Couch Grass

[Sue]

I've got a big flowerbed on my allotment that when I started was waist high in weeds, grass and teasels, It's taken me nearly three years but at last it's cleared and fully planted. In the middle of the bed are three trees and I can't get under all the roots to get the last of the couch grass out so it's a continual problem growing out from the middle under the tree roots and inwards from the allotment path.
Now the ground is dug over it's easier to keep control of the ones growing from the path but the ones in the middle....
If I keep digging out as much as I can from the tree roots will it ever weaken it and die of exhaustion or will it continue popping up till Kingdom come?
I don't use garden chemicals so that's not an option.
Sue

[Herbie]

Hi Sue

You could try a weed membrane covered over with mulch. No light might do the job of killing it off. I think they let the moisture through but no light.

[Sue]

Herbie
I've mulched what I can, the trouble is that several clumps are growing right bang up against the tree trunks so impossible to cover.
Wretched stuff!
Sue

[Paul Wagland]

It must have light to grow Sue, so pulling it up every time you see it will work eventually. At least it's only growing in a small area...

[Sue]

Paul
It is now....
Sue

[Two_Sheds]

it's a continual problem growing ...inwards from the allotment path.

That's the nature of the beast (couch grass). It is a spreading thing. If you have it as a path, it will invade everywhere else too. You'll have to resign yourself to continually weeding it out from where it invades, or else dig it all up and make your paths out of something else. Sorry.

[Paul Wagland]

Can you dig a slit-trench along the side of the path, and push root barrier down into this? It works with a lot of perennial weeds. You'd just have to trim anything that tries to go 'over the top'.

[mapcr77]

I read somewhere that the roots of Mexican marigold was sort of toxic to the couch grass and other weeds, maybe an expert would know if the myth is true?