hi

generic roundup and mulch ...

on 5 acres.. there is no alternative ...

since you reject such outright.. it doesnt seem worthwhile to lather on about it .. one thing for sure.. your preconceptions on it are wrong ...

good luck

ken

Some people use that black plastic stuff and cover that with mulch. When planting the trees, they cut into the plastic and dig into the ground. I just use a thick layer of mulch and the weeds tend to be less annoying.

J

Roundup. I go through about 1 bottle of generic roundup each year. Mostly to just keep my beds outlined, but I do have some grass and weeds that will make there way into my beds. Just a dab will take care of each weed. I can't see myself pulling each weed or piece of grass like some do. I walk around and it takes less than a second per weed. I spend maybe 20 minutes every other month for weed control.

i buy 2.5 gallons of 41% credit extra [generic roundup] ... for around 65$ ...

it takes about 2 years to use it ...

and i use 3 oz per gallon ... so if my math is correct ... i get about 110 gals of product ... less using it straight for stump killing ..

if you are paying for premixed .. you are not doing it right ...

ken

I use roundup as well, but in a very limited manner, just around the larger gravel expanses and only once a year. Overall, glyphosphates such as roundup break down into inert substances fairly quickly and if applied on a still, warm day, it gets pretty quickly absorbed by the targeted weeds.

Otherwise, if you've got your mulch right and go to war on weed seedlings early. (For me in WA state that means right now, LOL). It's not that tough to keep things under control.

Full disclosure: I'm working with a scant acre here.

~Dave

Ken - Are you referring to me as using the premixed stuff?... I get mine from Walmart. It's 32 ounces of super concentrate... makes 20 gallons for $15.

Ken- I have no serious objections to the use of Roundup or its generic in sensible amounts. It's just that the enormous gardens I see here seem much too large to be able to control the weeds that way.
It seems I am wrong as you all seem to be doing it.

Do any of you notice that the older beds grow fewer weeds?
I ask that because I have only been working this property for four years and am hoping that a few give up and die after having been pulled 800 times.
My main problem is wild violets- Roundup won't touch them, I would need to use triclopyr repeatedly. They are near impossible to dig as every little bit of root structure left grows back in spades and they are so brittle it is impossible to not break them.
Most of the others are semi controllable.

I hope this is not considered off topic for this forum- I really prefer talking to people who walk the walk as far as weed control and you folks here seem to be the best at it.

Ken - Are you referring to me as using the premixed stuff?... I get mine from Walmart. It's 32 ounces of super concentrate... makes 20 gallons for $15.

==>>> sorry rick.. its not all about you.. lol .. i am referring to me.. living in farm country.. where they sell in bulk ...

It's just that the enormous gardens I see here seem much too large to be able to control the weeds that way.

==>> no ... you misunderstand the process ...

you kill whats there.. you cover it with mulch ... and mulchs main duty after moisture control.. is weed control.. most weed seed needs contact with the soil .. and full sun ... so if you cover seed .. most wont sprout ... and if you deny it soil.. most wont sprout ...

so by mulch alone .. you reduce weed germination.. and reduce the ultimate job by what .. 99% ... presuming you do the mulch correctly ... link to my old post ...

now.. once you kill and cover ground .. then any roundup application ... is simply 'spot' application ... where some weed beat the odds.. you seem to be thinking.. that you must saturate the entire bed.. repeatedly ... and that is not correct ...

and i will tell you one other trick ... if you pull a weed thru mulch ... and pull soil up on top of the mulch .. you are ruining the whole point of not having soil on top ... ergo.. killing with roundup .. does NOT disturb the protective covering...

and.. another trick .. and i will yell ... KILL THEM BEFORE THEY PRODUCE SEED ... lol ... and that is why spot spraying is a monthly thing ... as there are a multitude of weeds that bloom and seed in waves.. they are all different .. and each has a different crop production time.. if you will ...

what you should do.. as you browse the various pix.. is look beyond the plants.. and start to see the recurrent themes of garden care.. and i will bet my shiny penny.. they are all well mulched.. and that is where you begin ..

dont forget the link ... and i presume you most likely are not working on that scale.. but you should be able to adapt the process .. to whatever you are doing .... [the deleted pix are irrelevant.. ]

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Weeds varying hugely from region to region and even widely within a region. It's all about your neighbors and local plots. I am surrounded by greenbelts and weed-free yards so the worst I get are small localized weed issues and himalayan blackberries, which are like death and taxes here.

