Overrun with Weeds

[imafan26]

I had not been to my community garden for almost two weeks since we had a few days of rain. The weeds took off in the meantime and I spent an hour pulling bindweed and California grass. I never made it to the ivy gourd that has overtaken the chili pepper and is trying to climb my Satsuma tree. There is more rain forecast for today.

It is nice to have summer rain, but I have a hard time keeping up with the summer weeds.

My other plots are not faring any better. The herb garden has nut sedge between the brick pavers and I have plants that have reseeded from other gardens and from the herbs straying into different sections and in the pathways.

At home, I seriously need to weed whack before I get a nasty letter from the HOA.

So, much to do, but I try to work outside in the early morning and evenings since it is way too hot to be out in the sun in midday.

BTW I have some chronic problems getting rid of some weedy trees.
Anyone got any ideas on how to get rid of African tulip, Fukien tea, desert honeysuckle, and mock orange. I keep cutting the tops off but they grow back. African tulip has come back after roundup and I cannot dig it out, the root is too big and too deep.

[ElizabethB]

Good luck. If my vegetables grew as fast as the weeds I would be over run with produce. There is a large Magnolia Fiscata shrub growing 3' from my garden boxes. I constantly battle the roots. This spring G cut it back from 10' to 2'. He used his saws all to cross hatch the remaining trunks and I painted them with straight Round Up. No new growth has appeared but we are still faced with digging it out. Neither one of us can do that. There are a couple of young, strong boys in the neighborhood. Once the brutal heat of summer is over we will hire them to dig out the root ball. As they dig G will use his ATV with straps to pull the shrub. When I had my landscaping business I had to deal with that kind of issue several times.

The heat and humidity are so brutal that I can only work in the garden very early in the morning.

Good luck

[Lindsaylew82]

There is a different type of round up at the stores here that is made for woody plants. I use it for poison Ivy in my hedge row

[lakngulf]

August = Dealing With Weeds in the South. The most you can do is try to be a little bit ahead of them when August hits, or they will take over. Always interesting to see the roadways after mowing this time of the years. Weeds and grass so thick that the thatch piles up like windrows.

I transferred my gardens to boxes and containers a couple years back, and this year used a lot of newspaper and cardboard in the early spring. That has helped a lot.

[imafan26]

Is there a better herbicide for weedy trees. What is it called so I can see if I can find it?
I hired someone to cut the mock orange hedge. I cut it as much as I could but it was to the point where I was getting my arms cut up in the process. He had a hard time cutting the stumps down because he said the chain saw was cutting into the dirt. However, he did not kill the root so it is growing back.

[Decado]

Mulch, mulch, and more mulch.

[Rairdog]

Mulch, mulch, and more mulch.

Ditto...weeds only pop up where the mulch has washed away and given them daylight.

[imafan26]

I actually tried covering them with black plastic to block out the light and buried them in mulch and they still came through.

Somebody told me to use gasoline, but that isn't environmentally friendly. Roundup at least does not ruin the soil permanently.

The other solution someone said to use salt. Ditto, salt isn't good for the earth either.

I tried debarking too. It slowed it down but it did not die.

[Decado]

Please don't use herbicides. They are terrible for your soil and for the water table at that. Cardboard/newspaper covered with grass clippings, leaves and or straw work excellently. The weeding will be very minimal, nothing will get rid of all the weeds. With mulch you'll build up rich soil and your plants will do much better too.

[Decado]

Plus with roundup you're supporting the most evil corporation in the world, Monsanto, who's killing all the bees. Soon you won't have to worry about weeds because we'll all be dead from starvation.

[Lindsaylew82]

It's Roundup Poison Ivy Plus.

I use a gallon milk jug with the bottom cut out. Trim the plant to its bottom set of leaves. Put an old hoodie sweater around the base of the plant. Cover the plant with the jug. Spray through the top pour hole.

