Mother and father of all weeds

Sorry I just followed advice on here and got from E Bay as that would be cheaper.

It's called Roundup ProBio and was £50.The instructions don't advise that you have to dilute but that's ridiculous as it then goes on to quote 5 litres per hectare (10,000 sq m!) of grassland, apple and pear orchard etc....

I've obviously naively bought stuff for the farrrrrmers!!

That is just ridiculous. Read this http://www.progreen.co.uk/Weed-killers/Total-Weed-Killers/Roundup-ProBio-360-5LT/prod_106.html particularly the bit at the bottom.
You need to get rid of this. Ideally back to the guy who sold it to you. The ebay ads I've seen for this are clear as a bell and are full of warnings. Did you not see them?

Failing sending it back:- If you tip is like Chichester you can hand stuff like this to the staff and they will dispose of it properly. Whatever you do DO NOT put it in landfill or down a drain.

What you have is just a few weeds. Personally I don't think you are safe with something like weedkiller so why don't you just dig them up with a trowel.
If you won't do that go to B&Q and buy http://www.diy.com/nav/garden/garde...ler-Re241L-Blue-Orange-9846764?skuId=10247469 or http://www.diy.com/nav/garden/garde...o-Use-Weedkiller-1000ml-9436526?skuId=9307192

I am astounded frankly

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f....H0.XrOUNDUP&_nkw=roundup+weedkiller&_sacat=0

These are the listed products. The one I got was the top one.

That advert is shocking. Complain to ebay about it and get a refund.

Look at this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-Ltrs-RO...rden_Plants_Fertiliser_CV&hash=item1e87b6a5de That is ok.

Anyway, just get a squirty thing from B&Q, spray and ignore. The weeds will fall over eventually

OP - you haven't got the mother and father of all weeds. You've got a few common annual and perennial weeds. Seeds are coming into your garden and working their way to the surface all the time. There's no magic way to stop this. Put down landscape fabric with a mulch on top but, if neglected, a few weeds will root even in this.

Your choices are:

- Pull them out by hand when they appear and keep doing it.

- When they appear spray them with the widely available glyphosate-based weedkillers that you can buy in B&Q, Homebase, Wilkinsons, pound shops etc. etc. Cheap own label ones are just the same stuff as branded. NOTE - these are amateur use products for domestic garden use.

- Get yourself a boy's toy and have fun doing the weeding, although I'd be concerned for your safety and that of small children and animals.

The glyphosate you've bought will do the job grand, it's just that you've bought a 20 year supply of the stuff

If you really have never heard of Roundup previously (really?) and given that there are 5000+ results for Roundup on ebay, perhaps the smart thing to do would be to have come back here and asked if the one you intended buying was appropriate. Most people understand that Roundup, in the context of a discussion about garden weeds, is the one you get off the shelf in the supermarket, not a £50+ pfrofessional use only product.

The ebay vendor selling a professional use product without displaying the information required by law for sale of such products is breaking the law. Trading Standards is the body to which such breaches should be reported.

ceres, I fully agree. If you search ebay for glyphosphate there are host of people selling 5l containers with no warnings. I'm going to report this to Trading Standards

WalksWithTurkeys said:

Roundup is glyphosate, but more expensive. Buy it from ebay.

Click to expand...

Now people are saying get it from supermarket rather than E Bay!

You couldn't make it up

I didn't say get it from a supermarket rather than ebay. You need to read my post again.

longshanks,

Here is my tuppence worth going back to the original question.

The weeds in your photo's are normal run of the mill weeds that frankly any weedkiller should have easily sorted out. Bare in mind weedkiller is not residual so the weeds that re-grow are new weeds which will spring up every month if not pulled or treated.

The fact that spraying them didn't work means that you probably applied it wrongly which is what got petermeacham and ceres so worried because mis applying what you bought could be quite serious.

Here is some boring background...

Applying weedkiller incorrectly is very damaging environmentally and expensive to remove for water treatment by authorities etc which is why they are so **** hot about contractors playing by the strict rules which includes the sale of professional use products. technically you should not have been able to buy the product you did without showing them your certificates.

Unfortunately a grey area exists allowing older users land-owners of small estates etc to buy products like this hence why some sellers get away with it.

The government don't like telling people what to do in their own homes so they can't impose restrictions on homeowners for pesticides use and therefore you get lots of crazies pouring this stuff down the drain etc which i as a trained pesticides operator could be liable for prosecution if i did something similar.

This is why people get so irrate about it and rightly so. However 90% of people are totally unaware of the above and simply trying to kill a few weeds in their garden.

In your case i think the tone of peters first post was out of line but the above novel is probably why.

So In summary Peter i commend you for your vigilance but perhaps toning it down to make people aware of the issue without battering them from on top of your high horse is a better option.

Longshanks, I would try and get a refund on your 5L and get some premixed stuff with a wee pistol applicator from B+Q

Something like this which is already mixed and ready to go.

http://www.diy.com/nav/garden/garde...o-Use-Weedkiller-3000ml-9426529?skuId=9717234

You will need to pull the weeds out once dead and you will need to spray again perhaps in a month or 2 to kill any new weeds appearing

Many thanks. The voice of sanity at last. Very eloquently explained though I think you also gloss over the ambiguous advice given on here (not E Bay-here!).

You also go a grand job sticking up for our friend Pedro but you must admit that his comments were completely OTT.

Although I don't have a PHD in use of pesticides and crop sprayers I have used bog standard sprays for donkey's years but only now had a problem with the drive in this proper we recently moved into.

Thanks again.

You're welcome.

This was acknowledgement to our friend from Northern Ireland. There was nothing remotely eloquent or coherent about anything you have said.

Ahm, your post follows mine. Did you made a mistake? Surely not!