Friday, July 28, 2017

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)





6 comments:

  1. That was funny! I've given up on the veggie area of my garden where the weeds have taken over. I spent an entire day pulling weeds there and then they rallied and attacked me from all sides. I'll wait till our first freeze and then pull again. And why, for goodness sake, do the weeds do so well in the heat while my perennials have their tongues out? They have an unfair advantage!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fun post except the subject, lol! The one you call mulberry weed is my least favorite weed and it is so prolific in my garden. I need your troops to come here and eradicate it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If it were my place, I had options to haul and so on, I would weed. But my entire rental property is thin gravel on weed fabric over sandy loam, with more weeds than I've ever seen. Hence I'm now going to start paying someone to maintain!

    ReplyDelete
  4. So funny. I may have a portion of a certain garden bed that is more bindweed than flower at this point. It's just so hot right now. I know I need to get out there, but I always seem to find a different job to work on.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish that my weeds died in the Winter....here in Hawaii it means rain and they just grow higher!

    ReplyDelete
  6. David, I've just started seeing that bunch grass out here. Like I needed another weed to combat in addition to the leaf mulberry, leaf weed, purslane, 3 kinds of spurge, and at least 4 others whose names I don't know. Hate hate hate loathe despise and hate all of them!

    ReplyDelete

I always appreciate your comments & questions! Happy Gardening from David/ Tropical Texana