Topic: Wood sorrel (Oxalis)

[Westie]

My allotment, recently taken on, is clogged with a clover leafed pink flowered weed, which I have identified as Wood Sorrel. Its very invasive, hoe it off and it springs up again immediately from small bulbils. It tends to snap off when you hand weed unless the soil is wet.

Does anyone have any experience of controlling this please ?

[Baccy Man]

A 3" thick layer of mulch prevents it from germinating to a large extent a thicker mulch will kill it off completely.

[Eristic]

I wouldn't bet on it.

[Baccy Man]

I wouldn't bet on it.

It worked for me but if you know a better method perhaps you could share it so Westie gets the benefit of your knowledge.

[Lavender lover]

I know the stuff.
It's nice if its where you want it. I pulled loads up from a neighbours fence some years ago and planted in pots for my front garden. It grows everywhere. I pull it up when it comes up in places I dont want it. But I have found that to get rid of it for good you will need to carefully dig up all the bulbs.
Even in my back garden I have weed guard laid and bark chippings over the top and it still grows and pops up round it.

I have never known what it is called so thanks for that.

[Westie]

Thanks Lavender Lover and Baccy Man.

 I'm sure digging up all the bulbs would be the permanent solution, but even if I managed to get 100% up I suspect my sanity my might also disappear in the process.

Mulch sounds worth considering as an option.

I'm tempted to try Glyphoshate on a trial area to see if that would work ...

[caroline7758]

I have lots of this in my garden at home. I take the view that it looks pretty and the roots are fairly fine, so only dig it up when it's getting a real stronghold.

[Apple Dumpling]

I've had a problem with this on part of my plot too. Hoeing makes it worse because it breaks up the the bulbils and spreads them around more. If it's not too bad you can try to hand weed them out very carefully, trying not to break up the bulbil clumps. I don't even risk putting them in the compost heap, in case some survive.
Saying all this I have resorted to using round-up on one really bad area, even though I wanted to avoid it.

Good luck