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I found ragwort in my garden yesterday! Deweeding advice please

mattyp

Warren Veteran
It was still in the 'just sprouted' stage but it was pretty big considering I had just checked the garden a week or so ago!

My garden is looking a bit like a weed ridden mess, which means I can no longer let the rabbits free range as I'm fairly certain there are at least 2 toxic/bad weeds growing now.

If I buy some weed killer and use it on all the weeds and surrounding area, then don't allow the rabbits to free range until it has rained and the 'bad' plants are dead will that be okay?

I am such a bad gardener......:lol:
 
If you pull up the weeds you know / think are bad for bunnies, they will quickly wilt in this weather. Compost or bin them. Much safer than weedkiller.
 
Maybe you could PM Gray cos he recently got rid of a load in his back garden. I think you have to dig it out and get all the roots out. :(
 
Pull the ragwort out by the roots and burn it. it is toxic if eaten, but will probably not be eaten by the bunnies unless you make hay containing it... However, to be on the safe side, pull it up (wearing gloves) and burn it. Do not leave it to rot natuarally, as it will still seed.
Ragwort has a 3 year cycle. Seed to young plant in year 1; young plant to big plant in year 2; big plant to seeding/ reproducing plant in year 3.
 
If you pull them out you need to wear rubber gloves, the toxins can pass through skin.
If you use weedkiller, it should say how long before an animal can go onto the area, problem with rabbits is that they will also eat things, so I would guess a month or when all had died off before letting them range on it.
Could you put down a slabbed area, it would solve worries like this.
 
ive just had my garden dug out of it..cost me £250 cos i cant do it myself:(

if its at a low rossette stage then you can use roundup on it..if its taller then dig it out BUT wear gloves etc..i pulled one plant out and was ill for 3 days with a fever and feeling sunburnt:shock::(

if its tall and flowering youve only got the dig it out solution. BUT dont keep it anywhere or compost it....incinerate it..its lethal to cows, sheep,horses,donkeys and the spores carry on the wind soo far.
The other scary thing is that the seeds can lie dormant in the soil for at least 20yrs!!!:shock:

good luck my friend..you will need it. i have some more thats appeared already....off to get roundup:(
 
The whole ragwort issue is overplayed. Rabbits are actually more resistant than most animals and it doesn't kill the numbers of horses that have been claimed.

Recently the Advertising Standards Authority took actions against many of the people panicking people about the risk. They, the ASA, are an independent body and only look at the facts. The British Horse Society in particular has taken a real hammering

The scare story about the skin absorption thing is just that. It is not supported by the evidence.
This site Ragwort , Myths and facts has a load of information including an article from on of the world's foremost experts on ragwort, with a Phd on the plant and it explains that the skin absorption thing doesn't make sense.

This site will tell you about the ASA thing.
Ragwort the sense and the nonsense

You can also find information here Ragwort facts
 
The whole ragwort issue is overplayed. Rabbits are actually more resistant than most animals and it doesn't kill the numbers of horses that have been claimed.

Recently the Advertising Standards Authority took actions against many of the people panicking people about the risk. They, the ASA, are an independent body and only look at the facts. The British Horse Society in particular has taken a real hammering

The scare story about the skin absorption thing is just that. It is not supported by the evidence.
This site Ragwort , Myths and facts has a load of information including an article from on of the world's foremost experts on ragwort, with a Phd on the plant and it explains that the skin absorption thing doesn't make sense.

This site will tell you about the ASA thing.
Ragwort the sense and the nonsense

You can also find information here Ragwort facts

That's interesting because I spoke to a farmer today who had spent £2,000 getting ragwort off his land.
I notice that cattle tend not to eat the living plant, but do not realise it's poisonous when dried, as a contaminant of hay. The same pertains to many rabbits & many poisonous plants but not all.
I have also seen ragwort completely cover several fields in 3 years, since tennant farmers were kicked out by developers.

I also spoke to the council dept health & environment about removing an area of hemlock "thicket" of about 1000, sq feet near new houses. He assured me that he saw hundreds of plants more poisonous than hemlock (Comium maculatum), daily. :shock:
When I asked which ones he replied hemlock water dropwort which I conceeded was indeed more poisonous, & we were then "cut off".

I don't trust the "official line" on this story. Farmers go to great lengths to keep their land free of both these noxious weeds. They certainly don't fork out £2,000 for a myth.
 
I get it in my garden and just pull it up. It comes up pretty easily as it has shallow roots. My bunnies don't play on the "grass" though as there is no grass at the moment. It is a work in progress full of weeds.

Next door but one to me have a back garden absolutely full of tall ragwort weeds. I think I will never get rid of it whilst they have a field of it growing!
 
The whole ragwort issue is overplayed. Rabbits are actually more resistant than most animals and it doesn't kill the numbers of horses that have been claimed.

Recently the Advertising Standards Authority took actions against many of the people panicking people about the risk. They, the ASA, are an independent body and only look at the facts. The British Horse Society in particular has taken a real hammering

The scare story about the skin absorption thing is just that. It is not supported by the evidence.
This site Ragwort , Myths and facts has a load of information including an article from on of the world's foremost experts on ragwort, with a Phd on the plant and it explains that the skin absorption thing doesn't make sense.

