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Written by Jungle Jim
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Friday, 02 October 2009 |
The number one least liked chore in gardening is weed control. At home and in my design work I have to keep it mind. There are three things that I use to reduce the amount of weed control.
First is to limit the amount of small low ground covers in a design. Generally the lower a ground cover is the more opportunity there is for weed invasion. Hand weeding Scotch moss that has oxalis or spurge growing in it is a nightmare. If you let the weeds set seed you have several years of seed germination to contend with. Again, a nightmare.
Obviously with a small ground cover you can’t use weed control sprays and hand weeding is your only option.
Secondly, is mulching. Mulching keeps the sun and light off the actual
seeds and most seeds need to be close to the surface to germinate. In
addition to reducing the amount of weed germination it makes it much
easier to pull the weeds that do germinate. Don’t discount the benefit
of easy pulling! A third and forth advantage of mulching is it keeps
the soil cool for better root development and as it decomposes it
actually improves the soil.
The third technique the garden crew uses is Surflan. Surflan is a great
general purpose pre-emergent that stops most weeds from seed. Note the
word seed. This means that it does not control bermuda from stolons,
nutgrass from nuts or morning glory from roots. It does need to be
reapplied in four to six months.
Generally we recommend that you do weed patrol every one to two weeks
with Remuda, a generic Round-up, together with Weed-Impede, containing
surflan. This keeps the weeds under control and prevents them from
forming seed. A couple of years of this and the weed pressure drops
dramatically!
Do remember that when the weed pressure drops, you can’t ignore the
weeds that do come up. If they form seed you start over again.
Happy hunting
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