Having creeping charlie in a lawn is problematic. You can understand if you have this type of area. That’s the reason you need to focus on removing it.
If the garden area is full of creeping charlie, it will damage the roots, and that’s why the area will look awful. But if you can control its growth, you can get rid of it in an easy way.
And removing creeping charlie with borax is an amazing idea. So, let’s dive right into the section to see what the procedures are and how you will do these things easily.
Contents
What is creeping charlie?
Creeping Charlie or the Glechoma hederacea is a plant that is harmful and can damage the entire lawn. It’s a kind of perennial and aromatic creeper. It’s called an evergreen plant.
Generally, it’s known as creeping charlie, ground-ivy, tunhoof, alehoof, catsfoot, and many more. Creeping charlie is a mint type of plant. As you know, plants from a mint family can be used for several purposes. It can be used as a fresh herb, and you can eat it in salads. But creeping charlie is not edible at all but still a member of a mint family.
But it’s used for making beer. You can feel a slight amount of bitterness. But overall, it smells amazing. Creeping charlie is an aggressive plant that grows slowly. It usually lives in a big area. Generally you can find it on your lawn.
But is keeping it in your garden safe? Or is it appropriate for your lawn? That’s the question that you might think about. As you know that creeping charlie is an aggressive creature, you should avoid keeping it. Besides, you might face some problems if you have creeping charlie in your lawn. So, it must be avoided and that’s why you should try to get rid of it.
Can borax kill creeping charlie?
There might be a question if borax is suitable for killing creeping charlie or not. Well, you might face a dilemma whether you should use it or avoid it. And for getting into a conclusion, you need to know about the effectiveness of borax.
Borax is a kind of thing that is basically sodium tetraborate. It’s used for reducing the creeping charlie. But the best part is, it won’t harm the grass.
As creeping charlie is an invasive perennial leaf, borax can form a toxic spot to the area that you spread the entire borax mixture. And that’s how it can kill the creeping charlie. So, yes, it’s true that using borax is an excellent idea to reduce and totally kill the creeping charlie weed.
And for that, you need to apply borax mixture when the leaves are just starting to grow. But make sure you won’t use it excessively. It is because if you use it frequently then it can damage the grass too. The proper amount of using it should be once or twice in a year.
How to Get Rid of Creeping Charlie with Borax
Removing creeping charlie is not a difficult task to do. It’s even easier than removing the other kinds of plants. All you need to do is to take the right steps. Though borax has an absolute weed reducing formula, it also has some side effects. But using it appropriately can harm the grass less.
To make a perfect solution in an easy way, let’s take a look at the ingredients, and the methods that we are going to describe.
For making the solution, you will need
- 10 oz. Twenty Mule Team Borax
- 4 oz. (1/2 cup) of hot water
Step 1: making the mixture
At first, you need to mix all the things to make a solution. You need to take warm water and borax. Mix all the ingredients together. After that, dilute in 2.5 gal. water. It will be easy to mix the ingredients.
But if you face any difficulty, then you can use a blender and blend it for 20-30 seconds. That’s it. It will mix all ingredients together in an easy way. But it will be better if you use an old blender and avoid the regular one. The reason is, the borax can mix with the food when you will use the blender later for food preparation.
Step 2: Pour it
Once you are done with all the mixing and making, then you need to take a nice spray bottle. You can have a regular one if you have one in your house or you can get it from a store. Then pour all the mixture in a spray bottle and start the spraying process.
Step 3: Spreading
Now you have to take the bottle and spray it all over the garden area. Spray the homemade borax weed killer evenly all over the lawn and let it sit properly. That’s enough. After a couple of weeks, you will see how the weed gets dry. And slowly, it will be dead. And you will feel your beautiful lawn without any creeping charlie.
How to control creeping charlie?
If you think that removing creeping charlie is a troublesome task then you need to be aware of from the very beginning. And for that reason, you need to control the creeping charlie, so that it won’t grow in your lawn.
To control the creeping charlie, or any other type of weed, you need to keep cutting them off regularly. You also should pull those little plants out from the ground. You can also use a stand-up weeder to do this process. That’s why you don’t need to bend down, and you can save your back.
When creeping charlie exists in a garden, it can damage the roots of the grass, and thus, damage the entire area. That’s the reason you should keep it away from your garden.
And to keep creeping charlie in control, you have to clean the garden area and pull all the weeds out from there. That’s how you can control the creeping charlie and keep your lawn clean.
What should you do if you have no borax?
Imagine there’s no availability of borax, what would you do then? Then you need to start the procedures differently.
There are lots of methods to kill the creeping charlie. You can choose any of them if you don’t have borax or you don’t want to use it. Let’s see what you can do and how you will do it in an effective way.
Trimming
Trimming the leaves is the easiest way to get rid of creeping charlie. You don’t have to do a lot of things to get rid of that. You just need the proper equipment to do that.
And for doing it, you need a good-quality trimmer. Take the trimmer and gently cut all the leaves out from the ground. You don’t need to be too harsh while doing this. Just slightly trim the creeping charlie and throw them in a trash can.
You have to make sure that you won’t leave any of the weed on the ground. It is because if you do it, it will automatically grow and again create problems.
Use Herbicide
Herbicide is a wonderful technique to get rid of creeping charlie and the other kinds of weeds too. And for doing it, you will need protective gloves, eyewear, garden spray, long-sleeved shirt, and pants.
Spray the herbicide when the leaves are growing. But we recommend you to apply it in the fall. That will give you better results for sure.
But make sure you won’t use too much herbicide on the ground. You need to use a need-able amount of it. So that you can get the appropriate result.
Wrap Up
As you can see, using borax is completely an effective thing, and you can use it without taking much time.
Moreover, you can choose other options as well. But if you have borax in your house, you must apply this method to get the best result.
So, apply it in a right way, take good care of your garden and enjoy the blissful sight of it.
