Killing grass
- Subject: Killing grass
- From: "Tiede, Karen E" k*@eds.com
- Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:53:23 -0400
>I was fortunate enough to entice the Head Gardener of Daniel Stowe
Botanical Garden, Douglas Ruhren,
>NC Zone 7b
Hum... that means you're in Charlotte, or near enough, and therefore you are
gardening in pretty much the same conditions I have, southwest of Raleigh.
The biggest question about roundup--do you have wiregrass, witchgrass,
whatever they call it locally near you, or not? Maybe it's Bermuda--the
stoloniferous grass that gets into everything. Roundup helps; tilling,
covering, shading out--will not touch it. Neither will solarization. (My
neighbor tells me not even to burn it because the ashes will sprout.)
One of my great stupid gardening mistakes was to till a patch of witchgrass,
thinking that turning it under would kill it. HA! all that did was break
up the stolons, which each then sprouted, making it harder than ever to
pull. At least the intact plant tends to come out of the bed in long
strings of grass and if you're careful and the ground is soft, you can get a
couple of feet of it each handful.
As deadly as it is, what amazes me is how many plants Roundup WON'T kill.
Wisteria just drinks the stuff.
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