We have brick pathways down either side of our house. They had largely grown over with weeds and long grass until a couple of weeks ago when Mrs Baci and I got out and pulled all the greenery out to get the paths back to their pristine best. Now green sprouts have appeared between the bricks once more. Rather than dedicate an hour or so each week to keeping the growth under control, does anyone know of a method for preventing re-growth? I could spray with chemicals but would really prefer not to. I often walk around in bare feet and would not like to be traipsing chemicals around the place. Also the paths gets used by a couple of friendly local cats as they cruise their territory and I’m mindful of their wellbeing.
The best way is to have a weed-blocking fabric beneath the brick walk, but that would require removing and reinstalling the whole thing. Even then, though, there can be enough organic material mixed with the sand between the bricks to support plant life.
Some people say boiling water and/or vinegar will kill grass in brick walks.
Another removal method is to burn them away with a weed-killing device that is like a blowtorch with a long very long neck, which you can use without bending down.
Or you could simply keep it cur low with a string trimmer.
The dish soap weedkillers do work. Back when I cared deeply about weeds in my driveway, I tried it. I found a recipe here that says to use 4 oz. (which is a half a cup) of dish soap in 2 gallons of water, but I just put “some” in a spray mister bottle, filled it up slowly and carefully with water, and walked around squirting weeds. It worked.
Or you can google “herbicidal soap” and pay $$ for fancy stuff.
The downside, of course, is that it doesn’t prevent weed growth in the first place, but then, in my experience, not even solid concrete will prevent weed growth; they always find a crack.
I fill my kettle and pour boiling water over weeds that come up through the driveway and along the edges of pathways. Non-toxic. Vinegar wasn’t strong enough for me. I quite enjoy boiling my weeds.
Great! I was aware of the boiling water solution but I think the area we need to treat is probably too large for that to be a contender. Had not previously about using dish soap but will give it a try today.
The old standby for this (old as in ancient Rome vs. Carthage time) is salt.
You can buy a bag of water softener salt pretty cheaply. And walking on the salt isn’t likely to be harmful – people enjoy strolling barefoot along oceanfront saltwater beaches.
I second the vote for the “blowtorch”. This sounds extreme, but you can get an inanexpensive device like the one previously described at a home building supply place. It’s designed to be used with a small propane tank. A brief application of flame scorches the weeds to death (sometimes they need a bit more or repeated heating to prevent re-sprouting from the roots). There are versions sold in garden supply catalogs but they are more expensive and don’t work any better.
Nothing except a high-powered herbicide is going to take care of the problem for any length of time, and even herbicides are not a permanent solution. Roundup or its equivalent is relatively nontoxic and very unlikely to harm the local cats.
What I would not use is salt, if there are any plantings in the vicinity (or you would like to have them in future). You don’t want to permanently poison the soil.
I hadn’t heard of blowtorches before so I’ll investigate. There are trees and shrubs that border the paths and so salt would most likely affect them judging from what you say. I’m suspecting that vinegar may also by problematic in that regards, particularly if a concentrated solution is required. We’re getting into winter down my way and I have to be careful that rain doesn’t end up spreading any substance I use into other areas. There is no grass nearby, which is a plus I suppose. It’s starting to sound like the blowtorch is the go. Could maybe use it for creme brulee when I’m not in the garden too. Bonus!
Agreed. Roundup is very safe, and any weed you kill with it is never coming back. Just go buy a cheap tank sprayer and squirt a little on each weed. Afterwards, sweep some pre-emergent weed control into the cracks between the bricks, and you’re done. You may need to spray a couple more times to get all the new weeds that come up, but at some point you’ve gotten all the seeds and the pathway will stay relatively sterile for a while.
Roundup’s good stuff. Keep in mind that any of the methods mentioned besides the blowtorch will not produce immediate results.
But you probably knew that already!
What **FoieGrasIsEvil ** says,
Roundup/Glyphosate takes quite a long time to show any results, don’t get fooled into thinking it hasn’t worked at first, but the results are the longest lasting of all the methods
(apart from permanantly poisoning the land with salt or oil I guess!)
Just to clarify: a “long time” being a week to 10 days. Grasses seem to succumb quickly in my experience, and after about a week pretty much any plant is looking a bit droopy. By the end of the second week, its all dead.
Just dropping in to thank y’all for the suggestions. The HOA’s been on my case to clean up the weeds in my yard, but I’ve been reluctant to use any kind of chemical due to my three cats who all love to be out in the yard. I went and got some Roundup and hosed the yard down, and I expect in a day or two I can let them back outside.
Even better then boiling water, or soap, is boiling water WITH soap! The purpose of the soap is to hold the hot water on the plant longer then it normally would. Also, timing is critical. Kill the things before they have a chance to develop deep roots, or else you will only be “killing” the part of the plant that is above the surface, and the weed will return.
Soap reduces the surface tension of water making it less likely for water to pool/bead anywhere on the plant. Many small bugs are easily killed by soapy water because water that would bead up on them now soaks in drowning them.
I would have to leave it to a more botanisty doper than I for the exact mechanism of action on plants but I don’t think your totally right.
