What path clearing, weed and moss killing, type weedkiller?

I have a large patch of gravel that’s pretty weedtastic and a decently large area of stone slabs that are slippery-moss-tastic, so I’m hoping there’s a product that I can, I dunno, dissolve in a watering can and pour on that will sort it all. Any such recommendations?

For slabs patio magic worked for us, read instructions, but I think it’s mix, pour over, brush around, leave. However we chose patio magic as the Mrs like plants and it’s meant to be plant friendLY so I can’t see it doing the weeds. I’d have thought any weed killer would do the gravel, but beware if plants you like near it, run off etc etc. If you do manual pulling on a wet day (use a flat screwdriver to help poke out deep roots ) you can probably make a big improvement.

Roundup for gravel, sprayed on a calm day, pressure washer for slabs.

napalm or agent orange

BAC 50 for the slabs. Same ingredient as Patio Magic, just you dilute it yourself.

Roundup/glyphosate, don’t believe all the scare stories about cancer, just don’t douse yourself in it regularly and you’ll be fine.

GALLUP XL

Anything glyphosate-based, supermarket own brand if they have one.  Like dealing with mice, this is an area where the yogurt knitters lose I’m afraid.

Glyphosphate +1

Aka Gallup 360, roundup 360 etc.

Of you apply it at the recommended dose it seems to take forever to kill plants, but it will after a week or so.

Fire

TBF possibly not the best time of year for roundup (and perhaps other chemicals). AIUI they are usually best absorbed while the plants are growing rather than hibernating.

OTOH cheap and easy and better than nothing especially if we have a couple of mild weeks.

Alternatively strimmer with a steel or nylon brush head?

thank God some sensible answers regarding Glyphosate, thank you chaps my faith in at least dome people has been restored.

Mosses and green slime won’t be tackled with weedkillers, my goto chemical is wet and forget, my tarmac drive used to get really mossy and even the pressure washer struggled to get it off, all gone now after a few years of W and F.

Pressure washers strip concrete slabs exposing the aggregate inside them. That I still use mine occaisionally alongside the wet and forget but find it a much quicker job as the green and stains aren’t so ingrained.

IME glyphosphate will still kill moss. But if you want something specific then sodium percarbonate or sodium perchlorate are both strong oxidising agents (bleach).

N.b. don’t let perchlorate dry out on organic material, it gets a bit “fun”.  It’s used as an oxidising agent for DIY rocket fuels ?

Roundup/glyphosate, don’t believe all the scare stories about cancer

Some stories have been heard, almost 100,000 in the BBC article (below)

(2019) “Emails Reveal Science Publisher Found Papers On Herbicide Safety Should Be Retracted Due to Monsanto Meddling” https://usrtk.org/monsanto-roundup-trial-tracker/emails-reveal-science-publisher-found-papers-on-herbicide-safety-should-be-retracted-due-to-monsanto-meddling/

(2020) “Chemical firm Bayer is to pay up to $10.9bn (£8.8bn) to settle cancer claims linked to its Roundup weedkiller.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53174513

(2024) “Bayer ordered to pay $2.25 billion in latest Roundup trial” https://www.reuters.com/legal/bayer-ordered-pay-225-billion-latest-roundup-trial-2024-01-26/

As to the OP

Moss is forming because of environmental conditions (like the ridiculous amounts of rain recently).

Keep overhanging vegetation, trees, etc. under control promoting what bit of sunlight we have and airflow too.

Pressure wash if hard surfaces will stand it, weed smaller gravel areas by hand. Screwdriver on wet ground^^ is easiest

We use mosstox and road salt( see your nearest council grit bin) for fire escapes at work.  Turns the slabs a nice shade of orange ?

The law suits are civil cases in America and have little to do with scientific reality. From what I’ve seen many claimants are amateur gardens who have got cancer when they are older. How they have proved the link between their cancer and occasionally Roundup use is beyond me, as are the sums awarded.

Without wishing to derail the thread I would love some clear information on glyphosate. We have a small area of stones alongside the path and a small area of pavers. The Mrs goes apeshit at the suggestion of a light spray of the weeds growing through once or twice a year, says she will clear them using an alternative method but it never happens. It’s not helped by her seeing anything environmental as her area of expertise and gets angry if asked to explain her position

Her objections are

‘Its carcinogenic’ -but is it worse than say bacon, and could this risk be ameliorated by spot treatment rather than a spray?

‘It’s bad for the bees’- But we are talking about a relatively tiny area surrounded by a lawn left to go wild, pollinator friendly planting and miles of plant life in all directions. Is it bad for pollinators beyond the loss of plants cos there are plenty of others within inches.

There also seems to be a certain amount of conflation with neonic pesticides as well.

I accept I’ve not got much hope of winning this one, the game’s not worth the candle so I just avoid the garden except as a route to the shed, but I would like to know. I don’t even care so much about the mess but the weeds are damaging the pointing and its not going to be her fixing it.

Glyphosate is potentially carcinogenic, but then so are lots of things and you would need to bathe in the stuff to really be at risk, especially consumer grade stuff. I think the carcinogenic bit is actually the adjuvants they also put in rather than the active ingredient.

As for it’s bad for the bees, from what I’ve read that’s cos it kills the plants the bees need rather than it kills bees.

What really annoys me is all the simple hack SM promotes. Pesticides have to be properly tested and licenced for specific uses. Glyphosate is not persistent but everyone thinks it’s OK to use random nasty household chemicals instead.

If a professional got caught using white vinegar to kill weeds they would be in serious trouble.

Some of the stuff branded as Roundup has no glyphosate in it and is in fact acetic acid (white vinegar).

it’s crap as a weed killer like. I think it took three weeks to vaguely annoy some grass that was protruding out of our block paving.

can you buy sodium chlorate anywhere? That was like ground sterilising powder.

As for it’s bad for the bees, from what I’ve read that’s cos it kills the plants the bees need rather than it kills bees.

I think you may be choosing your reading to support your preconceptions. You are wrong. Bee health is very negatively impacted when they come into contact with glyphosate. Lots of research publicly available supporting this.

Well, I won’t be putting Gylphosphate on my breakfast, nor bacon on my driveway.

Sweepy. If the Mrs is worried about the carcinogenic affect of some patio cleaner that you shouldn’t be coming into contact with anyway does she make sure everything she consumes is organic because that’s how glyphosate gets into the body. It’s sprayed directly onto certain crops like wheat, rape and oats to ripen them for harvest and indirectly onto vast areas of ground that is used to grow crops. Personally I don’t want it in my food so buy organic as much as possible but I am still happy to use it carefully and sparingly in a gardening situation such as spraying a patio as this will have no affect on wildlife or humans.

The law suits are civil cases in America and have little to do with scientific reality.

I would love some clear information on glyphosate.

I was actually out in the US when this story broke.  Even the normally sensationalist US media was like “well, this is plainly bollocks of the highest order.”

I am open to views from both sides and glad to hear them. She, and I are more worried about the bees than cancer so  I would be very interested in how it harms them and where I might read at least an abstract/conclusions from somewhere peer reviewed. Anything I have found on google has had a clear agenda one way or the other. Also are many of the concerns about the large scale use in farming etc rather than me using a tablespoonful twice a year or so.

To be honest I’m not going to use it as it seems more important to her than it is to me but I’d still like to know, I have an enquiring mind 🙂