If your brick patio or path has weeds in the gaps, these practical tips will help revive the space and stop regrowth with resorting to herbicides.
We also have creative ideas for stepping stones and garden pathways if you’re looking to refresh your space.
Weed Removal From Hard Surfaces
If you want the quick answer: there isn’t one. The most enviromentally-friendly way to get rid of weeds in brick pathways, patios, and driveways is to pull them by hand, roots and all.
Keep reading for tips to make this easier. And note to your future self: don’t get brick pathways!
Have you ever heard the (sarcastic) saying the gift that keeps on taking?
That’s what a brick pathway / driveway / walkway is.
The gift that keeps on taking.
Oh, they can look really nice. In fact, our last home was originally the model home for a new development, and, to show the upgrades possible, instead of installing a plain asphalt or concrete driveway, they paid big bucks to create an elaborate brick design to give the front of the home more curb appeal.
And it looked really nice.
And we liked it just fine.
Until the weeds moved in. Ug.
And what are the odds our next home would also have a brick driveway and pathways? Double ug.
You know how this goes.
The weeds start appearing in the cracks between the bricks.
And, unlike most weeds in the garden, you can’t just stick a weeding fork under them and pry them out.
Oh, no.
These guys have deep roots, firmly in place, well below the immovable bricks.
You can try pulling the tops, but, more often than not, just the tops pull off, leaving the roots to make a mockery of our efforts by doubling in size and taunting us soon after with even more growth.
So what can be done?
Contents
- Environmentally-friendly Weed Removal
- What to Avoid
- Removing Brick Pathway Weeds Without Herbicides
- 7 Tips for Easier Brick Pathway Weed Removal
- Preventing Future Weed Problems
- Summary
Environmentally-friendly Weed Removal
Before you read any further, keep in mind that I am an organic gardener. By this I mean, I do not ever intentionally introduce anything into the soil or water on our property that (directly or indirectly) negatively affects the soil, water, or environment.
For me personally, I do not think you can ever justify harmful actions for the sake of cosmetic problems in a garden.
I also do not sweat the small stuff. There is no such thing as the perfect growing year. Some years some plants thrive, other years, others thrive. Pests come and pests go. In most cases, I just leave things to sort themselves out or, at most, hand pick pests, and look at ways I can diversify the plants further to achieve a greater self-correcting balance between the things that live here.
Yes, it’s a driveway and pathway made of bricks and the cracks are filled with weeds and it looks awful, but the ongoing effects of using toxic poisons, whether they are (misnamed) natural or not, is not an option.
And sometimes there are not easy solutions without paying a bigger price.
What to Avoid
Not Recommended
First, let’s look at the most common suggestions found online.
These get shared like candy and, as you’ll see, either do not actually work and/or are harmful to the environment and waste money.
A weed is not really gone unless the roots have been entirely removed.
1 Not Recommended: Pour boiling water on the weeds.
- Result: Boiling water only kills the foliage (leaves), not the roots.
- But, a steam cleaning machine can kill them at the roots. See my experiment here.
2 Not Recommended: Pour vinegar on the weeds.
- There are various strengths of vinegar. Our common household vinegar is 5% acid, pickling vinegar is 7%, and industrial, sometimes also called Horticultural vinegar is 20%.
- The two lower concentrations may kill leaves, not roots.
- The industrial strength is a horrifically dangerous acid and completely inappropriate for any home applications.
- Sorry vinegar, you’re not for the garden.
3 Not Recommended: Pour table salt (sodium chloride) on the weeds.
- Yes, salt can kill anything it comes into contact with in the garden, but it also negatively affects the soil and water and never dissipates. In other words, it’s a bad choice.
- Stop what you’re doing and go delete everything you have repinned on Pinterest that suggests using salt in the garden!
4 Not Recommended: Pour Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) onto the weeds.
- Different salt, same problem. It is irresponsible to use Epsom salt in your garden unless there is a specific, proven magnesium deficiency in the soil and you are amending it to repair the problem.
- Otherwise, Epsom salt gets in the soil and water and stay for eternity, creating a harmful imbalance.
- Skip the salts.
5 Not Recommended: Pour neem oil on the weeds.
- I could not believe it when I saw this one. Perhaps folklore theories are the answer: those with something to gain by promoting a product make up these ridiculous ideas to get people buying them.
- No, neem oil is not going to kill weeds. Like any oily material, it may suffocate or smother insects and microbes that come in contact with it, but other than that, the weeds will carry on and you don’t need oil in your soil or water.
- Oils of any kind are not appropriate for weeds.
- Some neem oil products contain azadirachtin which is a non-selective insecticide.
6 Not Recommended: Pour baking soda and/or vinegar on the weeds.
- We’ve already established that vinegar will not kill the roots of plants, unless it’s industrial strength, which is totally inappropriate for home applications, and baking soda—which adds excess sodium—is not going to change this.
