Gardening Weeds

Weeds: Hang ‘em High

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Weed breathing its last, hanging from a shrub in my yard. Photo: laidbackgardener.wordpress.com

When you’re off to weed your garden, it’s worth bringing a bucket or a bag in which to put the plants you pulled out so you can dump them collectively in the compost bin later. I totally get that. However, sometimes you didn’t set out to weed. You just saw one while you were on your morning garden stroll or were heading off to the grocery store and you instinctively pulled it out.

Is so, what to do with the weed you have between your fingers? Do you really have to go half way around the house each time to depos it in the compost pile?

That’s certainly not what I’m do. When I have a weed in my hand and want to get rid of it quickly, I simply hang it from the branch of a shrub or a tree, more rarely a large perennial. The weed, its roots now exposed to the air, dries up and dies in just a few hours. When it finally falls to the ground a few days later, by then brown and dry, its roots are dead and there is no risk it can recover. It therefore discreetly joins my mulch, also brown in color, where it breaks down bit by bit to feed the soil.

Laidback weeding: it’s just so simple!

Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

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