Salt is another ingredient frequently recommended in homemade weed killers.

Salt can make it difficult for plants to maintain normal water balance.

That can damage vegetation.

However, salt comes with a major disadvantage:

It doesn’t simply disappear after killing a weed.

Repeatedly adding salt to soil can make that area less suitable for plants.

That might sound useful if you’re trying to eliminate weeds from a driveway crack, but it can become a problem if the treated area is near:

• Garden beds
• Trees
• Flower borders
• Grass
• Vegetable gardens
• Other desirable plants

Rain can also move dissolved salt into nearby areas.

For that reason, deliberately salting large areas of soil is generally a poor gardening strategy.

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Does It Really Work in One Day?

It can be possible for a weed to look severely damaged within one day, depending on the treatment, weather, weed species, and concentration.

But “looks dead” and “is permanently dead” are two different things.

A plant can lose its leaves and still have living roots.

This is particularly important with established perennial weeds.

For example, some weeds can store energy in underground structures.

Even if their leaves are destroyed, the plant may use those reserves to produce new growth.

That’s why repeated control is sometimes necessary.

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Why Some Weeds Come Back

Imagine pulling the leaves off a weed but leaving the root system underground.

The plant still has access to:

• Water
• Stored nutrients
• Living roots
• Underground stems

If the roots remain healthy enough, new leaves can appear.

The same basic principle explains why mowing certain weeds repeatedly doesn’t always eliminate them.

The plant keeps trying to replace the foliage.

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The Seed Problem

Even if you successfully kill every visible weed today, new weeds may appear later.

Why?

Because weed seeds can already be present in the surrounding environment.

Seeds may arrive through:

• Wind
• Birds
• Animals
• Shoes
• Vehicles
• Rainwater
• Nearby gardens
• Previously existing plants

Some seeds can remain dormant until conditions become favorable.

So a treatment that kills today’s weeds cannot guarantee that tomorrow’s weeds won’t appear.

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Where Homemade Weed Treatments Can Be Useful

A targeted treatment may be useful in places where you don’t want vegetation growing at all.

Examples include:

• Cracks in concrete
• Cracks between paving stones
• Gravel paths
• Driveways
• Certain hardscape areas

These areas are different from vegetable gardens or flower beds.

You don’t want to preserve healthy soil for future plants in the middle of a concrete crack.

Nevertheless, you should still be careful about runoff.

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Be Careful Around Gardens