Re: Twitch grass?
- To: M*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Re: Twitch grass?
- From: "* F* D* <s*@nr.infi.net>
- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 14:43:10 -0500 (EST)
At 11:48 AM 12/10/1998 CST6CDT, you wrote:
>> Twitch grass?
>
>In England we (oops, I mean "they" -- so much for 18 months' U.S.
>residency) use this name for the grass Elytrigia repens (= Elymus repens,
>Agropyron repens). It has a long, thin, snaggly underground stem, not
>unlike hedge bindweed and just about as difficult to eradicate. You leave
>a half inch in the ground and it'll grow back. Unlike hedge bindweed,
>there's nothing even vaguely ornamental about the plant.
In Massachusetts, there is a grass that is almost identical. We called it
Witch Grass, and I once tried to remove it from a small area for an
intensive vegetable garden by sifting through all the soil to 15 inches
deep. The few pieces I left behind caught back on, and I wound up having to
use non-organic means to use the plot.
In North Carolina, we fight Johnson grass as well as Bermuda grass. The
former will (and has) quickly take over neglected beds, and the latter is
threatening my raised bed for rock garden and Mediterranean plants.
I have one plant that has squeezed out all competition. The clump of
Monarda (bartlettii, fistulosa?) cv. `Puerto Purification' (Yucca-Do) got 5
feet tall, bloomed its head off for 4 weeks late summer, and the only other
plat inside the clump was a morning glory that grew from a spot 8 inches
away from the clump. After 4 years there with no maintenance and a 90+
summer with no watering and hardly any rain, it is still doing well.
Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, NC 27406
336-674-3105
