Ciscoe Morris is back on New Day, this time to share methods to control springtime weeds in your garden!
Weeds drive gardeners crazy. They're persistent and you can never really get them under control. Here's a few tips that hopefully will help in the battle against the evil weeds that constantly invade our gardens.
Spray vinegar to control weeds.
I learned about using vinegar from an old-time gardener who called my radio show. I tried it and it's been my favorite weed spray ever since. Although there are special vinegar based herbicides available at garden centers, studies at Carnegie Mellon University found that straight white vinegar from the grocery store is just as effective at controlling herbaceous weeds, even the ultra-nasty Canadian thistle. The key to success is to use it straight, and to apply it liberally on a hot sunny day. Remember that vinegar will kill anything it hits, so don't use it near valued plants. Vinegar is an effective dandelion killer in the lawn, but it will also kill any grass it hits. Simply wait a week, dilute the spot with water, scratch up the soil, apply grass seed, add a little lawn starter fertilizer and keep moist. The grass will come right back, but you'll never see the dandelion or other broadleaf weed again. Warning: Because the vinegar smell lingers a while, don't do this before a hot date unless you know that he or she loves pickles.
If weeds are growing around your favorite plants, it's too risky to use vinegar as it might harm them. Sorry, no rest for the wicked. you'll have to get out there and weed. The shot weed and red leaved oxalis are germinating in your garden as we speak. Before you even realize it those nasty little weeds will be shooting their seeds all over the garden, and in no time you'll have hundreds of their offspring to deal with. So put down that cup of coffee (after you finish watching 'New Day' of course) grab your weeding tool and start doing some serious weeding! My favorite weeding tool is a Digget Hori-Hori knife. It's great for digging out weeds. I also use a circle hoe and stirrup hoe. These scrape the weeds off the surface of the soil. They work best with smaller weeds such as red oxalis and shot weed. In hot weather, usually all you need to do is dislodge the weed and it will die of dessication.
Mulching by covering the soil with an organic material can help prevent weeds as well. Wood chips left over after the arborist grinds up branches can help prevent weeds from growing up from seed. Compost won't stop weeds but makes it easier to pull them out.
If you can get at them, mowing regularly can rid your garden of blackberries. As Manager of Grounds at Seattle University, I once called the city to give them the address of a vacant lot completely covered with blackberry, so that they would contact whoever owned it and make them clean it up. Two days later, I got called into the office to hear my boss tell me that someone squealed on us to the City and I had to get out there and clean up a vacant lot the University owned! I cut and removed most of the canes, but I left the crowns, planning to paint the cuts with ‘Round-up’ before the new growth returned. I didn’t get around to using ‘Round-up’ so I asked a gardener to mow the blackberries with an old lawnmower to cut off the new growth to give me time. I never got around to spraying, so the gardener kept mowing the lot every 2 weeks. By the end of summer, every trace of blackberry was gone, replaced with a mix of grasses and weeds that naturalize in hot dry conditions and can take mowing. The lawn didn’t look too bad, and even stayed green without watering. As long as you mow every two weeks, this method works equally well to rid your landscape of ivy.
Finally, if moss is driving you crazy, the best way to remove it from gardens is to use a stirrup hoe to scrape it off and rake it up. Don't compost it at home, send it off with yard waste. The best defense against lawn moss is to maintain a thick cover of grass. A number of problems such as poor drainage or lack of maintenance can cause grass to thin out, and if that happens, moss inevitably moves in to fill the void. There are a number of products that will rid your lawn of moss, but in my opinion, the safest for children, pets and wildlife is moss control soap, available in a hose end sprayer. No matter what kind of moss control you use, you should remove the moss first by using a power dethatching machine available at rental yards. That's because moss is usually too thick for the control product to penetrate to the base. The top is killed and turns black, but the moss on the bottom is unaffected and grows back. Even with effective moss removal, if you don't solve the problems causing your grass to thin out, the moss will quickly return. Also, be aware that it's practically impossible to grow grass in shade. You're much better off removing turf from shady areas, and replacing it with shade loving shrubs and perennials.
After reading this you, hopefully, are ready to grab your tools and head out after those weeds. You'll never win, but just look at it as a zen experience and it won't seem so bad.
Good gardening!
Ciscoe
Gardening with Ciscoe airs Saturday afternoons at 1:30pm on KONG and Sunday mornings at 11:30am on NWCN.
