Plant Gardens 101

Many people struggle to kill the weeds in their lawns and gardens for the reason that they do not want to use a commercially made chemical herbicide. The safety of using these commercially available weed killers is not entirely known. While the manufacturers and even government agencies say they are safe the long term affects of the continued use of these toxic chemicals and their affects on people and other living creatures is not entirely known.

For those of us who do not want our children and pets exposed to these toxic chemicals trying to find a way to kill the weeds overgrowing our yards and gardens can be tough. What many people do not realize is that there are many non-toxic ways to kill weeds right around their home. (more…)

Weeds can be an organic gardener’s curse. Actually, for all gardeners, weeds are the bane of their existence in some cases. This author absolutely detests weeding her garden, but it must be done to promote healthy growth of plants and insure a good crop.

Even if you’re not an organic gardener, weed control is a problem. There really is no easy answer to this problem. It just takes time and effort to control the unwanted overgrowth in your garden. This is where mulching and composting come into play. First of all, twice a week, run the edge of a sharp hoe just under the surface of the soil to behead tiny weeds before they grow large enough to compete with your seedlings.

Once the seedlings are larger, the soil is warm and drenching rains have ended, put down a layer of mulch to hold in moisture and smother weeds. Mulch is material that can be laid down around the plants to control weeds.
Choose ingredients that allow the soil to breathe, let water in and keep light out. These can include dried–not fresh–grass clippings, chopped straw, lawn-mower-chopped leaves mixed with dried grass clippings or well-rotted sawdust (avoid fresh sawdust, as it leaches nitrogen from the soil), and pine needles are all good choices. Apply the mulch several inches thick. (more…)

Weeds are often present in corn fields that are lacking in pre-emergence herbicide. If weeds are present, it’s likely that the cause could be attributed to weather constraints, and it is important to control weeds in order to protect the corn yields. In areas such as Louisiana, the farmers are burdened with overwhelming weed control problems. Their yields have slipped due to weeds and they are facing losses. Many fields have excessive amount of weeds and no amount of herbicide can get a good yield. This has been a cause for concern for most corn growers, who are afraid to lose their crops. The most difficult part is that weeds grow very rapidly, and removal methods don’t prove to be helpful. They grow again even before a corn plant has the change to thrive.

The term critical period is utilized to determine for how long the weeds will be allowed to compete with the crop till the corn gets damaged. To obtain maximum yield, all weeds must be removed before they reach the critical period. Timely weed management to protect the corn plants is a fundamental feature for all crop growers and is majorly undertaken to maximize the corn yield potential. Killing the weeds is an essential step to achieve the goal of weed management. (more…)

So often new gardeners are put off the idea of gardening by thinking about the time it might take, and the hard work involved. The popular idea of a low-maintenance garden is one of covering the space with decking and gravel, planted with a few grasses and pots of evergreens.

However, I have discovered an ideal way to help thwart one of the most time-consuming chores in the garden – that of weeding.

This came about almost by accident, as I have a cat who thinks that any uncovered ground is a glorious litter tray! I quickly had to find a way to cover up as much of the soil as possible, but soon realised that ground cover plants gave me the even greater benefit of vastly reducing the number of weeds.

Of course, there are many gardeners who enjoy the time spent weeding, and I admire them tremendously – there are great physical and mental benefits to spending time outdoors among your plants. (more…)

Weeds are a gardener’s nightmare and can really spoil your enjoyment of you garden. A gardener’s dream is to have a lush, green lawn and neat, colourful borders all free from weeds. It is said that prevention is better than cure, and this is certainly true for weeds. Let weeds take hold in your garden and you will always be fighting them, and it will always be a struggle. Weeding out established weeds can be a backbreaking task, prevention is definitely the key.

Follow the following tips to help prevent weeds invading and taking hold in your garden.

1. Tackle weeds or grass sprouting up between paving slabs immediately – Either use a good weedkiller to kill them or use an old knife to prise them out. Don’t let them spread. Re-point any gaps with cement to stop them growing through again. (more…)

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Keeping your landscape plantings, flower beds, and nursery crops free of weeds is a battle, but if you approach it with a strategic plan, you will prevail. In order to develop a plan, you first must understand how weeds work, and what kind of weeds you are dealing with.

Basically weeds grow either from seed, or they reproduce from their roots. As the roots grow outward from the parent plant, new plants sprout up from the lateral roots, creating more parent plants and the process continues and the weeds thrive. Weeds that tend to reproduce from the root are usually more difficult to control. (more…)

Your yard is something that you should be proud of. You want the outside of your house and your yard to be just as magnificent as the inside of your home. When it comes right down to it, weeds are pests which can take your beautiful lawn and ruin it very quickly. Anyone with a yard can tell you that weeds can take over before you know it, and can ruin seasons of hard work. Therefore, it is important to have a year round plan to control weeds so that you can continue to enjoy your yard for years to come. If you truly want to have the best yard possible and take care of your property, you need to be vigilant and take steps to control weeds, no matter what season you find yourself in.

Spring
Spring time is a very important season when it comes to controlling weeds. This is the one season where you can make or break an entire season’s worth of weeds and mess that comes along with them. Therefore, what you do with your lawn in the spring is crucial. (more…)

Weeds can become a nuisance, if ignored and not properly controlled. The Organic Control Method can produce a weed-free garden to avoid the side effects of herbicide poisoning.

Weeds aggressively grows in lawns, gardens and natural areas. These unwanted plants block sunlight and get the important nutrients needed by growing plants. Determining the two weed life cycles such as annual or perennial is important in exhibiting control methods.

