Is Knotweed a garden pest--and if so, why?
miriam_gardener
14 years ago
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agomiriam_gardener
14 years agoRelated Discussions
Weeds: the worst and the not so bad
Comments (28)I'm glad to read all these reports; they're interesting! Thanks to everyone who's written in. Rosemeadowgardener: I don't recognize any of the weeds you list; are they Australian natives, or exotic: do you know their botanical names? Thank God we don't have one of the worst curses of North America here: no poison ivy, oak, sumac. How interesting to read Marianne's weed list from the other end of the European temperate zone and discover that I have all the nasty weeds she does, and several of the nice ones. Galium aperine is an unpleasant plant, sticky and climbing, but there are a number of other Galium species that grow locally that are rather nice. Sweet woodruff is Galium odoratum. Our native primrose is Primula vulgaris; and we too have anemones, hepaticas, wild geraniums--harebells I think not. Connie speaks of the huge weed population of her property, which is an old farm. We too garden on a former farm and downhill from a current one, and I agree with what her post suggests, that agricultural properties present particular weed problems. Ongoing plowing leaves ground permanently disturbed, given weeds fertile ground to grow; grazing animals can trample ground, and the hay brought in to feed them can bring weed seeds from other areas. The year after the shade garden was flooded with manure from a cattle enclosure above, the weed population there was amazing. And we get great numbers of weeds, some of them highly obnoxious, along the drainage ditches that descend from our neighbors' plowed fields through our own land. Then, if fields and pastures are abandoned, they begin to go to brush, and you get brambles and other colonizing species--Connie's plant list is different from mine, but the process is the same. What the heck is Creeping Charlie? A couple of you have mentioned it. The various posts have covered quite a bit of territory, not only in the literal sense, on the topic of weeds. Paula took up the issue of invasive exotics that push out native species on undomesticated land (as well as the native but obnoxious Poison Oak). This is a problem all over the world, of course. I read in that interesting book 'Ecological Imperialism' about how many plants flourished in Europe along with the development of agriculture and became weeds, then traveled all over the world with European colonizers and established themselves in temperate zones everywhere, often at considerable cost to native species. We too have our exotic invasive species--one standout here in the hills is black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, originally from North America--but I wonder what the effect has been on our native flora of a few thousand years of tolerably intensive agriculture. Were there species that went extinct because they were useless to humans and occupied land that could be used for farming and other useful activities? Some plant populations exist in part as a result of human activities: we have a rich population of native orchids many of which grow in pasture land and are now threatened because grazing is disappearing and the land is turning to brushland and then to woods. But perhaps three thousand years ago the orchids that grew were those adapted to woodlands? Lavender lass: do you know the species name of your artemisia? We have one ugly native artemisia, A. vulgaris, but a couple of nice ones. Another pleasant weed I remembered is lemon balm, Melissa officinalis--what a fine plant to share a name with. It's too invasive to plant, but grows wild at the edges of beds, is fragrant, and has fresh green leaves that are pretty in spring. I feel better every time I see it. I like mulleins too. We have a woolly species similar to what erasmus describes which makes a fine ornamental; the problem is that it seems to need a somewhat lighter soil than is present in most of our garden; otherwise it's not fussy. Melissa...See MorePlanning Your Plantings In the Edible Garden
Comments (38)Mia, Yes , I think it will work. Interplanting tomatoes with other crops is something I do all the time. I often grow smaller plants like lettuce and carrots underneath and between tomato plants, essentially using them as a living mulch beneath the taller tomato plants. I also mix all kinds of herbs into the tomato beds as well, and think those herbs help explain how I grow so many tomato plants and yet only rarely see even a single tomato hornworm or fruit worm. You sometimes will get less yield per plant when you interplant multiple kinds of crops together using close spacing, but since you have a lot more plants occupying the soil, you still get a good harvest . The best carrot crop I ever had was a result of me broadcast sowing lettuce and carrot seed randomly into the tomato bed after the tomato plants already had been transplanted into the ground. My garden was smaller then and I had run out of space, so was packing as much into each bed as I possibly could. I just thinned carrots and lettuce after they sprouted. When I grow onions with tomato plants, normally I hammer a stake into the ground where each tomato plant will be planted later, and leave a small unplanted spot there as I plant the onions. When it it time to transplant the tomato plants into the ground, I put one tomato plant next to each stake. If I have to pull up a couple of onions to make room for a tomato transplant, it isn't a big deal . We eat those onions as scallions. I started interplanting multiple types of plants together long ago, after reading John Jeavon's book "How To Grow More Vegetables...." book. It is amazing how much you can pack into even a small space when you interplant. Even when I grow tomato