I need some gardening expertise…here in Central California we have a huge spurge (Oxalis (sp?)) problem…I’m constantly battling it in portions of my railroad…I’m not able to get out on a consistent schedule to maintain the garden railroad so as a result the spurge just takes over. So my question is do I just let it do it’s thing and become a ground cover and try to keep it under control in areas or should I go nuclear and take it out with Round Up?
What have some of you done??
Thanks,
Richard
Spurge is not oxalis and they grow totally different, but either can be a problem here in CA. Don’t let either take over or you’ll never get rid of them and spurge and get really BIG.
Neither is a real problem growing in the ballast because they pull right out. You just have to keep up with it. As for the rest of the garden, a good dense ground cover is your best defense for weeds of all types. Thymes work well here, but diamondia is also very good and you can walk on it.
Round-Up works but be sure that you keep it off everything else. Also, if some plants, like diamondia and thyme, get a bit of Round-Up on the tips, it can spread back as a systemic and kill the plant several feet away. If you want to spray Round-Up near a planted area (ground cover), it is best to take a knife and cut this area away from the main body of the plant to avoid this possibility.
Richard,
Round-Up is the best method of controlling any invasive weed. If you have Oxalis (clover like redish leaves with yellow flowers) you need to kill down to the roots because it has rhizome roots. It also has seed pods that explode, when mature, to spread the seeds. It will take control of your yard if you don’t take control.
I hate those things, they love to grow in the spaces between the pavers on my patio, they are hard as hell to pull out, they are tough as nails with the weed-whacker, and Roundup takes weeks to finally kill it.
I am dealing with about the same problem here in AZ. I removed a plant called Ruiella or rueilla, Loved it for a long time , it slowly grew ot fill a nice area and when it go too much we could prune it back to the ground and it would recover nicely. BUT it sent roots under the brick edging into the grass and started sprouting in the grass. Dug it all up, but any tiny piece of root left keeps sprouting so I am hitting it one or twice a week with roundup, and if that will not deal with it I am going nuclear option and spraying the area with ground sterilizer. then adjusting where my lawn is .
Todd…thanks for the clarification of spurge and oxalis…but I do have both. I guess I’ll be traveling to the local hardware to stock up on Round Up…gotta get this stuff taken care of.
Richard
just looked up spurge, and we have it too. the big problem with trying to pull it up is that shaking or violent movements of the plant dislodges its seeds, when I pull it I do it carefully, use a screwdriver to loosen the taproot and carefully pull it up, place it in a bucket then wipe my hand clean so any seeds do not get spread.
sounds like you have way too much to do anything other than blast it with Roundup or the Ortho equivelent
All "Weed Pullers",
Here’s a lifetime supply of Glyphosate Concentrate (Generic “Round Up”). It WORKS so you don’t have to.
The time you save will be used running trains!
Back in the 50’s to the late seventies, Dichondra was considered the “platinum” standard for lawns in Southern California. Actually it was considered in the weed family, not a lawn. Who knew. Anyway when we bought our home in 1974, it had two beautiful, plush Dichondra lawns…one in front and one in the back surrounding the pool. At that time, you could still purchase the chemicals and feed that kept these lawns a lush green and thick. Then when the government decided that these chemicals were “bad” for the environment, we started to notice oxalis and the real bad one…spotted or red spurge. My wife and I would spend hours in the yards carefully looking for the tap root and trying to carefully remove said root without letting the seeds loose. Their were numerous other Dichondra lawns in the neighborhood and within a few years, they all were taken over by the spurge. This is bad stuff and once it takes hold in your yard, it spreads tenaciously. Our solution along with others in our neighborhood, had to rototil down about 18 inches, bring in new top soil and plant a hardy grass. Cost us a bunch! I hate this stuff. Good luck with trying to get rid of it. You may THINK you have it all out, but that will never happen.
