Weeds

Remove Weeds While They are Young

Yesterday was one of those rare, glorious, warm days in the middle of winter. It is too early to start seeds or fertilize. Despite the calendar saying early February, I was able to work outdoors for hours without bundling up for a blizzard. And what did I do during those hours? Pulled weeds, of course.

 The recent warm days, the rains, and the slow lengthening of days have encouraged all those dormant nasties to spring to life. Weeds are tiny and the soil is damp, so they cannot resist a gentle tug. If you get rid of them now, you will be a happier gardener come May. By that time, roots are deeper and some plants have even dropped seeds and started to spread across lawns and flower borders.

One offender that attempts to invade my space every year is Hairy Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta. It is classified as a winter weed, but they pop up all year long in my zone 8 garden. These weeds are found in gardens across the eastern half of the US and in southwest Canada. They prefer moist, acidic soil but will grow virtually anywhere.
When I was enrolled in the Clemson University Extension Master Gardener education program more than twenty years ago, one of our instructors brought slides showing a greenhouse full of prepared seed flats. In one flat, a single Bittercress plant was allowed to bloom and go to seed. The lifecycle of Bittercress is reported to be 12 weeks. The timelapse photos indicated that one plant had turned into hundreds or maybe thousands in the greenhouse experiment, with all the surrounding flats showing baby Bittercresses. A single plant can produce 600-1,000 seeds and the germination rate is high. The seeds are held in long, skinny pods known as siliquas. When ripe, these pods eject their seeds up to several feet away from the mother plant. It does not take long for this invader to get out of control in the home garden. To prevent spread, maintain a healthy lawn with no bare patches, mulch garden beds, mow flowering plants before they set seed, and pull seedlings before they gain size and strength.

Yesterday, I removed Dandelion, Hairy Vetch, Chickweed, Henbit, Purple Deadnettle, Common Mallow, Purple Woodsorrel (creeping Oxalis), Common Plantain, Wild Garlic and several I know by sight but not by name. I’m keeping a vigilant eye open and weeding tool at the ready for emerging Mulberryweed (Fatoua villosa, easily the wickedest weed I’ve ever encountered), flat Prostrate Spurge, and prickly Horsenettle. I know they are out there.

A casual glance across beds and borders may not reveal the presence of these intruders while they are young and small. Once the knees are on the gardeners’ kneeling pad, they are more apparent. Use the occasional mild day to remove them now. You will be glad you did.

Weed Rant: Horse Nettle

It is time for another weed rant. Horse nettle, Solanum carolinense (pronounced so-LAN-num kair-oh-lin-EN-say), is number two on my list of Weeds From Hades. (Number one is mulberryweed. Click HERE to review A Terrible, Horrible, No Good Weed.) Horse nettle has two, and only two, positive attributes. It is southeastern native, and bumblebees love the pale lavender flowers. If I was feeling generous toward this plant demon (I’m not), I could add that wild turkey, quail and a few songbirds enjoy the berries. The berries and all other parts of the plant are seriously toxic to humans, pets, and livestock.

Horse nettle is found in more than half of the USA. It is a tap-rooted perennial that will grow in any type of soil and any pH. It grows along sunny roadsides, in open fields, and in cultivated gardens. I thought that tilling the soil in my orchard would vanquish this foe, but instead the tilling process broke the root and its fleshy rhizomes into pieces, all of which returned with a vengeance. I do not use herbicides in areas where food is grown, so the only method of removal is digging and pulling. The razor-sharp prickles penetrate thin garden gloves, so I have added a pair of cheap pliers to my bucket of garden tools. I grasp the base of the plant with the pliers and lift gently, while using a tool in the other hand to loosen and lift the rhizomes that radiate off the tap root. It is a slow process, better done after a rain has softened the soil. [Side note: Prickles are modified plant hairs, spines are modified leaves, and thorns are modified stems. Roses have prickles, not thorns. Best not to mention this to poetry-writing friends.] Even if the prickles do not stab you, the star-shaped hairs cause misery when they brush against an unprotected ankle.

Young horse nettle leaves resemble tomato. Stems zig-zag and become woody with age. Plants may be 30 inches or more in height, but tend to sprawl rather than growing upright. They flower from spring all the way into fall. The fruits are round green marbles containing several seeds each. In late fall, the green fruits turn yellow and can be mistaken for a tiny tomato. Fully ripe berries wrinkle a bit. If you have children or grandchildren, please educate them about this plant. Ripe, yellow fruits are even more toxic than the green ones. Consuming them can lead to coma or death. Not only does horse nettle stab the careless gardener, it also plays host to tobacco hornworms and Colorado potato beetles.

If herbicide is your chosen method for eradication, check the label to be certain it is listed. Horse nettle is resistant to some herbicides (2,4D for instance) and repeated mowing has no effect.

Other common names for horse nettle include bull nettle, devil’s tomato, or apple of Sodom. The name of those in the Mary Snoddy garden is not fit for print.