Preventing self seeded sycamores and Romans

A question about : Preventing self seeded sycamores and Romans

I have a small patch of private garden for my new flat backing on to a communal one.

My bit is badly neglected, so is the border for the communal garden (which joins seamlessly to mine). My bit has a few self seeded sycamores and rowans; the communal bit is solid with them.

Now they should be removed. Apart from anything else they are too close to the building. I suspect the management company aren't bothered and that the other residents, who rarely use the communal garden, would think spending money on the garden is of little benefit to them. I'll have a go at getting the management company to maintain the border (currently it's only the lawn that gets maintained) but I'm quite prepared to do some maintenance myself in the event that turns out to be the only way to go.

So, sorry for long screed, but come the spring when I remove the various saplings, what is the best way to stop more from seeding? Is it a question of perpetual hoeing, or would putting down black plastic or maybe a wood chip mulch (ouch, expensive) help? Presumably eventually any bushes I put in (maybe potentially big ones like lavatera, Jerusalem sage, pyracanthus) would eventually smother the self seeded ones, but they would need time to get established.

It really is astonishing how easily the sycamores take. Last spring when I first viewed the flat there were nearly as many tiny sycamores in the lawn as grass. The rowans are far less invasive, but there are still too many ...

PS edited to add that of course the title should be rowans. I have no gripe with Romans (ancient or modern). Drat predictive text.

Best answers:

• Well, no solution for the Romans, that's the EU for you, coming over here and stealing our jobs an' wiv.... Oh, hang on, that's the UKIP twaddle, this is gardening! Anyway, what did the Romans ever do for us? Invade us, THEN what! Mind you, I can see where your personal grudge comes from!
  There's a vast sycamore at the bottom of my garden... just over the border. The seedings are the bane of my life down in that bit. All I can do down there is keep the area as clean of them as I can for a start. I don't keep those leaves on the soil, they either go into compost (where most seeds are killed), or get burned/chucked out.
  Those that do shoot, a quick walloping with a hoe keeps them down in the beds, no need to be too thorough; if you don't get them first time, a few weeks later will do. Just going through the stem is enough, they won't reshoot from the root when small. If they are bigger, you can just pull but, by a year old, they are pretty tough chaps.
  On the lawn, they just get mown over if they manage to root.
  I'm no big fan of weed protection membrane on bedding. I think they'll just welcome a wood chip mulch (they are, after all, woodland trees, and grow from natural wood chip, in effect).
  Hoeing does it for me. But, there may be a better solution.
  Oh, I do have a leaf vacuum. That sucks them, and the leaves up, just fine, You could use one, particularly if you can blow them off the garden onto a patio/path, then suck them up. Still, there'll be enough left to need a hoe anyway.
• My garden is 15x30foot and I have to pull up ash seedlings every year; less so since the huge one 20 foot away was removed but still every year.
  It is just part of the job of gardening. Just dig out the existing saplings (borrow a spade for an afternoon if you do not have one and lever them out). New sycamore seedlings can be removed with a trowel whenever you spot them.
  The local parks in early spring are often full of tree seedlings which get lopped by the first grass cut.
  Rowans are another matter. In fact as long as it is 10 foot from the building I would think one kept small might be a nice feature.
  As a newbie I would be careful about nagging the management committee. Maybe ask if you can remove the larger seedlings from the part of the bed nearest your own patch? And put up a little notice asking for company to help do this.
  If you are a keen gardener, then get your patch looking good and ask t'Ctte if you could set up a gardening group? Meet once a month and get a border into shape?
  I know of garden squares that have their own garden committee which organises clean-ups and events. Rather than expecting the mythical them to take responsibility, they all chip in a few times a year.
• Plant mint? With some serious slabs to prevent it expanding into your bit?
  +1 for asking if you can form a gardening commitee or something similar though.
• Thanks. Gardening committee is a brilliant idea. I doubt anyone would want to get involved but at least it provides an opportunity.
  And I am very conscious of the need to get on with my new neighbours. Fortunately so far it's fine. I'd like to say this was generally down to my wonderfulness and excellent interpersonal skills, but sadly the truth is that I have benefitted from the virtually simultaneous arrival of another new resident who has managed to annoy the management company and three of the four remaining flat dwellers, all of whom seem like nice reasonable people to me. He's a text book example of how to p!ss everyone off for no good reason. Unfortunately he is also ground floor and so has another private bit of garden. I am no great shakes as a gardener, but he wants to pull up the forsythia hedge that separates our two bits of garden because it is 'straggly' and to remove a beautiful fuchsia because it is a bit big. I am hoping he delays that one till I can take a cutting.
• You can take hardwood cuttings of both right now. Choose a bit of Forsythia about 6" long, remove all foliage except a teeny bit at the tip (1 or two leaves), and bury 4" deep. Rooting hormone will help, but isn't that necessary with hardwood cuttings. It helps if you have a bit of 'heel' by pulling a stem from a larger branch. Do look low down on the plant; there may be some rooted shoots down there - there normally are!
  Fuchsia cuttings are even easier. Just keep them in a frost-free environment (not really needed for the Forsythia ones). Any size bit does, up to ten inches (bury 2/3).
• I inherited a straggley hardy fuchsia in the front garden when we moved in in 1979. I then just cut it back to ground level at this time of year to see what happened and it grew back strongly and flowered well the following year. I have done the same every year ever since and after 35 years it still seems quite happy with the rough treatment.