This site will tell you about the ASA thing.
Ragwort the sense and the nonsense

You can also find information here Ragwort facts

That's interesting. Still I think i'd rather not have it in my garden as it is a very nasty weed and I wouldn't want to risk it. I did an experiment yesterday and Maisie did try to eat the ragwort plant so I think it's for the best that I de-weed my garden anyway.

I've seen fields full of ragwort with horses in, and they do seem to ignore it, around here anyway!
 
I think wild rabbits may have learned from older bunnies in the warren not to touch ragwort but I wouldn't chance it with domestic rabbits.

No-one takes notice of how many dead wild rabbits there are and they breed so prolifically that you wouldn't notice a slight decrease in number if any were poisoned by ragwort and I very much doubt anyone would be bothered to do any testing on a dead wildie? So I don't know how anyone can know for sure how harmful ragwort is to bunnies unless there are confirmed toxicology results on domestic rabbits or lab experiements.

put gloves on and dig it up and bin it -do not compost it or the spores could regenerate.

sue:wave:

This is the UK dept of Environment (DEFRA's) advice regarding ragwort

http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb11050-ragwort-dispose-110315.pdf
I hope that helps?
 
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I think wild rabbits may have learned from older bunnies in the warren not to touch ragwort but I wouldn't chance it with domestic rabbits.

No-one takes notice of how many dead wild rabbits there are and they breed so prolifically that you wouldn't notice a slight decrease in number if any were poisoned by ragwort and I very much doubt anyone would be bothered to do any testing on a dead wildie? So I don't know how anyone can know for sure how harmful ragwort is to bunnies unless there are confirmed toxicology results on domestic rabbits or lab experiements.

Those experiments have been done. We have confirmed toxicology results. Rabbits are highly resistant.
 
I had to REALLY dig the ragwort out of my back garden. It was ~6 inches embedded into the ground.

Make sure you wear gloves, its bad for humans too.

I did so, then sprayed the affected area with weed killer too, just to be on the safe side.

And before anyone notices, B&G don't have access to that part of the garden, EVER :)
 
Well, just to be onthe safe side I will keep digging the horrid stuff up! Luckily I think I always get it at the small leafy stage and as I dig it up then it never seems to go any further. But if I dig it up every time how come I get new plants in different parts of the lawn?!!

Best to dig it out, doesn't exactly look nice in the middle of a lawn anyways!

Just de-ragworted mine 5 minutes ago, doesn't take long, bunny safe :)
 
We live next door to allotments, so get ragwort coming over from there and seeding in our garden. My buns have never shown any interest in eating it. As others have said, just dig it up at the rosette stage or pull it up at the mature plant stage.
 
This issue was on the Sarah Beeny programme "Help My House is Falling Down" a few weeks ago.

They recomended spraying it as soon as its leaves appear (i.e new growth spurts), but larger plants needed digging and incinerating.

Apparantly its illegal to let ragwort spread from your property to other properties, so those with neighbours who have gardens full of the stuff should take advice from their local authority/enviro health?
 
Out of interest, how long did these trials last, and who is 'we'?

"We" is the human race by the sum of our knowledge through study.
This is what one of the scientific papers says.

Among laboratory animals, rats and mice are highly susceptible, whereas a
number of small herbivores, such as rabbits (Pierson et al., 1977), guinea pigs (Swick et al., 1982b), gerbils and hamsters (Cheeke and Pierson-Goeger, 1983) are highly resistant.
 
This issue was on the Sarah Beeny programme "Help My House is Falling Down" a few weeks ago.

Are you sure? Ragwort would be a very odd plant for a programme like that to cover. They did do a programme with a lot of Japanese Knotweed. This was the one with the poor woman who had a huge amount of water pouring into the basement of her flat that needed a special membrane system to fix it. She had knotweed in her garden
They recomended spraying it as soon as its leaves appear (i.e new growth spurts), but larger plants needed digging and incinerating.

On that programme they were digging incinerating KNOTWEED

Apparantly its illegal to let ragwort spread from your property to other properties, so those with neighbours who have gardens full of the stuff should take advice from their local authority/enviro health?

It is most certainly, definitely and clearly not illegal to let ragwort spread from your property. See:
Ragwort law

A company's advertisement had to be changed recently when it said that kind of thing and there was a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority

They did say that about Knotweed on the programme I saw ( I have just watched it a few minutes ago on-line) but it isn't actually quite true.

This is what Section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 actually says
Introduction of new species etc.
(1)Subject to the provisions of this Part, if any person releases or allows to escape into the wild any animal which—
(a)is of a kind which is not ordinarily resident in and is not a regular visitor to Great Britain in a wild state; or(
b)is included in Part I of Schedule 9,he shall be guilty of an offence.

(2)Subject to the provisions of this Part, if any person plants or otherwise causes to grow in the wild any plant which is included in Part II of Schedule 9, he shall be guilty of an offence.

(3)Subject to subsection (4), it shall be a defence to a charge of committing an offence under subsection (1) or (2) to prove that the accused took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.

I think it would be unlikely indeed that anyone would be prosecuted just because they had some knotweed in their garden and it spread next door as they did nothing to "cause" it to happen and in a garden isn't really "in the wild".
I said this is about KNOTWEED which is on Schedule 9. This law does not apply to ragwort.
 
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