tap root weed

[watermelonpunch]

What is this?
I'd hoped they wouldn't be back this year but they are...





Most of the ones in my flowerbeds are in shade. Often hiding underneath the foliage of proper plants. Happened the same time last year.

They get much more huge than this.

I saw one last year grow in the field, bordering the other side of our yard, in full sun (8hrs+ of direct sun), get to maybe 5ft tall... maybe more since it was growing in a dip.
I shouldn't like to think about how big the root of that one was.
I finally I chopped that one down, at ground level, then dug the spade into the root. We'll see if it returns this year.

Last year, I also saw one in the neighbor's border on one side of our yard, grow to over 3ft... in the shade.
I was tempted to lean across the property line & chop down the one in the neighbor's border.
I actually pointed it out to the neighbor's yard service men, and the young man, holding a weed whacker in his hands, said, "We don't pick weeds". I told him it was most definitely a weed. And he said that it was under the tree on the border... So I guess that wasn't his purview. (There's nothing but open dirt under these ornamental trees on this border... and that's where this root weed was.)

But anyway... it never flowered after all. So I'm having trouble figuring out how these things are now cropping up in areas where I did NOT find them last year. I could understand in some of the beds where they were last year, that I probably left some roots behind. But now they're cropping up in other places.

Anyway, no clue what they are.
But they make creeping charlie & garlic mustard seem like prizes.
They're very persistent, greedy, and very difficult to remove. I mean not just physically hard to remove... but also anything planted near them is in danger when trying to uproot these darn things.
And I often have found them next to plants because the plant next to them will be hiding them with their leaves, but then I see the plant getting wilty for no reason, and sure enough, there's a root weed hiding right next to their stem!!

They seem to persist less later in summer. Last year, I was still having to dig them up in early July occasionally. By August last year, I was not finding any new ones at all.

[rainbowgardener]

I'm thinking maybe pokeweed. Pokeweed does have big fleshy taproots and gets huge - mine get to be 7' tall sometimes. It spreads from the roots forming big colonies, but it does also pop up all over the place. But it is usually very identifiable, because late in the summer it has clusters of beautiful purple berries:


http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/Ed ... ed4484.jpg

Partly it pops up all over the place because birds like those berries and help spread them.

Once you have a colony established, the colony is practically impossible to get rid of. But when it is small and pops up new places, you can just dig it up. I do work on digging out the volunteers that pop up unwanted places to try to keep it from taking over. But I haven't tried to get rid of the big colonies, because I think they are beautiful, especially when the berries are ripe and purple.

Pokeweed is also called inkberry, because the early American colonists used to make ink of the purple berry juice. The Declaration of Independence was written in pokeberry juice.

Learn to love your weeds

(But not the small heart shaped leaf vine next to it, which is bindweed, a wild morning glory and to me a much worse pest. The pokeweed is native.)

[watermelonpunch]

ha ha!
Thank you I'll have to research this plant a bit more.

I never saw any berries on any of mine last year.

When I find one in a place it isn't harming other plants, I'll leave it & see what happens this year.
But they are just too destructive & huge for small flowerbeds near the house particularly.


At any rate, it's interesting you point out the heart-shaped...

I have morning glories which are beautiful, growing out of that flowerbed (where the root weed was in the picture)... and up a lattice of the porch.

Interestingly, I've seen that MANY people consider morning glories to be an aggressive pest.
But these vines have not taken over. They occasionally start growing where they self-seeded which is inconvenient, but as they're so recognizable, it's nothing to just pull it out... the roots are incredibly slight & shallow, so I don't find it anywhere near as troublesome as the root weeds for example.

And now I'm confused about the difference between morning glories and "bindweeds".
Could I have both & not realize it?
I tried looking it up but can't find a definitive answer with visual aids.
Wouldn't I know it if I had a perennial vine? Especially if bindweed has an established perennial root system... I think I would notice that when I pull them out, no?


Oh, I should also say I think the fact that we get really cold winters probably keeps a lot of things in check here that in more southern places with mild winters would be far more pesky.

[watermelonpunch]

RE: bindweed

Hmmmmm I checked out that particular spade looking leaf vine, and the root was NOT shallow like the morning glories. And about 6 inches away, was a "sprout" that looked like a baby version of a spade shaped leaf.
NOT at all like my morning glory sprouts... Which are kind of like forced tongues.

And I found a web site that indeed said the difference is the fork-like appearance of the first leaves...

http://www.garden.org/searchqa/index.php?q=show&id=2396&ps=21&keyword=fence&adv=0

Now that I'm thinking back... I remember pulling a vine, probably the same one, out of the flowerbed in vaguely the same general position, last year, and thinking of it as "the ugly morning glory vine". I think I didn't like the leaves to be honest, and the vine itself just looked messy.
Had no clue it was a perennial... just thought it was a less attractive morning glory vine. Which, I guess it is!

From what I'm reading, apparently there's probably more root underneath in there. *sigh*
But that probably won't be an issue... We MIGHT be having a concrete porch replace the wood front porch in the fall. And if so, the entire area is, I imagine, going to be killed off in order to not have roots growing under the concrete. :/ At least I think that's how it works.
I guess the plan will be to make sure when I transplant all the perennials in the fall, to not take out any of that naughty vine with them.

[rainbowgardener]

generally bindweed has white flowers that are a bit smaller and less showy than morning glory flowers which have been bred for large showy colorful flowers.

[watermelonpunch]

generally bindweed has white flowers that are a bit smaller and less showy than morning glory flowers which have been bred for large showy colorful flowers.

Yeah I looked at pictures of both, but without a measurement it's hard to gauge that.
I wondered if I had any of the bindweed bloom last year... But I honestly can't say. I have pink & purple morning glory, and some with white & pink. But they were all pretty impressive flowers. Unfortunately I don't seem to have any photos of the actual blooms from last year on hand.

I found some more of the tap root under the lilac tree when I finally got under there to remove the creeping charlie.
I'd put off weeding under the lilac tree cause we had a robin nesting in it. But thinking she died, because she abandoned the nest. The mate is still hanging around the front yard, but she just disappeared 2 days ago.

Anyway, haven't removed the tap root yet... So if I can manage it I might leave it to see if it gets those berries. It's not in a position to bother anything else there.

[purpleinopp]

There are a LOT of vines that mimic morning glories, at least with their foliage. Polygonum is one, as well as the many Ipomoeas that do not have attractive flowers or a well-behaved habit. I love volunteer MG's but the risk of it being something else is not worth it to me. I start MG seeds in a pot so I know for sure, and pull any sprouts in the garden. There are plenty of the pretty weedy ones in the area, LOVE them! But I don't need to look at them in my yard too, at the risk that one of the spouts is something else. RARELY - so rarely - is a volunteer plant desirable.

[watermelonpunch]

WEll the problem is that if I didn't allow anything that I didn't plant... I wouldn't have much!
I have 11 different flowerbeds. Nearly all of them were planted with various perennials long before I moved here.

I imagine it's a very different story if you move somewhere and start from scratch with an empty gardening canvas... Then volunteers would probably seem like an alien invasion!
And yeah, most would probably be something aggressive enough to have found its way there.

But most of what I have is "good stuff"... Just unfortunately hadn't been well maintained for 2 years. So I've got weeds mixed in.