The more mulch I spread on paths, the fewer weeds I get and the easier they are to pull since their roots aren't well anchored. The hardest part is getting rid of existing weeds before spreading the mulch.I just hoe and hand pull, but if I had more/larger paths I would probably resort to chemicals.
Jan

generic roundup .. 2 and 5/8 oz per gal.. under VERY LOW PRESSURE ...

its the same as in the hosta beds...

ken

I hand pull. My woods paths are mossy, so I can't hoe and I don't use chemicals. They stay pretty clean. The gravel paths closer to the house also get hand pulled or I use a hand weeding tool that kinda looks like a hoe.

Sandy

I hand pull, too. One year I sprayed round up and accidentally misted Thunderbolt, nearly causing me a nervous breakdown, lol.

My back path behind the beds is so weedy. It's mossy, but moss is so hard to weed without pulling out the moss, which I don't want to do. Every year I have this fantasy that I will spend a couple days getting every weed and blade of grass out of that moss, but it never happens.

Go to a farm supply and get a gal. of Pramitol which contains triazine. Just make sure you don't want to plant anything there for at least 3 years because this is a nonselective herbicide. I have several hundred feet of fieldstone pathways throughout my gardens and I apply Pramitol once or twice each year, beginning in early spring to prevent all weed growth.

I was using the premixed jug with the attached sprayer. I was trying to eradicate a wild raspberry that was mostly on the other side of the chain link fence along our back property line but was sending thorny branches through to the front, right in the path of my dogs' buggy eyes. About a foot behind the fence is a stone wall that runs the length of the property. So the weeds that grow in that one foot area are a challenge.

I don't have the bottle in front of me, but I seem to recall the instructions saying to fully coat the leaves of what you are trying to destroy. Your drip procedure is great and one I will probably employ soon on a couple things, but I don't see how it would have worked for me in that instance. I guess I could have grabbed a ladder and hopped the fence to better access the raspberry, even though there wouldn't have been room for me to stand. But I took the easy way out and sprayed, choosing a calm day, and a slight breeze that came up was enough to carry the mist onto Thunderbolt, which was fine, FWIW.

Chemicals are bad. I first built my garden path in my woodland garden which was covered with wild vinca in 2003,and all I did was put down a lot of mulch. That,plus walking thru there every day,controls it. The vinca still grows of either side of the path,but not in the path. I haven't had a problem in 9 years with weeds growing in the path. The rest of my garden also has mulch,with no weeds. If you walk the paths every day the way I do,weeds won't grow there! (Grass doesn't grow on a busy street!) Phil

Roundup had a special a couple of years ago where you bought a bottle of concentrate and got a nice-sized pressurized plastic sprayer for free. It had 3 seperate nozzles; a mister (agree with Ken that it has no use), a stream and a flat fan spray which has great control and coverage.

I used up the Roundup and use generic glyphosate in the neat sprayer. Many people look at glyphosate as if it was Agent Orange. It is not. It acts on plant enzymes and does not affect animal / human enzymes. It has been used for many years and there has been no indication that it is harmful once dry.

It does iritate eyes and can cause intestinal upset in pets if they are allowed to ingest it while wet (probably people too). If the directions are followed there is no known danger to humans, pets or the environment. It will effectively kill fish, so don't spray near ponds or other water supplies.

If you are skeptical, then buy a big bottle of vinegar, which is 5% acidic acid, and spray it on the weeds. If you have some left over, you can save it or use it on your french fries...or fried onion rings; yum.

That is the other reason I don't use Round Up a lot- my dogs. When I'm out there, so are they, and the younger one eats anything and everything and is always in my business. round up smells like melting crayons and I figure that will attract him. I don't mind using it when necessary, though.

Spray with glyphosate or vinegar (Pramitol seems to be pretty toxic), then spread some Preen to prevent seeds from germinating.

I used a lot of Preen early in the Spring and now I am a believer. Corn gluten works too, but I don't think it works in warm climates.

Jonny - you must be Canadian if you are putting vinegar on your french fries! American waitstaff give you really strange looks when you request some. (Right up there with ordering a Caesar at the bar!) What a difference a few miles make.
Jan

Last year a friend suggested using boiling water to kill weeds between the cracks of my brick patio. I try not to use herbicides or pesticides in my yard so I gave it a try. It works. Just pour it on and the weeds die almost instantly. Just be careful :)

Jan, not Canadian. I live in SE Massachusetts Mom, dad (only 6 months old, at the time), grandma and grandpa all came from England which is where I inherited my taste for vinegar on fish and chips. I think there are few things better tasting than salt and vinegar on some real good fried onion rings. Not the pasted together ones, but the real rings, battered and deep fried. With the batter flaking off.

{{gwi:1035442}}

My mouth is watering.

I used Preen also this spring, and weeds came and are still coming up. I applied it early spring, don't know what went wrong.

Preen on your chips is not good Bernd. Not good at all.

Jonny, my family was originally from the South End of New Bedford. British to the backbone. Fish and Chips joints on most corners and vinegar on every table.

Steve

Steve, I lived on Aquidneck Street off Brock Ave.

Jon

4 blocks north on Lucas St. My family still owns the 3 decker.

Steve

You guys are making me hungry. French fries without vinegar just aren't the same, good though ketchup is!
Jan

Small world, Steve.

And "three decker" is a term which reveals your origin in MA, for sure. My hubby uses the term, now I know what it is.
I think FritoLay makes some potato chips with vinegar and salt. I'm a great believer in the power of vinegar as a cleaning agent and a meat tenderizer too. Great product.