I've used this method on volunteer pecan, maple, oak, and Bradford pear. It killed the plant to the root, without killing the surrounding ground cover or hedges.

[Lindsaylew82]

......... Sometimes the volunteer trees that I get here are just deep rooted, they cannot be removed by pulling or digging, and cutting them just makes more stems with heartier root systems. Responsible use of any chemical is desired.

[Decado]

I don't believe that. For one if you get them early they're easy. If not you just need to dig a little deeper.

[Lindsaylew82]

Believe what you want to believe. I'm no lazy gardener... I give it all I got! . I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree.

It's a great product. It works very well, and I use it very responsibly on plants that I deem I'm unable to remove safely, or without extensive digging.

[imafan26]

These mock orange hedges were planted by the previous owner and were close to twenty years old. The diameter of the stump is over 5 inches and most of them were multi-stemmed. I did try digging them up but since they also live on rain, I could not get very far. African tulip has deep roots and when they break off they grow back and the tree grows fast. If I don't see them in time, and once they get about a foot tall, I can no longer pull them out. Since I cannot dig them out and I don't have access to anything bigger than a pick, and that bounced right off the root, I don't have a whole lot of other options, one of the African tulips sprouted near the foundation of my house and that is the one I did spray with roundup and is still alive. Bindweed is hard to control just by pulling it because the roots go deep and will grow back as well as set seed.

Roundup does have its place in the world. It is a better alternative to the other suggestions I had to use gasoline, salt, and bleach. All of the alternative suggestions were actually much worse than roundup for the environment. I will still be able to plant after roundup, but not after gasoline, salt, or bleach. They will kill weeds but the residue will remain for awhile as well.

I really don't want to get into the politics of Monsanto. I know the company has a major image problem (of its own making) as the big bad, and everyone can make their own choice to support them according to their conscience.
Just because people hate the company, does not mean that their products are all bad. I would rather use roundup than 2,4D which was one of the ingredients in Agent Orange. Most of the GMO modifications they have made to plants were designed to make it easier to weed the fields without killing the crop, thereby reducing the labor intensive task of hand weeding fields. At the time it was revolutionary, it was a boon to farmers who had a hard time finding labor, and labor, even at minimum wage is a huge expense to a farm. Mother nature, though, does not like to be messed with, as more weeds are also becoming roundup ready.

[Decado]

Whether you use roundup responsibly or not you're still supporting the bee die off by giving monsanto your money. You're part of the problem.

[KiwiGardener]

On the rare occasion that I resort to weed killer mainly for [bind weed or convolvulus] I dig the area carefully and remove any roots I can find. Any plants that regrow I place the ends in a small ziplock bag, "zip it up partially" and then put my spray nozzle into the bag and spray the plant. I find this very effective and this method avoids spray drift and protects the bees.
I reuse the bags,

[rainbowgardener]

Never heard that one, sounds good.

I use RoundUp very rarely, but occasionally for poison ivy, which is a literal pain to have in my garden. I am very allergic to it (still have a little bit of poison ivy outbreak on my hand from the last church grounds work day in Oct, that I haven't been able to get rid of). Hard to do anything else to get rid of it, that doesn't end up with it zapping me instead of the other way around.

So if I am going to RoundUp it, I cut it a few inches above the ground and then use a brush to paint liquid RU on the cut stems. You need to do this while it is actively growing, so that the plant will up take the RU and circulate it. Painting it on restricts the damage and environmental impact of the RU.

How I deal with tree stumps is to cover them in charcoal, around and piled over them. Light the charcoal and burn the stump out. Often if it gets well ignited, the fire will smolder for a long time and end up burning not only the stump, but the roots out of the soil. But that does work better with a dry, dead stump than a green, moist one.

