WEED WARS!!!

Down here in The South, Mother Nature brews up the perfect mix of heat, sunshine, humidity, and rainfall. Add to this the overheated and exhausted GARDENER, and you have the recipe

for 

WEED WARS!

Currently the troops are fighting an all out battle against this tough-rooted bunch grass. I haven't the faintest idea what it's called. We'd like to call it DEAD!

I've sent other troops to fight this tricky leaf flower weed.

It grows in even the smallest cracks. It can reseed by the hundreds if you don't pull it in time.

It will take an entire battalion to combat this hairy crabgrass.

It wins the prize for toughest root system to deal with. You can pull all you want, but most of the time it takes a digging tool to get all of it. 

This is a short version of leaf flower. It looks so pretty and ornamental...until you find hundreds of them in every nook and cranny. The leaf flower genus hails from South America and finds the Texas Gulf Coast a perfect place to live.

In the shady backyard the troops are taking on mulberry weed. This weed has not been in America very long, so many gardeners are just now seeing it for the first time. It moves around via the nursery trade.

Do NOT just snap off the top of mulberry weed. Here's why; as you can see by the above image, you will generate a whole Medusa's head of new growth each time you trim it.

Also, NEVER throw mulberry weed into your compost pile. Each seed head contains hundreds of viable seeds as tiny as this dot "."  (Actually they are tinier, but I know you would find that hard to believe)  I think it is actually closer in size to this dot "."  

Leaf flower has these cute little green seed pods dangling beneath the foliage. Each contains a powerhouse of seeds. Unless you have some weird 'cycle of life' thing going,  DO NOT throw leaf flower in your compost or leave them on the ground as mulch. You can enjoy the cycle of life in other ways. 

As we enjoy another Texas sunset, I'll leave you with some hopeful news.

Each of these bothersome weeds are annuals, not perennials. They don't like the cold and they must have open ground to show up each year. Mulching your garden will give you a distinct advantage.

Unfortunately, I love my gravel and rocky beds too much to cover them with mulch. I count pulling weeds as my stretching and yoga workout each morning.

That's it for now. Find some excuse to get outside today and garden!

YOU WILL FEEL BETTER for it!

David/:0)