Triple decker, double decker...if you came from the New Bedford area you would surely also know linguica and chuorico sausages, coffee milk, frappes, Hoo Mee Chow Mein (with Fall River style noodles), Malasadas.....

Steve if you (or anyone else) want to reminisce about New Bedford there is a "You know you are from New Bedford if...." blog on Facebook with a couple of thousand members. Send me a message on Facebook and I can invite you to join the group.

Jon Beard

I like mustard on my fries although I like malt vinegar on them if I'm having fish n' chips.

Anyway, thank you everyone for taking the time to respond.

I should have given a little more info at the get go. The hostas are growing under mature pines & oaks so I have oak leaves to deal with. We're sheltered so the leaves don't just blow away (like when we lived in western Oklahoma). So I have to be able to rake the paths which kinda' rules out being able to just mulch & hand weed. And there is too much area to even think about paving. Or having to buy the paving, that is. No source of freebie flagstones. Anyway, I have an aversion to spending money on the hosta garden that doesn't involve buying new hosta! I will be adding stepping stones in the paths when I turn some up & have nothing else much to do. That could be a while!

I was going to try the Preen route but I goofed & bought the Preen + fertilizer & it seems a little silly to be fertilizing areas where I don't want anything to grow!

Since I turned up a bunch of 41% glyphosphate at a rummage sale today for real cheap, am going to go the Round-Up route this year. But I'm glad to know about the Pramitol because residual control is what I really need...not just for the paths but also some graveled areas that are becoming a problem.

I've used Round-up some in the past & have inadvertently got some overspray on hosta. I keep a watering can handy & immediately rinse the spray off of any unintended targets. I suspect that Round-up wouldn't much phase any of the hosta with waxy coating on their leaves anyway. But better safe than sorry.

I don't have a huge problem with weeds back under the tree canopy but the entrance ways that get a lot of sun are sure a weedy mess. Given our usually frequent rains, I no more than have about half of the paths mostly cleared and along will come a good soaking and a whole new crop of weeds have sprung up.

Going to try the vinegar treatment for spot weeding between flagstones on some other walkways & the patio. Don't want to use it extensively in other areas because our soil is already acidic & I'm assuming that vinegar might make it even more acid?

ci lantro, I used Preen early and while it stopped most of the weeds from popping up some did. I sprayed what I could with glyphosate and hand pulled next to plants.

It's not perfect, but the combination of weedkiller and Preen has made life a lot easier for me. Vinegar is certainly acidic (5% acidic acid) with PH of 4 to 4.5. It is, however not long lasting and breaks down in a few days. It will not lower your PH longterm, but it could make your backyard smell like a fish and chip place for a few days.

I have a large undeveloped lot and I have cleared much of it off and to keep it reasonable I simply go around a couple of times a year with generic Roundup. After a couple of years the task becomes far easier. It is mostly pine and oak as your walkways are. The leaves don't get cleared. I spray everything popping up even small pines, oak seedlings and even bushes I don't want. The cleared area is well over a quarter acre and I just keep spraying and increasing the cleared area each year.

Beats the heck out of trying to pull weeds.

I thought the vinegar needed to be extra strong to kill weeds? I know I have tried the regular old white vinegar from my kitchen pantry on dandelions and had no luck with that. I don't even know where you would find " industrial" strength vinegar?

That's what I was thinking, jonnyb, that the job would be easier in subsequent years if I get on top of the weeds and keep them knocked down so they don't seed. And when I think about it, how that area now in hosta was overgrown with all kinds of nasty weeds like stinging nettle when I started this project about 4 years ago, it has come a long ways. Of course, weeds are opportunistic. Just when you get rid of one kind, another three or four varieties decide to move in!

Coll, from Googling, I found that Ozark makes a 10% solution white vinegar. Probably next to impossible to find it, though. I don't know why you couldn't add citric acid to vinegar to increase the acidity. I buy citric acid in bulk to use in the dishwasher but and easy to find source is Lemi-Shine. Could just mix acid & water and skip the vinegar bit but I don't know enough chemistry to tell you how much Lemi-Shine to arrive at a 10% solution. Prolly could Google it to figure it out...

Here is a link that might be useful: Ozark Vinegar

Hm, maybe I will just scan the vinegar aisle at the grocery store more closely looking for a pickling vinegar. I poured some of the regular 5% white stuff on some delicate weeds today...I'll take a look at them in the morning. But it's the tough ones I really want to take care of.

I have never tried vinegar as a weed killer. All I have to go by would be the many reports that it works.

In my opinion if it doesn't work well then the next step would be to use glyphosate or another weed killer. I go with glyphosate because of its long history and well known effects. As long as it has dried, it is non-toxic to people or pets. It does have to be kept from any ponds or lakes as it kills fish readily. It breaks down fairly readily and acts on plant enzymes to kill weeds and has no effect on animal enzymes. It doesn't kill beneficial insects.

Trying vinegar is harmless. Hot water, a blow torch or other methods can kill weeds, but tackling large areas becomes impractical, in my opinion. If vinegar doesn't work then trying to concoct homemade solutions seems to be a chancy, perhaps costly and a needlessly experimental way to go.

Using glyphosate is safe effective and relatively inexpensive. Those that don't want to use "chemicals" are missing the point that everything is a chemical whether it is natural such as vinegar or man-made such as glyphosate.