For Japanese honeysuckle shrub, which is sort of my equivalent of the mock orange, i use a honeysuckle popper. It is basically a long lever with a hook at the end, which goes under the root ball of the honeysuckle. The lever allows you to exert a lot of force to pry the shrub out of the ground. If you are having trouble, soften the ground with hose water or do it after a good rain. Honeysuckle is fairly shallow rooted, so this works, not sure about the mock orange.

https://www.misterhoneysuckle.com/ Mister honeysuckle who invented and sells this, is in Hamilton, OH, a suburb of Cincinnati, where I am. I have visited his place. His wife takes the honeysuckle stumps with roots that he pops out, turns them upside down and paints them as gnomes/ trolls with root hair. They are fun.

[imafan26]

I do beg to differ about Roundup hurting the bees. If it is used responsibly and only when other choices either don't work or are limited it is not as bad as other things. What is really hurting the bees are neonicitinids, Imodiclopid because of its system and long term residue, and Neem, which does not hurt foraging bees but if pollen sprayed with neem is fed to the larvae in the hive, the larvae could die. Loss of habitat, hive mites and varoa mites are ravaging unmanaged colonies.

I have planted many nectar plants in my yard, alyssum , cuphea, and blue daze bloom everyday year round. I have orchids which I should spray but I don't and I always have something in bloom all of the time so the bees and beneficial insects are regular and welcomed visitors. I do not have as many bees as there used to be. I used to have a bee on every inch of my flowers every day, and I went down to 1 bee, but they have made a comeback and while their numbers are not as great as they were, they are coming. I don't know if the bees belong to someone's hive or are wild. I do have carpenter bees that visit the lavender just about everyday. I have l. multifeda which stays in bloom 9 months of the year and the carpenter bees like purple flowers. They also like the verbena.

I have pretty much stopped using systemics like imodiclopid that last a year. I have always had bees foraging in my back yard because I do plant nectar plants and there is always something in bloom year round. I stopped using Bayer tree and shrub on my roses. The papaya mealy bug is resistant to it anyway. I have seen a resurgence in bee visits as well as more beneficial wasps. I have underplanted my roses with alyssum to attract them.

I still do have to resort to systemics for the erineum gall mite, but that is on the hibiscus. I only have a couple of plants that I can isolate and I do not allow them to bloom while Systemic rose care is active. It only lasts six weeks not a year and the erineum gall mite is a seasonal problem. But if I do nothing the all of the leaves of the hibiscus will be deformed, stunted, and galled. I am not willing to give up the plants which is my only other option so I have chosen to use Systemic rose care only when I absolutely have to and since the plants are in pots, they are easy enough to isolate. These are modern hibiscus so they do have problems with gall mites. I have a palmate type hibiscus in my back yard H. mutabilis which is a white fly trap, but otherwise is not bothered by erineum gall mites. It is a strong hibiscus so all I do with that one is cut it back when the white flies cause a problem and the purple lady bugs are scarce.

The roses are doing o.k. without the systemic insect and disease control. I do have to do more preventive fungicides in humid weather, but I do actually choose roses that have the best mildew resistance and have removed roses that were too prone to blackspot.

[Decado]

Argue all you want it's been definitively linked in peer reviewed studies to be causing the bee die off.

[rainbowgardener]

Everyone is right! The trouble honeybees are having is that ALL the broad spectrum insecticides are toxic to them:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... 11&t=57653

Poisons that are toxic to honeybees include but are not limited to carbaryl (sevin), malathion, trifluralin (preen), Imidaclopid & other neonicotinoids , 2,4-D (weed-b-gone), permethrin and other pyrethroids.

In the thread above, which I wrote about commonly used garden poisons, here was my conclusion about RoundUp and honeybees: Roundup is listed as “relatively non-toxic” to honeybees. However, there is some anecdotal evidence of a connection between aerial spraying of Roundup and death of bee colonies.

