Can someone tell me why in the middle of a drought weeds are thriving, no rain for weeks, grass is brown, trees are losing their leaves, plants wilting, but, the weeds growing from the patio stone gaps are green & flowering & very healthy. It doesn’t make any sense at all.
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True. My lawn (its probably too rough and ready to be called a lawn) is now burned grass, tall weeds with yellow flowers, dandelions and some sort of climber with pale flowers. In the last 8 weeks we have had perhaps 2 mm of rain. Maybe less. Next rain, and it won’t be heavy, is forecast for the weekend. However such forecasts have come and gone before with little rain arriving.
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So your weeds are thriving too, Lincolnshire. Think I’ve got some flowering in my grass too, but why when no rain?
It may be nature’s way of saying there are some things you simply can’t control.
Staying power is… beauty in its simplest form. 
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I looked into this phenomenon way back and found that weeds have long tap roots and require very little water. Sure, trees have a great root system, but a tree requires a tremendous amount of water to stay healthy. Up to 100 litres a day for a large tree.
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Yes, it must be the depth of the weeds’ roots. That is why grape vines tend not to need watering even in dry conditions. Their roots can go down 15-20 feet. But guess what - these last couple of weeks they’ve been watering the vines round us!
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Remember, a weed is just an unwanted flower…
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Yes weed roots are annoyingly deep, and stubborn to remove properly - not even a drought will kill them of, whereas grass roots are just beneath the surface, and first to suffer without water.
At least it all comes back again with a steady downpour.
I use a long handled weed brush for patio slabs, as i won’t use chemicals.
It works very well but you have to do it regularly.
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I think that is a good policy. We should not have waited for a ban on glyphosates to stop using such disastrous chemicals. The fact it worked so well should have been a warning. I burn my weeds on the patio and gravel. I know, I know - CO2 into the atmosphere…
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Our garden is full of horsetails ( marestail), it will look like Chernobyl when I’m finished with it…
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Pull them out one day and their back the next
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That’s a good idea, thanks, Anise.