OK, I give in, what DOES kill "cat's ears"?

[trees 2]

My garden in France is infested with them. Sort of like a dandelion, the leaves are hairier, more rounded, and greyer, and lie flat to the ground, so that when/if you pull 'em up you've got a sort of "sofa-with-a-button-missing" effect on the grass.

The flowers appear on the end of a long stalk that can reach 18-24" but is usually 12" and are like smaller dandelion flowers.

This year I bought some weedkiller in a spray bottle at nearly £10. Supposed to kill anything.

I went round and duly sprayed every one of the blighters, and NOT ONE WAS EVEN SLIGHTLY AFFECTED!!!![:@]

Quite where to go from here is beyond me.

[Chrissie]

Try putting a small mound of salt on the very centre (ONLY) of the weed.  In a week or so you should see the effect and the grass should grow back OK.  Don't scatter salt all over the leaves though as it will kill the area covered.

Chrissie (81)

[trees 2]

Salt? As in sodium chloride?

But if it rains, won't it just poison the ground?

[Jo]

Which is why you just put a small amount on the weed..... it poisons the weed.[:)]

[andyh4]

I second Jo's recommendation - go for it Trees

[cassis]

I hadn't heard that name for them before but I recognise the description - good luck! [:)]

I assume you've got hundreds - I spent a couple of hours digging up about a couple of hundred of the blighters last autumn - if the ground's moist and you've got a tool with two long, close set and parallel prongs, they come up pretty easily with roots intact if you slide the two prongs under the leaves and pull up close to the stem.

The grass covered the bare bits in a couple of weeks.

I used something similar to this except the handle is at right angles to the prongs:

[img]http://www.riversidegardencentre.org.uk/client/images/shop/products/detailed/1716_1716_handheld-2-pong-cultiv.jpg[/img]

A daisy grubber would probably do the job, too.

[img]http://www.greenfingers.com/images/superstore/TE0282A_l.jpg[/img]

[trees 2]

Sigh.............yes, hundreds. I've spent hours grubbing them out, hence the description of the "sofa-with-a-button-missing" effect.

Trouble is, they grow like weeds[:(], and you just CAN NOT get every one, as some are about the size of a €0.50 piece, so get missed. Within a fortnight, they are like triffids, believe me.

Since we aren't there full time, grubbing them out every 7 days or so is not an option, plus we have 2000 sq m, so rather a chore.......

I'll have to give the salt a go next visit.

I was certain I heard them laughing when I sprayed the weedkiller[:(]

[cassis]

If you've got them everywhere then that's a rotten problem.  [:(]

[IMG]http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i26/cassiscassis/complete/IMG_0680.jpg[/IMG]

Fortunately ours had only got a grip on one patch so it was controllable.  They do seem to spread like wildfire if you don't catch them early, and they smother everything else out.

Can you still get Verdone lawn weedkiller?   Or has it been banned?