One of the best methods is the Organic Weed Control. This method is cheaper and simpler to manage. Mulching and the use of gardening tools are good practices for getting rid of weeds.

Mulch

Garden mulch is a protective layer on top of the soil that suppresses weeds. It is used for protection from threading, compaction and erosion. This method can act as an aid to plant culture. It conditions and retains warmth in the soil. The best time to mulch is during autumn and spring. (more…)

All gardeners, from the seasoned professional to the weekend novice, hate to see the onset of weeds in the garden. Weeds threaten the very life of your prized flora and fauna. Here are some of the more common weeds found all across the nation and what you can do to stop them.

When it comes to common weeds, winning the war requires a patient and methodical approach. Pouring synthetic chemicals on your garden or lawn is not only environmentally irresponsible, but often ineffective as well. By sticking to the basics of weed control, you can restore your garden or lawn into a healthy state without breaking the bank on the latest weed-be-gone fad. (more…)

A weed is not a specific type of plant, it is simply an unwanted plant or a plant that is growing where it is not wanted. Once upon a time, this weed was a wanted plant and may have been introduced to the locality for a particular use – to look pretty, to be used in cooking or for culinary purposes. However, the plant has now become undesirable and has been labelled a “weed”.

Due to the fact that they are native plants and are ideally adapted to their local environment, weeds can take over an area of land or a garden very quickly. They are unwanted because they compete with wanted garden plants for nutrients in the soil, water, light and space and can push out more fragile plants. It is important to do regular weeding in your garden, to stop the growth and spread of these undesirables, so that your other plants can grow. You do not need any high tech or expensive equipment to get rid of weeds in your garden – just buy a small garden hand fork and some gardening gloves and use a washing up bowl or bucket to collect weeds in. For bigger, established areas, you may need a proper garden fork.

Be careful when disposing of weeds, you do not want any seeds to spread or fragments to fall on the soil and regrow.

When you are thinking about ridding your garden of weeds, you need to consider what type of plant the weed is, so that you will know when and how to deal with it:- (more…)

Allow a small patch of your garden to grow daisies, nettles, dandelions and even a bramble or two. The secret to containing your weeds in a small patch is not to let them seed and spread their wings! Pick them at the flower stage and they don’t get a chance to spread themselves over the rest of the garden.

Why have a weed patch?: Well, it’s always nice to see a bit of ‘wild’ in an otherwise neat and tidy garden. But there are other more practical reasons…

Flowering weeds will encourage bees to your garden and they in turn will pollinate your other plants. Weeds are simply wild flowers and they hold a huge range of medicinal and nutritional properties just waiting to be taken advantage of…

Collect some of these regular garden weeds, in any combination for a super bath tonic to relax with… (more…)

A weed is an unwanted, nuisance plant and the bane of gardeners everywhere. Whether gardeners like it or not, weeds must be attended to lest they take over the garden. They are fast growing, prolific reproducers and generally can colonise places where nothing else will, or can grow. In nature, there are no weeds, just plants, their role is to rapidly colonise any bare earth. They are in fact, the earths protector. Weeds tend to bring trace elements to the surface that are benefical to other plants after the weeds have gone. But, gardeners, farmers, and councils, don’t like them. For gardeners and farmers, this is easily understood, as these opportunistic plants compete with crops and gardens, for space, sunlight, nutrients and water, also harbouring pests and disease. Councils think they are ugly and untidy – such are the delicate sensibilities of humans in general. At the moment, we will be concentrating on the effects of weeds on gardeners.

Although there are many ways to control or keep out weeds – weeds happen. When weeds do occur in your garden or landscape, although it is always best to get them when they are small or young, we are not always able to do so. Some weeds, given the right conditions, are able to proceed from germination through to reproducing themselves within a week! Luckily, this is not the norm. Generally, weeding is best done by hand. If you are able to get them when young, they can be easily taken care of by chipping with a hoe on a warm day, pricking them out with your fingers, or smothering with a layer of mulch. (more…)

When exactly did people come up with the idea that weeds were bad? When did a weed become a weed? How it was that one day the world was simple, a Garden of Eden, full of plants, and the next, those plants had been slotted and reduced into a hierarchy of good and evil? Some plants are good. Some plants are just plain evil.

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested that a weed is simply “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” A more prosaic dictionary definition describes a weed as a wild plant growing vigorously where it is not wanted; it is an awfully broad concept. One could easily lump valuable native plants with invaders that choke out anything in their path.

Even if you buy the idea that some wild plants are inherently and indistinctly more valuable than others, the lines soon get muddled. Are violets weeds? Jack in the pulpits? Asters? Buttercups? Columbines? Wintergreen? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder then chicory, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace cannot possibly be weeds. In most cases, as you well know, you know a weed when you see it. Thistles, ragweed, dandelions, plantain, pigweed, burdock . (more…)

Regular lawn maintenance means removing weeds from your lawn. At the first sign of weeds, many homeowners run to the local home and garden center to purchase caustic chemicals. When it comes to lawn care, this can be a major mistake. Eliminating weeds can be accomplished by knowing what kind of weeds you have and how they behave.

Weeds Have Unique Personalities

Before you load up your sprayer and hit your lawn with a blast of Roundup, consider this: weeds, just like other plants, have their own characteristics. They typically grow differently, flourish in a variety of conditions and can be quite resilient. If you understand that, you may want to hold off treatment until you discover exactly what types of weeds you’re dealing with. (more…)