plants in molasses feed tubs, I generally have pepper plants, herbs and flowers mixed into each container with the tomato plants. Look at how Mother Nature mixes everything up together. On the eastern edge of our woodland, for example, we have native pecan and oak trees growing as the dominant plants, but underneath them we have wild cherries, American persimmons, possumhaw hollies, and redbuds, and beneath those understory trees we have American beautyberry bushes, native blackberries, inland sea oats and brushy bluestem, peppervines and several native wildflowers which ebb and flow with the seasons. All of them happily co-exist. Why can't our gardens be the same way? To garden bio-intensively in this manner, you need to pay careful attention to soil fertility and irrigation (if adequate rainfall is not being received). Obviously when you interplant several types of edible crops together, the plants will be competing with one another. I get smaller onions in interplanted beds than I get from onions grown in a monoculture with recommended spacing, but still get tons of onions. We still have several dozen onions from last year's crop, though now they are starting to sprout. There pretty much is nothing grown in our veggie garden that isn't interplanted with several other things. If I ever were to plant even one single monoculture bed, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the way it looked and would be out there trying to fix the bed by adding more stuff to it. In fact, I do have my onions planted as monoculture beds right now, but that is because they are the only thing I've put into the ground so far this year. The onions will not be alone in those beds for long. Hope this helps , Dawn...See MoreWhy is it so?
Comments (9)Hi Everyone. Trish - At last you've managed to join our friendly forum and I'm sure you'll enjoy being here and contributing to our knowledge sharing. Those pictures above are the ones I tried and tried (without success) to post on the other forum. The weather here is still very unsettled with rain almost every day which is almost unheard of for this time of the year, this of course is bumping up the humidity and the next thing we'll experience will be problems with rot, so it's important to make sure there's good air circulation and adequate space between all plants. When I grew orchids many years ago, it was usually mid February that these conditions prevailed in our area and everyone could expect to lose at the very least a few plants to rot no matter what preventative measure they had in place and it was so common the problem came to be commonly known as "February Rot" . I only mention this here because I know that many of us still grow orchids and the following link is an interesting read for these people (Joe) for instance. It points out that the start of this rot was in December (not February) and by the time February came around, treatments often didn't work because the disease by then was too firmly established and a preventative treatment should have been started in December. http://www.bribieislandorchidsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/file/orchidgrowing/Pests-and-Diseases.pdf All the best, Nev....See MoreJapanese Knotweed
Comments (17)N Johnson, I watched the webinar and went on to watch another hosted by the same group. I'm thankful that these dedicated people of science are trying to solve problems methodically and carefully. Their $55k annual cost to experiment on the knotweed is disheartening. I can't imagine the resources needed to fully eradicate this beast and protect that waterway. I feel it's my duty to control this menace before it takes over. As it goes unchecked along roadsides and rivers, the spread may become as problematic here as it is in England. One only needs to Google Japanese knotweed in the UK and mortgages to learn that lenders there may refuse a mortgage if the property has knotweed. It's that bad. The other video I watched was about glyphosate. It has been demonized partly due to misinformation and partly due to misuse. Issues include studies that were questionably designed and interpreted. Disputes about its impact abound, but many experts still deem it safe when used properly. Bashing it also fails to recognize that it replaced more toxic chemicals. Sadly, our 'information age' has also become a disinformation age in every aspect of society - beyond science and habitat restoration. Far too many people make life choices that allow them to claim they're too busy to learn all sides of an issue. It's easier to read a news headline or a social media post and take a stance, regardless of facts; bona fide assimilated facts, not sensational partial information. Critical thinking has gone down the drain and people believe what they want to believe and are often closed minded and polarized in their thinking. It's easy and simple, and it makes people comfortably self assured. It's very destructive IMO. Nothing is simple or black and white. Life is complex, and dumbing down every issue du jour to an extreme sound bite does nothing to educate and inform the public. End Rant!...See Morecoolplantsguy
14 years ago
linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
14 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agomiriam_gardener
14 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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14 years agodirtdiver
14 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agomiriam_gardener
14 years agolinnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
14 years agomiriam_gardener
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14 years agochills71
14 years agomxk3 z5b_MI
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14 years agoarbo_retum
14 years agomiriam_gardener
14 years ago
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5