Hoeing...

Hi all - a brief question! When you hoe those pesky little annual weeds, do you then pick up the little b***ers, or leave them to (hopefully) burn in the (hopefully) sunshine?!

 

I don't hoe nowadays but when I did I always picked them up. I just imagined I'd end up with a mess as all those weeds accumulated while not having enough time to break down sufficiently, since hoeing needs to be so regular to be truly effective.

Nick

 

...Thanks @Nikolaos ...can I ask what you do instead of hoeing?!

 

I just fill every available space with plants! I've adopted a far more pollinator-friendly approach in the last few years and allow wild violets and alyssum (both good plants for bees) to do their own thing in my rose bed for example, so just in that area that's almost two thirds of the bare space dealt with in terms of ground cover. If you underplant enough shrubs etc and plant things close enough then there is hardly anything to even hand weed eventually.

Nick

 

I always think of hoeing as a vegetable garden thing rather than a job you do much around ornamentals, cant say I've ever picked up the remains of the weeds.
The idea is you do it so often that the weeds are only small.