Couch Grass

I have a lot of this grass here. Most of the grass in the front is couch grass. It's in all three gardens. My main concern at the moment is the pond area. I weeded out both mounds before planting up but the Couch has invaded again and growing at an alarming rate. The larger mound has the biggest problem. I was going to wait until Autumn to do anything but thinking maybe I should take action now as just pulling bits out is not enough.

I read glyphosphate will kill it but don't want to be spraying that around. I'm thinking that maybe if I remove most of the flowers I could cover the mound with weed membrane and leave for a couple of years. This method should work I read but will not look very pretty obviously, especially as its a large area. The ornamental grasses will have to stay in situ as nowhere to put them if I remove them.

Does anyone else have a problem with Couch grass and how do you deal with it?

Also wondering what I'm going to do about the rest of the garden but one thing at a time.

 

Couch grass does not like to be regularly cut.....whenever it appears in my lawns I cut long stems with scissors.....this keeps it in check. It is rarely a problem in close mown lawns but grass here is kept at a higher setting. Thus, couch grass needs to be able to grow vigorously; control this and you (relatively) control couch

Weed membrane means an ugly area of garden.....not totally effective against bindweed though; I have removed membrane after a year or two to find bindweed has travelled laterally by several metres to get to the light where membrane ends!!!

Well, glyphosate is effective. Manual removal of couch is endless, tiresome and ineffective I think. Judicious localised applications of glyphosate is my preferred way but I have to say I use very little of it.....primarily because perennial weeds, couch, etc., have long been killed off. Glyphosate leaves no uglyness behind but does allow something to be planted in a very short time.

A choice! Repetitve hand weeding, ugly membrane or glyphosate