Anyway, the next biggest challenge is the driveway. It's all pavers and all the gaps are filled with weeds. But, I'm still putting that off....
Next biggest weed challenge, and the one that stares at me every day, is the gravel that surrounds the house. Yes, it surrounds the entire house. The house is sitting in a sea of gravel. A weedy sea of gravel. The areas in front, which happen to be where we spend the most time (best sun and best view) and thus pay more attention to the weediness weren't too hard to take care of. I actually managed to deal with that by raking and pulling and have the filthy, ragged nails to prove it! No, the big problem is the side of the house where I spend the least time and totally ignored the weeds until the gravel started to disappear. It's full of a nasty little grass that resists pulling and even hides down in the gravel defying detection until you start scratching around and uncovering it and spreading all it's nasty little seeds in the process. There's the target patch in the photo below and my chosen weapons.
A nice little garden rake and my trusty 10,000 BTU (uh, it's actually 500,000 BTU) propane powered flame weeder (or my flame thrower as my husband likes to call it). The plan of attack is to singe the tops of the weeds to kill the seeds, then rake the gravel away and incinerate the little you-know-whats. I know from past experience that if you just singe the tops of the weeds as the manufacturer recommends that the weeds are not killed. The only way to kill them with the flamer is to expose the crowns of the weeds and and really fry them.
Here it is above, lit and ready to go. I'm really happy that I purchased the optional squeeze handle rather than having to twist the little knob all the time. It's really easy to light, so I turn it off while I'm raking aside the next patch of gravel.
Here it is at about half throttle. That's another nice thing about having the squeeze handle, it's easy to regulate the flame, I rarely use it full blast.
And voila! Weed free gravel patio. It took me a few hours to do the area in the photo, plus what you can't see behind me when I took the photo, plus the area the next level up. Hopefully the weeds won't be back too soon, they're already peeking out where I hand pulled....
If you ask me those were hardly what I'd call a weed problem. You did do a great job of getting rid of them.
ReplyDeleteHere I have much bigger weed problems, massive blackberries that creep everywhere. Mimosa tree roots that have been chopped down for 5-6 years in the flower beds. Bronze Fennel plants in the driveway gravel the size of garbage cans. Maybe you could bring over a backhoe and your 'flamethrower'
Very cool! Here, finally, seems to be a non-toxic approach that might just work. Where did you get that thing?
ReplyDeleteWow! Lovely before and after shots. Interestingly I saw a demo of using a power washer to weed gravel and between pavers - worked wonders. As long as you have water to use that is. Uses water at the same rate as a shower pretty much but you can do so much so fast.
ReplyDeleteI have way more weeds than I can get to - it's the yearly agony of never getting on top of the weeds!
Thanks for dropping by our blog. I'm just up the coast from you - but about 8 miles inland, behind Soquel. I'm not sure as the crow flies.
I do careful round-up on the poison oak - I'm hoping eventually it will give up. Ya think??
Randy, LOL, your weeds got mine beat any day! I know how awful blackberries and mimosas are. I didn't know that bronze fennel could be such a problem. Hmm, if I had a back hoe I might of dropped it by to help you out, but sorry...
ReplyDeleteTown Mouse, I ordered it from flameengineering.com a few years ago. I forgot what model I have when I wrote the post, it actually has a maximum 500,000 BTUs! The company makes a range of flame weeders from 18,000 BTUs to the monster that I have (it's a long driveway).
Country Mouse, power washer weeding sounds interesting. Although I would hate to use water for weeding in light of our current drought-ish conditions. One of the things I like about the flamer is that it kills the weed seeds along with the weeds. It's not perfect for getting weeds between pavers, but it's good enough. I can never get to all the weeds either. Towards the end of spring I will hit the hillside around the house with the weed whacker, but that's more about reducing fire danger than aesthetics. I whack down whatever poison oak I come across, it doesn't kill it but it doesn't come back any bigger. Fortunately, I don't get a big reaction to it. Maybe the roundup will get your poison oak about the same time it gets my bindweed... someday, eventually, it's gotta give up!
Great before and after pics! Our gravel looks rather like your "before" and ours surrounds the house as well. I must get cracking... although it will be with my fingernails.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great way of weeding - much better than using chemicals. Fire is a natural part of the Mediterranean life cycle, so long as it doesn't get out of hand, of course! Do you find that the weeds die back in the summer? We do, so that makes us a bit lazy about weeding in the spring.
ReplyDeleteJan & Steve, That's about the only thing I don't like about the gravel, having to weed it every spring.
ReplyDeleteChaiselongue, It's the same here, fire has been a part of the ecology for a long time. The powers that be have finally acknowledge that and do controlled burns to clear out undergrowth to prevent really nasty wild fires. We get no summer rain here so there are few weeds then. But if I don't get the weeds in the spring then they come back in a big way when the rain comes back. I got lazy last year...
WOW great work, I love your before and after pictures.
ReplyDeletexoxo Tyra
Remind me not to get into any arguments with you! Who knew what lurked beneath that gentle exterior?
ReplyDeleteDaffodil Planter, not to worry, my evil twin only appears at weeding time!
ReplyDeleteOh man, my parents want to get one of those flamethrower things for their own awful weed problems, especially their gravel driveway, but I worry someone's going to get burned. Do you wear steel-toed boots?! I wouldn't think Round-up would work for bindweed, since you have to get the roots. I have it too, scary stuff. Good luck and hope the weeds are suitably afraid of you now!
ReplyDeleteKaren, I've never even singed the toes of my old previously walking now gardening shoes. The one thing you have to be careful of is not singeing desirable plants along the edges of the area you're weeding. Roundup should work on bindweed so long as the weed is actively growing (which mine are at the moment). The killer ingredient gets translocated from the leaves to the roots when the plant is growing.
ReplyDeleteI would be terrified of accidentally setting the house on fire. But if not for that, I would desperately want one. I could certainly use a new tool for fighting my hopelessly out-of-control annual bluegrass.
ReplyDeletequeerbychoice, Well, I am careful about using it around flamable things. I always keep a hose nearby and never never never use it in the summer when the countryside gets tinder dry around here.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have one of those. Unfortunately, now in our 18-month of drought Austin is under burn bans which includes using any equipment (like welding equipment) that might throw sparks and start a wild fire. I'm sure if conditions ever change so that I could use one I'd feel just like Ripley fighting Aliens.
ReplyDeleteJust stumbled across your blog. I'm so glad you have a flamethrower for your garden.
ReplyDeleteWow, good job on that. I am considering putting in a pea gravel patio area and I was wondering about leaves and such which fall on the gravel. Are you able to rake them easily to keep it from turning into a layer of compost on your gravel? Thanks. Again, good job.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I don't have a lot of trees and shrubbry in most of the areas with gravel so I don't have to deal with it very much, but what does fall there is fairly easy to rake up. One thing I wish had been done when the gravel was laid was to put a weed barrier down, then I don't think I would have needed to get such a big weed flamer to begin with.
ReplyDelete