All About Weeds
Weeds are nature’s healing remedy for sites that are in a wounded, plantless state, but weeds and gardeners have different ideas of what makes for a good recovery. Armed with a better understanding of weeds and the strategies outlined here, you can win every future skirmish, giving you more time to enjoy your well-groomed garden.
Sleeping weeds
Kill weeds at their roots but leave the soil-and dormant weed seeds-largely undisturbed. Every square inch of your garden contains weed seeds, but only those in the top inch or two of soil get enough light to trigger germination.
Digging and cultivating brings hidden weed seeds to the surface, so assume weed seeds are there ready to erupt, like ants from an upset anthill, every time you open a patch of ground. Dig only when you need to and immediately salve the disturbed spot with plants or mulch.
Mulching
Don’t give weeds the chance to see the light. Whether you choose wood chips, bark nuggets, straw, or even pine needles, keep the mulch coming to smother out weeds.
Mulch benefits plants by keeping the soil cool and moist and depriving weeds of light. Organic mulches, in particular, can actually host crickets and carabid beetles, which seek out and devour thousands of weed seeds.
Weed When You Need
Young weeds go down much easier than older ones, so make the most of good weeding conditions. The old saying “Pull when wet; hoe when dry” is wise advice when facing down weeds.
Under dry conditions, weeds sliced off just below the soil line promptly shrivel up and die, especially if your hoe has a sharp edge. In mulched beds, use an old steak knife to sever weeds from their roots, then patch any open spaces left in the mulch.
Off With Their Heads
Chopping off weed heads feels good and you’ll reap short- and long-term benefits. When you can’t remove weeds, the next best thing is to chop off their heads.
With annual weeds, dead-heading buys you a few weeks of time before the weed “seed rain” begins. Cutting back the tops of perennial weeds, like bindweed, reduces reseeding and forces them to use up food reserves and exhaust their supply of root buds, thus limiting their spread.
You will need pruning loppers to take down towers of ragweed or poke, or you can step up to a string trimmer equipped with a blade attachment to cut prickly thistles or brambles down to nubs. No matter which method you choose, chopping down weeds before they go to seed will help keep them from spreading.
Gaps Are O.K.
Tightly planted beds leave no room for unwanted visitors. Close plant spacing chokes out emerging weeds by shading the soil between plants.
You can prevent weed-friendly gaps from the get-go by designing with mass plantings or in drifts of closely spaced plants rather than with polka dots of widely scattered ones. You can usually shave off about 25 percent from the recommended spacing.
Water Plants, Not Weeds
Drip irrigation is the way to go for a quick way to water your plants and not your weeds. Watering by hand works, too, but it’s often tedious.
Put drought on your side by depriving weeds of water. Placing drip or soaker hoses beneath mulch efficiently irrigates plants while leaving nearby weeds thirsty.
In most climates, depriving weeds of water reduces weed-seed germination by 50 to 70 percent. Watch out, though, for the appearance of deeply rooted perennial weeds, such as bindweed and nutsedge, in areas that are kept moist.
They can take off in a flash when given the benefits of drip irrigation. Beyond these strategies, enriching your soil with organic matter every chance you get can move your garden along down the weed-free path.
Soil scientists aren’t sure how it works, but fewer weed seeds germinate in soil that contains fresh infusions of good compost or organic matter. One theory makes elegantly simple sense: When soil is healthy and well fed, weed seeds sense that they are out of a job and are less likely to appear.
About the author
Tom Selwick has worked every level of lawn care and landscaping imaginable--from a weeder to a pest control man-he has done it all. He has worked the past 8 years as a lawn care Alpharetta technician. Tom Selwick TomSelwick09@gmail.com http://www.LawnCareAlpharetta.comDistributed by Content Crooner
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