couch grass

alternative couch · alternative couch-grass · alternative couchgrass

1. uncountableA grass of species Elymus repens, usually considered a weed.

   But the trouble was pervasive and deep-rooted as couch-grass.

   1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate, published 2006, page 145

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   The roots of plants, disengaged from the soil in the process of tilling and cleaning it, are also employed as a vegetable manure. Some of these, however, as the couch grass, being very vivacious, would readily spring again: and therefore it is necessary that their vegetative powers be destroyed, which may be done by mixing them with lime, and forming in this way a compost. Many farmers, however, to save time, or to prevent the risk of the plants springing again, burn them in little heaps upon the ground at the time of their being collected, and spread the ashes upon the surface. This may be sometimes convenient, but the effect is, that the principal nutritive part of the plant is dissipated, and nothing left but the carbonaceous, earthy, and other insoluble matter. —Low's Elements of Practical Agriculture.

   1841, Jesse Buel, The Farmers' Instructor. Consisting of Essays, Practical Directions, and Hints for the Management of the Farm and the Garden. Originally Published in the Cultivator; Selected and Revised for the School District Library, volume 1, Harper and Brothers, page 134

   The old couple who had lived there hadn't been able to do much and the garden was a wilderness of couch-grass and dandelion.

   1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 82

   Synonyms: dog grass, quackgrass, quicken, quick grass, quitch, quitch grass, scutch grass, twitch