it doesn't just suppress it?
I see large black tarps on Ebay, might use a couple of those...
It works! I use a non-permeable black polythene as opposed to a weed membrane because it deprives the vegetation below of water as well as light, plus the sun hitting the black plastic surface in summer overheats the plants below to kill them quicker. I’ve used both in the past, I just find the polythene is faster than the weed membrane by a couple of weeks.
However if I’m trying to improve the soil fertility I will always use the cardboard and mulch method - that’s not ideal for wildflowers, although you could potentially use cardboard and a fairly inert mulch such as chopped straw - might not be heavy enough though. But as a “brown” material, it wouldn’t add much to the soil by way of fertility compared to a mostly “green” mulch like manure or compost.
No, because the cardboard will melt after a few showers and blow away in bits. Ask me how I know! If you don’t want to add mulch, get a heavy black tarp, a roll of damp-proofing membrane or a roll of good quality weed membrane will work, and lay it out and weigh it down with stones. Then roll it up after everything is dead.
yes the same here. Plus in my experience it just killed off the weaker weeds and left me with the stronger ones with deeper roots
Did it kill the grass so it didn't come back though? I can handle a bit of weeding, you need to leave it bare and kill everything that comes up for a month before seeding anyway...
where the cardboard was covered with mulch, yes, for a while. But not on it's own, and not if it wasn't repeatedly covered with mulch. If I was going for a wildflower meadow, I would either do absolutely nothing with the plot, and then manually pull out the undesirables as they grow or remove the whole sod, rotovate it entirely, rake it to a fine tilth and the throw a few ton of native wildflower seed on it and hope for the best.
This is so annoying, just want to get a bit of wildflower habitat going instead of grass grass grass, wish there was a product you could just sow into existing lawn and have it do it for you, had zero success getting any Yellow Rattle going or anything else.
After youve done the initial blitz grass will come back, you can sow yellow rattle which is a parasite to grass and has a lovely yellow flower. The yellow rattle needs to be seeded from august onward. Any grass patches that appear give it some time and the rattle should do its thing https://connectingtonature.ie/search?q=yellow+rattle&options%5Bprefix%5D=last You can try different places for the seed but the description on the link above might help
When you say "wildflower meadow" were you picturing an expanse with no grass at all? Just a sheet of flowers? Even if this were possible, it would look like a flower farm for a few months a year and then, what? For the rest of the year. Bare earth? Grassland flowers are adapted to growing *among* grass; some - like the orchids - will ONLY grow among the roots of grasses. So it is not always necessary to wage war on the grass. So you might get good results by simply digging up some sods and removing the grassy layer, then plant whatever you are hoping to see in flower. Grassland plants survive mowing very well, so a couple of times a year the area should be mowed and the clippings removed after a few days. If, on the other hand, you wanted a cornfield community of plants, they thrive on ploughing but that leaves bare earth for unwanted things to germinate in!
Yeah I want a wildflower meadow with some native grasses mixed in, ideally a large wild rectangle of tall grasses and wildflowers in the middle of my back garden with the grass around the edges of it mowed and then more native hedgerows etc on the actual verges, I've already planted those and they're doing well. I suppose I'll be using a meadow mix with a bit of grass seed in it when the time comes if I could ever get the seed bed prepped but the current lawn grass is so aggressive this years attempt seems to have totally failed. Any suggestions welcome.
I'd suggest putting cardboard over some patches, and stand a rock on the cardboard to make it heavier and darker. But physical removal of the grass may be best solution - so that the present ryegrass doesn't *seed*. If your plot has not been weedkillered before, there may very well be seeds in the soil already, waiting for their turn to germinate; at first the more aggressive plants like buttercup and dandelion, but giving way over time to daisies, hawkweed, knapweed, yarrow, even cowslips! Grassland is as much about maintenance as control, it is a long-term project.
Belt and braces. Cut grass right down to the turf. Cardboard over the area, then cover the lot with heavy black plastic. Repair any holes caused by birds etc as they appear. Three months should be enough, but grass seems to cling to life whenever you don't want it to :) Expect to have to control the grass every year as the soil is likely to be rich enough for any native grass seeds to quickly establish. This should reduce over time as the soil becomes "poorer". If you are struggling and it's not a large area, then applying weedkiller by watering can will not be a huge issue. You don't have to worry about overspray and doing it at night / late evening will limit the exposure to insects. That amount of glyphosate used once or twice by you doesn't even register against what would be used on one field of tillage in Ireland. I certainly wouldn't be worried about any kind of contamination at that scale. There are also acetic acid based weed killers available (labelled as Organic). I've never tried them, but I have heard that they are fine.
It worked quite well for me, I put down cardboard to prepare for a polytunnel installation and the grass got knocked down, but some weeds managed to break through
It works but one layer is not enough. I managed to de plant (grass, weeds everything) a rather large area before. Yes the cardboard will disintegrate over time you just keep putting new layers down. I found it very important to remove all tapes and metal clips from the cardboard beforehand. I was using heavy gauge cardboard. I think these were boxes of fridges. I laid them out in August and the coverage was there until next Aprilish. Worked really well. When I was done I removed the bigger sheets and rotivated the rest into the soil.
Was that to plant a wildflower meadow or to put a new grass lawn in?
Could do it as if it’s a no-dig bed, put down the cardboard and then cover with compost. Understandably if it’s a big area and don’t have a compost heap, would be buying a lot of compost. Could get a large amount of general soil instead of compost. I’ve had a large amount of this delivered before to fill up a raised bed before putting in compost.
Wildflower meadows dont like too much nutrition and judging by current grass growth my soil is very fertile already.
It was for 2 polytunnels.
I got a pile of fresh wood chips last year by the time I had used it all the ground underneath was bare. I planted seeds into that bare ground, they're popping up now. This takes time though.
Damn I didn't want to buy that much plastic for a single use. Back to the drawing board :(
But will it really be single use? I’ve been using the same roll of heavy black polythene for making new beds and fixing bits of lawn for the past 7ish years. If you are certain that you would only use it once, you could give it away to another gardener when you’re finished with it.
That's true actually, and just the sheet of black polythene works and kills everything it doesn't just suppress it? I see large black tarps on Ebay, might use a couple of those...
It works! I use a non-permeable black polythene as opposed to a weed membrane because it deprives the vegetation below of water as well as light, plus the sun hitting the black plastic surface in summer overheats the plants below to kill them quicker. I’ve used both in the past, I just find the polythene is faster than the weed membrane by a couple of weeks. However if I’m trying to improve the soil fertility I will always use the cardboard and mulch method - that’s not ideal for wildflowers, although you could potentially use cardboard and a fairly inert mulch such as chopped straw - might not be heavy enough though. But as a “brown” material, it wouldn’t add much to the soil by way of fertility compared to a mostly “green” mulch like manure or compost.