Drowning soil to kill weed seeds?

In my battle against celandine I've decided to dig the infested border out completely. The celandine is largely being separated from the soil and put into the garden waste bin. The remaining soil is in a large plastic bin full of water where I plan to leave it to soak for a couple of months. It's my hope that this will kill off any lingering celandine seeds or tubers in the soil.

After a couple of months I'll drain the water off before returning the soil to the border.

Will this work? Are there any concerns around anaerobic?

Grateful for any comments. Thanks.

 

How much soil are we talking about?

 

Which celandine lesser or greater? I have lesser celandine flowering at the moment. I don't worry too much about it as it disappears towards the end of May. It gets pulled up and either drowned or stuck in an old compost bag with the light shut out and left.
@tdubya As for your soil it will be dead and not a lot of use. By all means put it back into your boarder, but you will need to dig in plenty of garden compost into it.
I also bet that if your problem weed is Lesser Celandine it will be back next year, reduced in number, but still there.

 

Thank you for your thoughts, @pete there's an initial dustbin full with probably one more to go. @JWK I'll plan to decant the soil into a compost bin as a next step before I return it to the border. Especially if it's going to be as @NigelJ said, dead. I'm under no illusions that I'm in for a long haul. The species is Lesser Celandine. I saw some Greater Celandine out on the Daffodil Trail yesterday.. Thank goodness I don't have Greater as a problem, they're huge!!

 

Only reason I asked about quantity was because I was wondering if it might be a lot easier to buy in a bulk bag of top soil, that is if finances allow.

 

I tend to cover the soil with more soil. It's the disturbance that allows a lot of stuff to germinate. A good mulching of four + inches deep, does the world of good and then anything that sticks it's head up that you don't want, can be selectively hoicked(technical term) out.

 

Try living in the low lying areas as I have. Drown plants, no just encourages the water lillies to grow bigger. Where we are now there is plenty of water believe me, flood prevention is always looking for ideas to stop flooding.
Back to the task in hand, you say celandine's! try the invasive Spanish Blue Bell. Bane of my border. Not been able to rid them and they grow up through my block pave driveway.

Hate this as I cannot get down to lift them out the ground.

 

Hi

they are not Spanish bluebells they are Muscari aka Grape Hyacinth ... if you dont want them to spread as soon as they finish flowering remove the seed heads


muscari



Spanish bluebell

 

The bells are the green ones yet to show their little heads. Grape Hyacinth have come up well this year.