I weed 5-15 minutes average 3-4 days a week. I do it during garden strolls. Bark, landscape fabric and dense planting has helped me keep weeds to a bare minimum. I attack weeds on sight because the easiest way to stop weeds is to prevent propogation in the first place.

I only use roundup on serious infestations near neighbors localized weed problems. I use less then 1 gallon a year.

-Will

If you need to hit violets repeatedly, you are doing something wrong. Are you being sure to use a professional surfactant with the non-consumer product? (I assume this since you call it trichlopyr, and not a brand name like Weed B Gone, which might still be 2,4-D based)

This is tricky in my lawn, there's a very narrow window between the right amt. of surfactant to use and the amt. that will cause some of the grass to temporarily brown. At least that's true with my towns water chemistry, which is very high in chloramine which might be an adjuvant to such damage. Violets have a waxy coating and anything intended to kill them must include the detergent.

Whether in beds or a lawn, 2 seasonally successive applications of 2 different formulations has always killed violets for me. In beds I would go round up in summer, trichlopyr in fall. In the lawn 2-4D in the spring, trichlopyr in the fall. Maybe a few stragglers needed a 3rd, but I've basically eliminated them from most of my yard now.

Unfortunately depending on where you live, you will always have a slew of weed seeds flowing in. Ironically, if you lived in a neighborhood of McMansions were everybody had a chem lawn contract, you could probably get away with not using selectives for a couple years, once your lawn was free of most of the pests. Only one of my four boundaries has a couple houses who take care of their lawn, the rest is a rogue's gallery of weedy lots. Everyone contributing their share: the white trash meth heads whose lawn is a 50/50 mix of crabgrass and dandelions, but fortunately they are down wind of me, the fallow field owned by rich country burghers, and used for their kids to play with ATVs contributes annual grasses, the state woodlands on the last side contribute viney weeds like poison ivy (all but eliminated) and smilax.

And btw, along the same lines, I *mainly* treat my lawn to reduce the stuff that blows into my beds. I wouldn't really care if there were a few violets in my lawn, but one they get into a shady bed they quickly take it over. (OTOH, some ugly weeds just have to go because they are ugly, like onions in the spring sticking up past the grass...gross!) I'm slowly eliminating lawn from my garden and the eventual goal is to have very little of it.

And FWIW, I do know a couple people who have absolutely weed free multi-acre gardens and claim not to use herbicides, but in both cases either through spousal support or inheritance do not have day jobs and essentially spend all their time gardening.

Once your beds are established weed infestations tend to slow down to the point they are easily manageable. Mine are now at the point where I go through my beds once a month and hit anything with a shot of Roundup. Easily done in 45 minutes to a hour.

Avoid the black plastic or cloth as a weed preventative. It works for only a short time. Over time it will create its own environment for growing weeds from discomposed refuge and weed seeds that will accumulate on top of it. Underneath that ugly stuff there is a dead zone of brick hard compacted soil that roots cannot draw nutrients or oxygen from.

One other thing to check is the growing medium your newly purchased potted are grown in. If not checked thoroughly and cleaned out then you have just imported another batch of weeds or bad grasses to your garden.

Two you really want to check for is Spotted Spurge and Oxalis (Woodsorrel). Very invasive and once established very hard to eradicate. I see a lot of that in potted plant containers. Conifers ...no exception.

Dave

Thick layers of mulch will keep most weeds at bay for a year or so but once it starts getting thin the weeds go nuts. From this point it is Roundup and just old fashioned yanking by hand. I'm like you, no weeds allowed.

Snapshot and Ronstar G are preemergent herbicides that work well. You have to be careful in areas where bulbs are planted. Generic Roundup and pulling by hand for postemergent methods.

Patrick

Re the surfactant in my triclopyr- a bit of research told me that triclopyr is what I need for wild violets.
I went to Lowe's and read labels until I found a "consumer product" containing such, so I would presume a surfactant is included. I cannot recall exactly what I bought (the jug is out in the shed and I am snuggly in bed) but it was a poison ivy/brush killer type product.
I did notice however when I was applying it that it tended to run off rapidly and it ran through my mind at the time that I needed to add some dish soap.
I will do that next time I spray them.

