Tim low Feral Future

[planthunter]

At Christmas my best present was a book called Feral Future by Tim Low.
It made interesting reading and quite disturbing at times.
My front garden is overrun by an exotic species which has been resistant to my attempts to be rid if it. It is some form of Geranium with a combination of tuberous and fibrus roots which causes the soil to have the consistancy of old wet carpet. At least our cold winters halt its advance for a few months. My new years resolution is to beat this beast of a plant once and for all.
This is nothing to compare with what you have growing over there in the way of exotics. very worrying.

[Thomas B]

Are you sure its not a native geranium (Geranium solanderi, G. homeanum) or pelargonium. Both have edible tubers.

[Thomas B]

Oh whoops, you're in the UK. Probably not a native geranium then. Tim Low's book is great, he's written two other books on related but different topics. One is Edible Herbs of Australia and New Zealand, which covers edible weeds, and Wild Food Plants of Australia, which is self explanatory. If you are also worried about weeds read Tim Flannery's The Future Eaters.

[planthunter]

Hi Thomas, Yes great book, I'm looking forward to reading Future Eaters when that arrives in the post.
I think the Geranium is from asia, not sure where though. I've got a lot of digging waiting for me out in the front garden

[boylesg]

At Christmas my best present was a book called Feral Future by Tim Low.
It made interesting reading and quite disturbing at times.
My front garden is overrun by an exotic species which has been resistant to my attempts to be rid if it. It is some form of Geranium with a combination of tuberous and fibrus roots which causes the soil to have the consistancy of old wet carpet. At least our cold winters halt its advance for a few months. My new years resolution is to beat this beast of a plant once and for all.
This is nothing to compare with what you have growing over there in the way of exotics. very worrying.

Save your self one of those plastic shoe polish bottles with the foam dabber.

Clean it out and fill it with glyphosate concentrate (not ready to use glyphosate).

Every time one of your unwanted geraniums raises one of its shoots, cut the shoot off as close to the root stock as possible and immediately dab the stump with glyphosate.

If you keep this up you will soon be rid of your Geraniums (several months probably).

It's called the cut and paint method of herbicide application and it is very effective one woody weeds like this.

[planthunter]

There is an almost empty bottle matching that description under the kitchen sink which would have been chucked out so I'll hold onto that and find a source for the glyphosate concentrate and give it a go.
Thanks for that.