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10 wicked weeds
If you remember nothing else about controlling weeds, keep this strategy in mind at all times: remove perennial weeds as soon as you spot them, and pull annual weeds before they flower
Extract taken from Gardening for Dummies by Sue Fisher, Michael MacCaskey and Bill Marken, priced £14.99, published by Wiley
Here are a few of our least favourite weeds:
Bindweed. Perennial. Spreading from underground roots, this twining perennial can snake sneakily around your garden and wrap itself around your plants. The leaves are shaped like an arrowhead and the flowers resemble morning glories, a more appreciated cousin.
Beware, however, that if you allow bindweed to flower, you greatly compound your problem. Use a digging fork to remove the plants rather than a spade, which can divide the roots into pieces, each of which grows new plants.
Chickweed. Stellaria media. Annual. You can easily spot this densely matting annual weed in late winter and early spring, when the stems of 1-centimetre (1/2-inch), oval leaves reach towards the sun. The tiny white flowers open fully on sunny days. Broken stems can root if you drop them on the ground.
Couch grass. Perennial. This sneaky weed is adept at getting itself well established in borders among your plants before you notice it. Couch grass differs from annual grasses in that it forms wide-spreading, wiry, underground stems with sharp, white, pointed, growing tips.
Creeping buttercup. Perennial. While more charming in appearance than many other weeds, with its bright golden yellow flowers, don't be fooled!
In a lawn, you can keep creeping buttercup within bounds by regular mowing, particularly if you rake the lawn occasionally to bring up the runners and cut them with the mower. In borders, however, it's a different story and buttercup fast assumes thug-like tendencies.
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