The dandelions are back. Sometimes it feels like I spend my entire gardening life doing battle with weeds. One particular battle which I’ve been fighting, and losing, for the last 10 years is against the dandelions in the field and now they’re back.

As I’ve said before I know this part of the garden will never be ‘bowling green’ perfect, and I wouldn’t want it to be, but I would like it to be dandelion free. They are everywhere. Over the years I’ve tried various methods to remove them, none of which have been successful.

The obvious choice is selective weedkiller. I’ve lost count of the litres of that I’ve used over the years. Initially you think you’re winning as the plants you’ve ‘zapped’ distort and die, but you soon realise you’re not winning at all.

One year in addition to weedkiller, I spent hours picking off the flower heads before they had time to set seed, a kind of ‘belt and braces’ approach. This proved to be a back breaking and ultimately pointless task.

Last year I didn’t do anything at all and to be honest although they’re back, they’re not noticeably worse. So may be doing nothing is an option on this occasion.

Today I decided to weed problematical flower bed four, but having done one small corner of it decided it was too far gone for hand weeding.

So I covered what few plants that are there with up-turned plant pots, and got out the weedkiller. Hopefully, in about a week I can then tackle whatever is left behind by hand.