I never thought about pulling the stuff out carefully so as not to release seeds…I’m probably the main reason I have so much now. I would just go in and pull, pull, pull without thinking…then I’d stack the stuff in piles to be picked up later. I’ll try to be careful now…but will still go back and spray the area with Round Up to hopefully get as many seeds as possible.
You guys are great!! Thanks for the tips.
Richard
Today I’ve begun the nuclear option to eradicate the spurge and oxalis. I never really noticed how many seeds the spurge left behind until now. Wow!! So my method of eradication includes pulling out a section in the garden then blasting the ground and surrounding area with Round Up. Being careful of course not to hit the stuff I want to keep.
Richard
I do not think Roundup will kill seeds , I always thought it had to be a growing plant for roundup to kill it. But it wouldn’t be first time this hour when I was wrong!
My neighbor killed the weeds and poison ivy on part of his land by clearing the land, and then laying a tarp over the area for a full season (spring till late fall).
Richard Mynderup said:
Today I’ve begun the nuclear option to eradicate the spurge and oxalis. I never really noticed how many seeds the spurge left behind until now. Wow!! So my method of eradication includes pulling out a section in the garden then blasting the ground and surrounding area with Round Up. Being careful of course not to hit the stuff I want to keep.
Richard
Richard,
Don’t pull the weeds SPRAY them. Roundup kills by translocation from the leaves to the roots. It will kill seeds that are in the seed pods on the plant. If you pull the oxalis and leave any portion of there roots you loose the the battle. Yes, Roundup takes a little time, the less you do physically to the weeds the better. Let the poison do its work, keep it simple.
David Maynard said:
My neighbor killed the weeds and poison ivy on part of his land by clearing the land, and then laying a tarp over the area for a full season (spring till late fall).
David,
That’s called Solarization. Its purpose is to heat the soil and kill the seeds. It has very mixed results, mostly negative, and take much longer than poison.
Dan, I dunno. It seamed to work for my neighbor. It was a blue tarp, them cheap woven ones from Walmart. I would guess the seeds would germinate under the tarp, but then being deprived of water and vertical space to grow, the seedlings would eventually die off. And yes, it was staked to the ground there in his side yard for nearly a whole year.
David Maynard said:
Dan, I dunno. It seamed to work for my neighbor. It was a blue tarp, them cheap woven ones from Walmart. I would guess the seeds would germinate under the tarp, but then being deprived of water and vertical space to grow, the seedlings would eventually die off. And yes, it was staked to the ground there in his side yard for nearly a whole year.
David,
Solarization can work, usually with black plastic, it produces more heat. The obvious problem with the process is the long time it takes. Plus, do ya want to look at a blue tarp in your landscape for a year.
Not too interested in the tarp method. I want to enjoy the railroad during the year. I sat for about two hours in my front yard pulling spurge and then spraying the area with Round Up, including the seeds. Will watch what happens for a week or so. In the meantime I’m going to just spray the weeds on the railroad and leave it alone for a several days…going out of town anyway so it won’t be an issue. I’m guessing when I come back I’ll have some hula hoeing to do.
We have the same in Southern Il. We are fans of roundup, but will look into Dan’s alternative from Home Depot. We use the roundup version made for poison ivy and honeysuckle on that, and regular roundup on all the various weeds around track and buildings. Both work well. Would be nice to have one spray to suit all. We like spot-checking with the round-up once weekly. Catches the new growth at an easy kill stage, and we can hit the persistent weed with a second round as needed, and leaves less brown spots. We are using a roundup 4 gal back pack sprayer (excellent investment) that has a wand reaching the ground easily to drip or spray on target without reaching and bending. We also needed something that would not drip until we put it exactly where needed. This works nice with dandelion leaves, and other nasty things you can drip onto. Precision kill. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Richard said; " I sat for about two hours in my front yard pulling spurge and then spraying the area with Round Up, including the seeds."
Richard,
Don’t waste your time pulling the spurge or any weed. Let the Roundup do it’s job. Spraying Roundup on the dirt will do nothing, it only works by translocation from the leaves to roots.
