If you opened this blog due to the title, I'm afraid to tell you that you have just become a victim of click bait.
Technically these weeds are only about 2 months old but comparing the pile to our 8 year old daughter, I reckon they are about the height of a 5 year old!
This is the battle of the bank. It is not a well known battle, but rather a very local one between the McCallum clan and the Dandilion clan. It has been waging for about 1.5 years now and so far neither side is prepared to waive the white flag.
I stripped the bank back to soil as it was all weeds and ever since we have been dealing with what I believe is a decade of seeds which have been dormant. The dandilions are relentless. Our approach is to let them grow and provide some ground cover but to pull them before they set seed. I found it is way easier to pull big weeds rather than millions of little ones.
Also my tip is to weed after the rain when the soil is wet. It is so much easier.
This is the second bank. The first one has the wildflowers growing on it which I am hoping will start flowering before the end of the competition. Top photo before the weeding. Bottom after and right hand side the pile off that one bank.
Last year we let the plants and weeds grow together and I believe the weeds helped reduce pests as I have been reading up that dandilions and carrot weed bring in lots of beneficial insects. I feel that while we will reduce the numbers at some point we may need to call a truce as eliminating them completely is not likely achievable and also potentially impact our ecosystem.
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