Nettles

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I help maintain the garden of a local Scout hut. Last Summer we had new turf laid down at the hut which has taken really well - too well as it now needs mowing! The area is surrounded by common land with 6 feet high nettles and brambles that keep on coming through the wire fence. We will never get rid of the nettles the other side of the fence but is there a way I can stop them encroaching into our land. The brambles I can almost manage by cutting them back but the nettles are beginning to pop up in the lawn around the edges. I'd rather not have to use weed killer. Could we grow some sort of creeper along the fence that may eventually block out the nettles? As our time is limited is there anything that would be low maintenance.
 
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You could try burying some type of barrier at the fenceline that would block the nettle rhizomes, or at least deter most of them. The installation would be laborious, but it would be low maintenance after that.

Also you could think of the nettles as a low maintenance ready-made vegetable garden. Nettles are highly nutritious and cooking them like spinach inactives the stinging hairs.
 
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I can imagine the Scouts making nettle soup on camp!

It's the younger ones that get the nettle stings when they run up to the fence that I'm more concerned about.
 
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Hiya @JES72 Welcome to the forum it's good to have you on board :) Ruddy nettles and kids just don't mix do they!
I think that whatever you plant along there, the nettles will poke through, and then they'll get the unsuspecting scouts because they'll be less visible and obvious.
Although we usually avoid weedkillers, I think on this occasion it might be a good idea to consider glysophate. If you board the fenceline it will cost a bomb and also take time. During the time the glyphosate is working, a few fence posts a couple of feet in with some of that green shade netting fixed on would keep the little ones away for the time being.
A lawn mower will keep chopping off any runners and eventually weaken them - they do here. We have 4 acres and lots of nettles - they never come through and cause problems where the mowing gets done (y)
 
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or .... those beach/camping wind breaks might do the job?
1628620328100.png
 
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Thanks, I think we could do a bit of both, put in boards in one section that's got the worst of the nettles creeping through and use netting to keep the taller nettles out. And keep on top of mowing the grass.

It's not only the kids that get stung. ;)
 
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I know :rolleyes: You'll just have to knock up some wine out of the beasts that get you to use as medicine :D
 

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