Help! Thistles are taking over! :(

[FaireyNuff]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and to gardening.
I swapped my 4th floor flat for a house with a garden round 3 sides of it. My very first one! Imagine my dismay when i moved in, to find the back garden was dense and 4 feet plus, high with thistles. It wasn't like that when I viewed 3 months previously. I was at a loss to know what to do and it was cold with hard ground so i waited till a month ago and tackled them. I thought I had dug them all up and had left myself with a really pretty, kinda wild, country garden. There are so many lovely flowers, ivy's and grasses i don't want to lose. The earth is incredibly stoney underneath, enough to seriously bend my fork.
So now, the garden has well over 100 smaller thistles coming up. Some have reached 2' with the recent rain. I'm out today trying my hardest to get as many as i can up without ruining everything else but since I estimate there are double what was previously there in numbers, I'm literally tearing my hair out
Is there any advice anyone can give me on how to get rid of them without turning the whole garden into earth?
Please help me.
I'm in Leicester if there's anyone who can possibly come and give me an overview on what could be done. I have absolutely no experience and just want a pretty managable garden.
Thank you for reading
Fizzy xXx

[veggiechicken]

Hi Fizzy and welcome. I have thistle trouble too as the seeds blow in from a field behind my garden. The main thing to do is stop them flowering and seeding everywhere. So cut off every flower bud/head that you can find, put them in a bag and get rid of them. Then start to dig up the plants. Keep an eye open for more flower heads because they appear out of nowhere. Its a battle but you can win

[rustylady]

Hi Fizzy, welcome to the Vine.

Just what VeggieChicken said really. Specially don't let them flower. Could you add your location to your profile please, then it will show on your posts.

If I lived closer I would come and give you a hand - I love a challenge.

[Indigo23]

Hello, Fizzy, and welcome to the vine.

Don't give up hope, thistles can be beaten. The main thing, as already advised, is to not let any of them seed. Check daily and remove any flower heads and dispose of in a bag immediately. Keep digging them out by hand and eventually you will be rid of them, perhaps not this year or maybe even not next year, but if you are vigilant and keep up the attack you will win.

I know this from personal experience because 10 years ago I had a thicket of thistles almost as tall as me, but with perseverance they are now gone. I have to be ever on the lookout, though, because my garden is open to farmland and they don't weed out their thistles! Any that manage to germinate in my ground are removed before they're out of the nursery!!

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine Fizzy

All I can add is once you've cleared an area cover it over with cardboard that way the weeds won't be able to grow back as fast.

[Two_Sheds]

the garden has well over 100 smaller thistles coming up.

The easiest time to pull them out is when they are just coming into flower*: the roots come out much easier then.
Also, it's when there are the most nutrients in the plant, so it will add lots of goodness to your compost heap.
Thirdly, if you let them get really big, they will shade out smaller weeds & therefore do a bit of your 'weeding' for you

Fourthly: never have bare soil, because you never will have bare soil (Nature will fill bare earth with weeds ).
Have some of your pretty flowers ready & waiting in cell trays, ready to go in the thistle's place as soon as you clear a patch


Thistles really aren't a bad weed to have, compared to the others



* I see the others have said not to let them flower: they actually mean don't let them go to seed, which comes shortly after the flower. As soon as you see flowers, that's the time to pull/dig them up.