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.