a weed to watch out for

[rainbowgardener]

A couple years ago, I wrote in here for an ID of a weed I hadn't seen before and thanrose helped me ID it as mulberry weed:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=38801

It was apparently fairly newly spread into my area after having been in the south, where thanrose is, a lot longer.

Here's some pictures of it:


https://www.walterreeves.com/uploads/JPG ... ryweed.JPG

This shows the little round flower clusters for which it is named


https://biology.missouristate.edu/herbar ... sa%204.JPG

The reason I'm posting about it, is that after being unknown in my garden until a couple years ago and despite the fact that I pull it whenever I see it, this is spreading more and more. It apparently doesn't like full sun; I haven't seen it growing out in the open. But it grows anywhere from part sun to total dense shade. That means it hides under plants. To find it, I have to lift everything up and find where it is growing under their leaves. It can flower and set seed when only a few inches tall or it can get a couple feet tall (in my garden I haven't seen it more than 1 foot tall, but that's because I keep pulling it).

It pops up by the HUNDREDS wherever one of those flower clusters managed to go to seed. The seed must travel, because after starting in my front yard, it is now in the backyard also. It has a tender stem which breaks easily when you try to pull it, leaving the taproot in the ground.

This has a bit more info about it, though I'm obviously not paying attention to their poison recommendations:

https://www.caes.uga.edu/applications/pu ... 67-5_2.PDF

So just thought I would alert people, that there's a nasty new aggressive invasive weed in town (new in the north). Don't mess around with it! It is now on my list of things I trash without composting.

[applestar]

I thought you might actually say "stinging nettles" and would have been amazed because I had a bad run in with them this morning.

I grabbed one hiding among other weeds bare handed... then another one that I did carefully push out of reach whipped back and hit me on the inside of the wrist.

Haven't seen throne you posted about... Yet. Will keep an eye out -- thanks!

[rainbowgardener]

Oh ouch!! I do hate that. Stinging nettle does pack a big wallop!

But I wouldn't have been warning about nettle. I always wish I had more, because it is so good for compost and for nettle tea plant food.

But I've gotten too afraid of the mulberry weed spreading so fast to risk composting it in my not very hot compost pile. I suppose I could do the drowned weeds thing with it.

[cynthia_h]

Lovely; a *new* invader.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[lily51]

The new invader here is mares tail. It started four years ago here and there with people asking what that different weed was because it hasn't been around here in a very long time. Now it is everywhere. And very hard to eradicate.

[rainbowgardener]

wow and you are in Ohio. I am too and I had not heard of this one:

Marestail, aka horsetail, aka horseweed Equisetum arvense
Mainly found in the heavier damp soils. During the winter it's not very evident, but has distictive shoots and foliage during the growing season. It has a very deep rhizome (root) which you will be unable to dig out and it thrives on weed killer! Several applications of weed killer on bruised foliage might work. The rhizome system is extensive both horizontally and vertically and may reach over 1.5m deep.

https://www.barnstapleallotments.co.uk/I ... setail.jpg

This is one of the most difficult weeds to eradicate in the garden situation. Once spotted to is important to go to work immediately to eradicate it. A perennial weed which grows in a wide variety of places from, boggy ground to sand dunes. It has two types of growth, in spring brown asparagus-like shoots appear with cones at the tips and these produce spores. Later the more familiar thin green, branched stems appear and these remain until the winter. Both are produced from creeping underground rhizomes, which go down about 1.5 metres.
uk horsetail advice

many of the articles I found about it were from the UK. They must be having a hard time with it over there.

[applestar]

Ah, but horsetail is edible. Here's a blog.
https://macromacrobiyoko.blogspot.com/20 ... ant-1.html

But PFAF does say it's toxic in large quantities, it's best to research the best method of preparation:

https://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?Lat ... um+arvense

...and if you read further down it has medicinal uses -- huh some I didn't know about -- and the scrubbing agent due to high silica content was what I was going to mention next.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, the equisetums are very interesting. Here's what wiki says about equisetum :

Equisetum (/ˌɛkwɨˈsiːtəm/; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.[2]
Equisetum is a "living fossil" as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests. Some Equisetopsida were large trees reaching to 30 meters tall.[3] The genus Calamites of the family Calamitaceae, for example, is abundant in coal deposits from the Carboniferous period.
A superficially similar but entirely unrelated flowering plant genus, mare's tail (Hippuris), is occasionally misidentified as "horsetail".

equisetum does include the scouring rushes applestar mentioned

I looked into the Hippuris to see if that might be what we are talking about, but it is really a water plant, found growing in water or right next to it, so would not be a garden weed:


Common mare's-tail looks like a robust green bottlebrush growing in patches primarily in the shallow areas of streams, ponds, and lakes or on wet muddy shores when water levels drop. This plant is characterized by unbranched stems, abundant whorled leaves, and inconspicuous flowers.
https://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/plant ... ipvul.html




https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _(aka).jpg

so equisetum it is

[applestar]

"puzzle grass" -- oooh! I remember playing with the stems when I was little -- the mature segmented stems can be pulled apart then put back together in the fringed socket. You do this in secret, then show it for the other person to guess (without touching) which segment was separated.

[lily51]

There are two weeds with mares tail as the common name. One reproduces by spores, one by seeds. It's the one that felt poo diced by seed that is in our area.
It showed up for two reasons...a very,very wet spring and fields that have been no-rolled for years. The old fashioned plow evidently destroys it. Fields haven't seen a plow for decades. The seeds stayed dormant until the conditions were right and voila, there they were.
My husband spends lots of time pulling them by hand (be sure to wear gloves) .
It has fast become a real problem. You see it growing in abundance everywhere, along roads, railroad tracks, encroaching into yards.
And u are right about chemically trying to control it. Physically getting rid of it seems to be the solution. Maybe those who do nothing by no till Will have to plow , but where on earth to even find a plow?