But I do think more information is coming out that more definitely implicates RoundUp. The trouble is that most of the studies are done in lab conditions and they are only looking for deaths of bees. The RoundUp effects are more subtle:

https://www.nyrnaturalnews.com/article/i ... honeybees/

The authors of the new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology were investigating whether exposure to glyphosate (the active ingredient of Roundup) at levels that bees could realistically be expected to encounter in the field could affect their feeding behaviour.

What they observed was that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) produced “a reduced sensitivity to sucrose and learning performance for the groups chronically exposed to GLY concentrations within the range of recommended doses.”

So levels of RoundUp that don't directly kill the bees, can still lead them to end up starving to death.

[jal_ut]

Weeds? Hoe,hoe hoe........................................

Yes it is an ongoing battle. The annual weeds that come up from seeds can be handled with a stroke of the hoe. It seems there is always some perennial types around though to plague you, and tree roots. In the case of tree roots, I had to take out 4 big trees along my garden space so their roots would quit robbing the garden . Yes, they did send up suckers all over but I kept cutting them off on a regular basis. Keep the green off and the roots eventually run out of stores and die. I have one perennial grass, call it Quack Grass, those roots are persistent. I had to hand dig the area with a fork and screen the roots out. You can get it with a tiller, but you have to till once a week for two months it seems. Keep the green off any plant and it does run out of energy and die. Have a great garden!

[KiwiGardener]

If I remember to hoe the garden frequently it saves me so much time weeding.
There are many different hoes available however my opinion is that it doesn't matter which type you use just HOE HOE HOE.

[imafan26]

It might be something to consider. I rarely hoe. Mostly I do it when my back or knee is hurting and I cannot bend. Mostly, I pull weeds by hand with a hoe matic a short handled tool with a three prong cultivator on one end (I only use it to pry up stones) and a hand hoe on the other. It is my shovel, root digger, weeder, often my pipe breaker, planter, and it helps to lean on it when I have to get up from my weeding stool. The problems of getting older, my body gets more decrepit every day.

The hoe would let me do a larger area faster, but I have had problems trying to hoe between plants and reaching further. Not that the hoe matic is any better, I have managed to pull out a few beets with it in the process of weeding.

But you are right, no matter what tool you use, the real trick is to be disciplined and do a little bit everyday.

[KiwiGardener]

I prefer to use the term "less young" it sounds so much better than the "O" word. There is still some "youngness" in all of us and that is what keeps most of us gardening

[Kay&Kev]

I have battled with weeds for many years. There was a tip I heard that helped me manage them a little better. Making sure you have a weed less garden starts in the fall preparing the soil. Make sure you don't use fresh manure because the seeds the cows or horses have passed will be in your soil as well. don't bury old weeds when you mix in new fertilizer. This will cause weeds to grow like crazy and near impossible to remove next year. You said the weeds in your raised bed were caused from the rain, which if you try these few things, it will really help. To prevent weeds from growing while watering, use a drip system. It targets only the roots of your plants and prevents potential weeds between your rows from receiving water.

[imafan26]

Those of you with winter do get a little bit of help from the cold killing off a lot of the weeds. Where I am the rainy season just brings more weeds. Unfortunately no off season in the tropics just a bigger jungle to deal with. My weed whacker just broke in the middle of using it. I decided to try to get a gas one again. I got it assembled but still have to go back out again. It is a lot longer and heavier than the electric one, but has more power and can go where the electric could not. Now, if this one can last more than a couple of years that would be great.

[jal_ut]

Hoe,hoe,hoe. Weeds are definitely a problem. The annual weeds that come up from seed are easily removed with a light hoeing when they are small. Hand pull any you miss with the hoe. Perennial weeds with rhizome roots are a real pain. You about have to dig the area and screen the roots out. Any way if you keep at cutting the green off they will eventually run out of energy and die. Persistence is the key. Tree roots can be a real problem. I had to take some trees out so my garden had a chance. For sure if you plant a garden you can plan on spending more time weeding than anything else. Weeds are a fact of life. They come on the wind.