Organic way to get rid of unwanted trees?
spazboy357
15 years ago
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lucky_p
15 years agoRelated Discussions
Overseeding to get rid of unwanted grass?
Comments (3)Where are you? The kind of grass you have may vary a lot depending on where you are. If you've got cool season grass, it sounds a lot like most of your lawn is KBG and the wide leaf grass is tall fescue (likely K31). It's very hardy, but not as attractive in a lawn and its faster growth rate makes it stick out. If that's what you have, you could spot spray with glyphosate and if the patches are not too large, the KBG will fill in from surrounding areas. If the patches are too big for that, you could spray a few areas at a time. The problem with killing all of the K31 and overseeding is that it might be tough to match the rest of the lawn (and if you buy the seed at a "big box" store, it may well include K31)....See MoreOrganic way to get rid of Bermuda grass
Comments (156)No one asking anyone to read ALL those replies. If you do not want to know what we know, skip our replies. On a new thread or topic, we will come over & reply & you will be back where you are now. jolj(7b/8a) henry, I am going to try solarization on my bahia grass. 90% of the things on this thread will not eradicate bahia grass. This includes round up, which kills the tops, but not the deep roots. Round up will not kill nut sage/ nut grass or common dew berry vines. So I will try this on the bahia. I have heard that the solarization may kill the soil food web, when it kills the weeds. I am planning to sheet compost the beds after I kill the grass/ weeds. I have been told that tilling kills the soil food web. Not sure who is right or if it matters, I give vegetables away every season including the winter. I grow more then I can use, then I must be doing something right. [Like[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/organic-way-to-get-rid-of-bermuda-grass-dsvw-vd~1521679) I did this in 2011 & it worked great....See Moreorganic way to be rid of rain barrel squigglies
Comments (29)I have a screen on my rain barrel, but also have a few open five gallon buckets with liquid (compost tea, etc...) in them. I keep a plastic sieve next to one of them and every time I walk by or think about it I dip in real fast and scoop out the mosquito wrigglers. It's easy to get rid of them this way, you just have to be consistent about it until there aren't any left to lay the eggs....See MoreNo organic way to rid a lawn of weeds
Comments (22)dewey1139, Salt should be used sparingly in any area where you ever intend to grow some sort of plant on purpose. Homemade salt remedies can harm the microbial life in your soil (good soil is alive and filled with many living microorganisms---billions per square foot) and the salt can remain in the soil a long time, damaging plants you hope to grow there in the future. In his book "The Truth About Organic Gardening" (which I highly recommend), Jeff Gillman discourages the use of salt as a homemade herbicide for exactly the reason I stated above. On a personal level, I already have a high sodium content in my soil, so the very last thing I'd ever want to do is add more salt to it. Some scientists have done research with boron (easily available to the homeowner in Mule Team Borax, sold on the laundry aisle) as a herbicide and found that it controlled certain weeds, like creeping Charlie. However, there again, a little boron is good and even desirable in general for good plant growth, but excess boron can be toxic to all your plants, so I wouldn't use this method unless I'd already had a soil test and knew my soil didn't have excess boron to begin with. Tons of weeds in the soil indicate poor soil. Many weeds colonize poor soil as they are adapted to it. To get rid of the weeds, improve the soil. It is that simple. Once the soil is better, the grass will grow more thickly and more lush and will crowd out the weeds. Be sure you're mowing at the proper height too. I like lawns seeded with clover as part of the mix, and I have many, many dandelions growing in my front yard and love them. We're out in the country, though, and our neighbors can barely see our house from the road and, because the house sits back 300' from the road, no one can tell what sort of lawn we have or if we even have one at all. Thus, I don't have the peer pressure of having nearby neighbors who think a suburban yard should look like a green carpet of astroturf. If I felt a certain level of peer pressure to have a perfect green carpet of lawn, I'd work on fixing the soil so the grass would be vigorous enough to keep the weeds out on it own, and I'd use a pre-emergent weedkiller (chemical or synthetic, both types are available) to prevent the weed seeds from sprouting. That's a lot easier than mechanically removing them after they sprout. I imagine if y'all go to the lawn forum or the organic forum you would find the lawn experts there who could answer your questions. I prefer growing everything else that exists more than lawn....trees, shrubs, ground covers, herbs, flowers, veggies, fruits....and even native grasses more so than lawn grasses, so I'd be more likely to try to tell you to get rid of your lawn and replace it with water-wise, native plantings and then to mulch heavily to keep the weeds out. When I have weeds growing someplace, I ask myself what the weeds are telling me. Generally they are telling me they found some bare soil and sprouted and grew there, so for beds of non-grassy plants, mulch thickly applied combined with regular hand-weeding while the weeds are small and easy to remove is the answer. For lawn grasses, a weed problem is telling you the grass is having trouble growing well and covering the ground, thereby leaving bare spots where weed seeds can sprout. In that case, the answer is to improve the soil and to make sure you are growing a lawn grass suited to your soil, growing conditions and lawn maintenance practices. Dawn...See Morespazboy357
15 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years agoDibbit
15 years agorcnaylor
15 years agospazboy357
15 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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15 years agoAdnama
15 years agospazboy357
15 years ago
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