Perennial Wildflowers

[tuppencethecatParticipant]

Greetings. I have just purchased all your books and have been pouring over them. My husband and I recently bought a 9 acre parcel of farmland that we are building a house upon. The first year (2011), we put in the kitchen garden, roughly 2/3 of an acre and fenced it in due to severe deer pressure. We live in Ontario, Canada about an hour east of Ottawa. The land had been completely undisturbed for about 30 years. It had been a hay field for many years but then had just been allowed to go wild. Now, it is largely perennial wildflowers like milkweed, etc. I have tried digging them out and I also tried to smother them with cardboard and tarps which I left in place for 2 years until this summer when we uncovered an area only to find that within a week, the weeds were all back again. I have recovered the entire veggie garden area which is 60 feet by 90 feet and have concentrated this year on getting the weeds out of my raspberry border and my asparagus. Does anyone have any suggestions that I have not tried? These wildflowers are very determined NOT to be removed but I am equally determined to get rid of them. I have planted 6 smaill raised beds which I am using for soft fruit. The weeds have continued to come up in those beds but I laid down about an inch of manure this spring and I continue to pull anything that I see on a daily basis and I do believe that I am slowly winning the battle as there is less than previously. Thanks so much. I have been gardening for over 30 years but will gratefully accept any help offered with this problem as there is always more to learn. Cheers.

[tuppencethecatParticipant]

I must say that I do feel rather bad that no one wanted to give me any help here.

 

[charlesModerator]

Sorry I missed your post, it must have come at a busy period and then disappeared off the Active topics list before I got there.

Your wildflowers are remarkably robust, however if you are seeing them weaken it sounds encouraging. Enriching the soil is a help as they prefer poor soil. I wonder how deep their roots are, perhaps they grow like bindweed with long and deep roots. I am finding this year that my pink-flowered field bindweed is much weaker than last year, from removal using a trowel every five days or so, using a trowel.

Keep going and I hope you enjoy the books.

[MarcParticipant]

Hi Cat,
I was wondering if and how you got your flowers away.
I have a similar field, but have put at least 4inch organic material on them, on top of the flower/hay field.
If i do cardboard + 2 inches, it’s not enough.

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