And Ken, I don't know what to tell you but I definitely have weeds that sprout in mulch and grow through thick mulch.
We spread our fourth truckload of hardwood mulch today and we do it after I painstakingly pull each weed (I'm one with no day job, LOL). I did throw some Preen around a few areas but cannot use it everywhere.

And as far as controlling violets in the lawn- not gonna happen. I have dogs and will not be using herbicides where they walk. As these violets also seed I guess they will continue to be an issue for me where Preen is not an option.
The only areas I am using my triclopyr is in my front beds where at least my dogs do not have access.
Neighborhood critters are on their own.

Thanks everyone for your comments.
I do love looking at pretty pictures but I also love hearing you discuss the nuts and bolts of getting the gardens so picture worthy. Ten years of work for one snapshot, LOL.

i use Credit 'Extra' .. the extra part.. is the spreader/sticker ...

i dont recall what term roundup used .. whether it was roundup extra... or RU 'pro' ...

included on my 2.5 gallon jug .. is a 50 page booklet .. which explains.. in toto .. all recommended usages and the percentage of application ....

when battling poison ivy ... which i came to find out was a 2 inch underground vine.. it took near 3 years.. to kill it completely ... with 2 to 3 sprays per year ...

ken

A note on the weedblock fabric: I used it more extensively then most here and certainly more then anyone recommended. I basically call it this way. If you have a great, relatively weed-free setting/soil and it's already set for plants/rocks/conifers, then it's a complete waste. If your setting for planting is grass/weeds already and you don't mind removing it in a year or two, it works fine. If you have paths or edging and want to keep this area relatively weed free then it works very very well. It's of note that some areas of my garden have had weed fabric over the plants for four+ years of gardening and the soil beneath might not be a lush composty mix, but the conifers are still thriving - being very non-demanding plants to begin with.

The main advantage of placing it over 'trouble areas' is that it kills everything beneath it and in 4-8 months, the soil is basically weed free. Yes, you'll have to cut out sections as you remove it but it beats some very high intensity labor methods of clearing/weed removal and requires no chemicals.

I won't suggest it for most plantings but I certainly thing it has uses. There's one obvious caveat, never use a plastic material that doesn't drain - use the types that are porous and allow water/oxygen to pass through.

For me, ultimately weed fabric is what helped me establish such a complex garden and be relatively weed free in a very short amount of time.

-Will

I'm in a different weed world in CA although heavy mulching is my #1 defense against weeds, as some others have noted. Getting them before they go to seed is #2, and my weed problems have lessened over the years due to greater coverage by maturing plants and vigilance on my part. But as one posted noted, it's all about what's around you and what weeds that brings in.
One note about Roundup/glyphosate - I use it sporadically, especially on the gravel road, and it is approved by the University extension here both for home and commercial use. But due to the rapid and extensive use of GMO seeds that have incorporated glyphosate resistance into them, we are now seeing glyphosate-resistant weeds. Since most of that seed is being used in the Midwest, where many of you live, you may start to see those monsters invade your space at some point. A good reason to try to develop a weed-control system that is not glyphosate-dependent. As Gilda Radnor said, it's always something....

Wow, formandfoliage - that sounds like a sign of things to come! Kind of worrying to folks that depend upon round up type herbicides. Guess I better get more mulch.....

I have been able to eradicate such things as Russian thistles in my yard, just by pulling them, and have the dandelions somewhat under control - seems impossible to completely rid my yard of them since we have some weed infested yards around here - but I have yet to figure out how to get rid of bindweed. It just laughs at Round Up. I've been pulling it for over 20 years, but with 20 ft plus roots, that doesn't do much good.

I don't mind the violets, but bindweed is definitely my nemesis!

Holly

Crossbow will kill bindweed.
Mike

"Crossbow will kill bindweed."

I had never heard of Crossbow until you mentioned it, Mike. I take it you have had experience with it?

I read the MSDS and label for this product - it appears to be pretty deadly stuff, not sure I want to use it, plus worried about my dogs. No wonder it kills bindweed! Still, thank you for the information; I will certainly keep it in mind. :-)

Holly

I use it sparingly. Mostly for blackberries. It will kill clover and horsetail too, which glyphosate only wounds.
I treat it with the utmost respect and follow directions to the letter.
Mike