weeeeeeeeeeeds

[cjsmith]

Several months ago we had a mimosa tree cut down. I learned at that time that mimosas have roots that go out to the sides and stay very close to the surface. I'm really not sure why the people who used to live here let it grow this big. Maybe, like me, they didn't know? Anyway, this one was destroying a fence and threatening multiple larger structures, one of which I can't afford to replace (the house I live in) and one of which we don't even own (the house my neighbors live in).

Wellll... apparently mimosa roots live for a while and keep trying to generate new trees. Keeping up with those is a real chore!

The next most challenging weed is oxalis (wood sorrel type), which is absolutely relentless and difficult to pluck. I may let some of it go. It doesn't tend to choke out other plants really. It just wasn't quite what I was hoping for, aesthetically, is all.

I'm finding the most difficult weed to control is a thing I don't yet know the name of. It puts down a tap root and sends a handful of runners out horizontally just a little below the surface of the soil. Every inch or two, those runners put down roots; every inch or so, it puts up a flat smooth-edged leaf shaped like a cardioid. (Sort of like creeping charlie but with smooth edges to the leaves. Like bindweed but the leaves are smaller and the runners are white instead of pinkish. Almost like dichondra?) In any case, it is not easy to get that stuff up without hurting the ground cover I'm trying to nurture (daimondia in one spot, a relative of thyme in another spot). I'm hoping not to do any herbicides. The thyme is super sensitive to those. So this one is a lot of gentle poking and lifting and tracing the lines, and my back starts to hurt after not too long.

That said, I got a lot of stuff out this morning. Tomorrow morning, more of the same. Wheee! It feels productive to get it done.

(edit: ooo, we get a lot of spurge, too! That one's easy. And a bit of bindii weed, also easy. Plus the usual dandelions and such.)

Comments

[brooksmoses]

Oxalis is relentless, yes. In my experience, it's not that difficult to pluck -- unless you want to get all the bulbs, in which case it is completely impossible.

[cjsmith]

Yeah, getting as much of the below-ground part as possible. It’s a heck of a dig. :)

[brooksmoses]

Yup, it is. I think I once managed to get out most of the bulbs from an oxalis plant; it was a small one growing in a pile of very loose mulch and I think I still broke off a tendril or two and didn't track them down.

The pages I found online were really quite pessimistic about the possibility of successfully pulling them up. What I gathered is that, if one is really consistently persistent for two or three years, the root-bits will run out of energy....

[cjsmith]

That's exactly what I'm banking on. Deprive them of their chloroplasts long enough and relentlessly enough that they quit trying.

[amaebi]

When you say "mimosa," is this what you mean? (It's what I grew up calling mimosa.) My father planted it at our Southern Illinois house when I was little, and then regretted it. Hummingbirds, yay! Seedlings everywhere, boo!

You say oxalis and I remember living in California. And what I didn't then know was called bind weed, ouch. I don't know from description what the stoloniferous thing you're describing is-- might you be willing and able to take or find a photo of it?

I salute your decision not to poison the garden. I think the extensive US use of herbicides is a product and part of the US desire to have everything be done in one brief coup, by purchase, instead of involving continuing processes. It is kind of amazing how much can get done in fifteen minutes bours-in-passing, though....

[cjsmith]

Yes, that’s the mimosa I meant! I had nearly forgotten those silky puffs all over everywhere.

I’ll try to get a good photo of the creeping weed. It’s super annoying, grr.

I admit I have trouble with “fifteen minutes at a time over a long period” types of things. I get busy; I get distracted; I have my bad pain days. I’ve been super lucky to be making progress on this weeding thing rather than falling ever behind… But so far it’s going slowly forward!

Fifteen minutes

[amaebi]

Yeah, feeling you. And personally I wouldn't *plan* fifteen minute bouts. Rather, if I intended/wanted to go out and do a substantial go of gardening, but am having trouble making myself, I can often make myself start by going out for fifteen minutes, on the true grounds that something is better than nothing. And on the other side, if I do a bit in passing, it actually does add up, surprisingly.

Re: Fifteen minutes

[cjsmith]

Yeah, there’s a lot to be said for “the most difficult part of a long run is lacing up your shoes for it”.

[minoanmiss]

*cheers on your garden* Sam Gamgee is proud of you!

[cjsmith]

Hahaha yaaaay!!

The part that currently delights me the most is the cilantro. Mmmmm cilantro.

[minoanmiss]

Lucky you you're not a taster! I wish I weren't a taster. To me Cilantro tastes like how green smells -- with soap on top.

[cjsmith]

“A taster”? Do you mean a cilantro-is-soap-gene person?

(I have all three of the bitter supertaster genes. UGH. No brassicas for me EVER, and quite a lot of what the majority of folk consider food is just repulsive to me. It’s no way to live if those around you aren’t like that too. But I was spared the cilantro thing.)

[minoanmiss]

Yep, I mean the cilantro soap gene. I'm glad you have the cilantro -- unlike parsley, you don't have to be careful how much you eat (parsley has oxalic acid in it). Have cilantro salads!

[labelleizzy]

We also quit having Sergio use poison in the yard and lately I only bother uprooting things that have spikes, things that will become inconvenient placed trees, and these pink flowers that keep invading the neighborhood and have really fucking hardcore roots... Most everything else is either coping with being treated like lawn or ground cover, or is getting eaten by the local cadre of birds and critters, apparently.

Best of luck to you in your battles!

[cjsmith]

Oh yes, the trees (mimosa in my case) are my highest priority.

We shall see how long I keep at it attacking everything else. For now, I’m trying to encourage new plants to take over. When they do the weeding might slow down a bit. Fingers crossed!

[hitchhiker]

wow, looks like a never-ending battle!

[amaebi]

Or life. And I reckon the plants feel the same way....

[cjsmith]

It's a lot! On the weekends I try to do a bit at a time, until I get too hot in the sun. I've cleared some small areas pretty well. My strategy is: 1) keep those clear, 2) get the worst of the weeds everywhere else, and 3) slowly expand the "good zones".

[zahraa]

Zombie mimosa! Those other roots might well be another one of your trees.

[cjsmith]

They're zombies all right! I'm impressed!

I figure the roots that are popping up mimosas are mimosa. (We only had the one.) Anything not popping something up, I don't care about :-D :-D