Weed Wacking Weezie

Thistle Avenger

A few days ago one of our good neighbours asked me how they could get rid of some giant thistles that seemed to have taken over their front garden.

I went over to have a look and was shocked to see that, indeed, the flower bed at the front of the house appeared to be choked with huge and very prickly thistles.

These are the type of thistles that were in the flowerbed. Photos by Louise Peacock

How the flower bed got such an infestation is a mystery, but these pesky weeds were well entrenched and growing very close to the assorted perennials and shrubs. Removing them with root intact was going to be a challenge. Getting a spade in the ground to dig and lift them would do a lot of damage to the ornamental plants there.

While I was standing there mulling over the situation and trying to figure out what we could do, I reached down to the base of one of these weeds and gave it a good yank.

To everyone’s surprise, the plant came out with most of the root intact.

.Me, standing amongst some large thistles. Photo by Camille

I tackled a few more and met with equal success. Encouraged, I just couldn’t stop myself. In roughly ten minutes I was successful in yanking out 98 percent of those thistles. A few really large ones resisted so I cut them down. Best fun I’d had all week.

My final recommendation to them was to wait until the fall when most of the plants have stopped flowering and dig the whole bed up to get any remaining big thistle roots out. They would add some new sterilized topsoil to the bed and replant the various perennials.

A few days after the thistle purging, our neighbour showed up at our door with the most beautiful Kalanchoe plant in a very cute pot as a “thank you”, see in the next photos.

How sweet is that? Hey, I’ll pull weeds for Kalanchoes anytime.