7 Not Recommended: Pour milk on the weeds.
- Sorry, no, not a weed killer!
- However, a mixture of milk and water can be effective in combatting blackspot, and somewhat effective for preventing powdery mildew.
8 Not Recommended: Spray dish soap on the weeds.
- Dish soap is not a herbicide. You can read more issues with dish soap in the garden here.
- Dish soap is actually synthetic detergent. It breaks down oils and waxes on surfaces and, because of these properties, will kill or weaken plants—not just weeds—indescriminately so it is not recommended.
- If you read the ingredients in many dish soaps, you can see that these are not things that should be introduced to our soil or water.
- I use a few drops of dish soap diluted in water to kill bugs like Japanese beetles (by dropping them into it). Even in small amounts, you don’t want this stuff poured on soil.
9 Not Recommended: Roundup
This is more effective than anything else listed here because it actually kills plants at the roots, but, as you can probably guess, is still not appropriate for home garden use.
Here’s a few notes from what I have read. I wanted to look beyond the politics and see what the research says.
- The active ingredient in Roundup is the same ingredient in many weed killers available on the market today: glyphosate.
- This is a non-selective (broad spectrum) systemic herbicide which means, unlike the other substances mentioned here, does actually kill plant roots, not just the foliage. If you want to read more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate.
- If you read the label on any product containing glyphosate, you will see that is (like many other garden products) indeed a toxic substance.
- Given the risks and possible repercussions of using glyphosate, either due to improper handling or application, for situations like weeds in a brick driveway, it really has no place in the home garden.
- If there was a horrific invasion of something like poison ivy or other invasive that is going to take over and choke out natural habitat, that may be a suitable application if permitted.
- Again, we’re talking weeds on a driveway, not some other much greater problem with dire financial or health implications where the benefits would outweigh the risks.
- The goal is always to leave nature the same or better than we found it, so, beyond the politics, no roundup.
Removing Brick Pathway Weeds Without Herbicides
So, what the heck can we do to get these weeds out of the driveway?
The answer is hand picking or steaming.
Yup.
Steaming is the easiest and longest lasting.
If you have weeds growing in your brick patio or driveway, a home steam cleaning machine offers an easy way to kill them at the roots without harmful chemicals.
Otherwise, good, old-fashioned hard work is your best bet.
7 Tips for Easier Brick Pathway Weed Removal
Here are my best tips (with a bit of revenge thrown in for good measure)
1Pull Weeds After Rain
Weeds in damp soil pull out easier than those in dry soil. If it hasn’t recently rained, pour water onto your work area, and let it soak in before you get started.
2Wear Gloves
Wear tight-fitting gloves with good grip.
I know some people avoid wearing garden gloves. Personally, I can’t stand the feeling of dirt pressing under my finger nails and I like the added strength a good glove provides for pinching weeds at the ground level and pulling them out, roots and all.
3Use the Right Tools
Our driveway and walkway have narrow cracks and wider ones.
Most weeds in the narrow cracks come out by hand. Otherwise a serrated kitchen knife does the trick.
If you want to invest in this for the future, there are also various tools sold as ‘crack weeders’ or Dutch / hand hoes, that can reach in the narrow gaps and pull the roots out (if you’re lucky).
Weed Cracker Dutch Hand Hoe | Amazon
4Keep Entertained
A job like this cannot be rushed. I load up my phone with favorite podcasts and wear earbuds while I work. You might prefer a playlist of favorite songs.
5Wear Knee Pads
I have really sensitive knees and use knee pads all the time in the garden. It sure beats the feeling of kneeling on a stone. Yow! And, for a job that may take a few hours, you might as well be as comfortable as possible.
6Be Patient
Again, you can’t rush this job. Every weed that breaks off from the stem and does not get its roots uplifted will be another weed that greets you again next week. Work slowly and methodically. And bribe other meticulous workers to help you.
7Curse the Guy Who Invented Brick Driveways
When our driveway is at weed maximus, a thoroughly weeding takes 3-4 hours. At least one hour of this time is spent thinking up ways to permanently seal the cracks so that I never have to do this again.
If I’m smart, I then take 10 minutes per week to maintain the weedlessness. But, much like a clean house, it does seem to sneak away and stir up trouble when one is busy living life.
Preventing Future Weed Problems
Once you’ve removed all the weeds, use a polymeric jointing sand to fill the gaps between bricks. This will slow down any new growth.
Summary
- There are no shortcuts for weeding between bricks or pavers without causing collateral damage to the eco-system.
- To remove the weeds by hand, be sure the soil is damp, use the right tools, get comfortable knee pads and good tunes to listen to, be patient so you get the roots out, take breaks to place curses on the inventor of the brick driveway.
- Future problems could be slowed or prevented by sealing the cracks or filling them with polymeric sand.
- A steam-machine may also get the weeds at the roots.
- And note to self, never buy another home with a brick driveway.
~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛
