The two raspberries around here (R occidentalis and idaeus) have mostly 3 leaflets, not five as in the picture. And the thorns aren't as big. Of course that's in NJ, I suspect Tennesee has some species we don't have up here. WW

I agree with mulching. I worry about extending my garden beds due to the wild violets. We managed to pull the bulk out of the front bed, but it took an entire summer. My in-laws were visiting and bored during the day so would go out and dig down to the roots. They are persistent buggers! I have followed up this year by putting a second layer of thick mulch and taking any foliage off in order to starve the roots. Beside the stray leaf and weeding a lot before the mulch was put down, I have barely needed to weed. Whatever does grow through is weakened by having to push through the mulch. My lawn is almost 100% weeds dispite reseeding every Spring and Fall. I am planning on reseeding the lawn soon for the fall and then placing the feed pellets as an organic preemergent in the Spring. Might help with the garden, too if the lawn stops being one huge weed.... :)

Here goes, Bart. Lavender lass, I sure wish my garden had a few horses wandering around. Fenced from the garden, of course. That's what my property was when I bought it in 1978, a horse pasture with native alder, maple, hemlock and Doug fir. I rented a bulldozer and put in a driveway and cleared an area for a manufactured home. After that was done an acquaintance needed a place to store his bulldozer. My place was the logical choice. He said I could run it as much as I wanted as long as I kept it full of fluids. After a couple of years I had dug 12 ponds and cleared a lot of land and started growing plants for my landscaping business, focusing on the not so common plants and buying the more common ones wholesale. I propagated them from seeds and cuttings. Made a lot of trades too. Along the way I kept planting trees and shrubs for myself and slowly phasing out the nursery beds. Most of them went through several moves before they found a permanent home. Now, after 35 years, I'm doing a lot of editing. That means cutting lower branches off some trees and sawing down others. I'm even turning the larger rhododendrons in to trees by pruning them to look like trees. Lately I'm concentrating on planting more groundcovers and enlarging and redoing a rock garden. Every so often almost every part of the garden needs a reshuffle. That's the fun part! I really enjoy my neighbor's horse in the pasture next door. He also raises a couple of Angus each summer for beef. Lavender lass, there IS country on this side of the state. ;-) Mike...from Peone Prairie near Mt. Spokane

Honeybunny2 is correct about WipeOut and texasredhead is wrong that WipeOut is the same as Roundup. However, what texasredhead is referring to is another Greenlight product called WipeUp, which does contain glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. I have seen this confusion many times. I used to tell my students that if they recommend one or the other, to write it down, similar to a prescription, so the wrong product was not purchased. One student heard an employee in an orange big box store recommend that a customer spray Wipeup on their lawn to get rid of weeds! I am sure the marketing people thought it was cute to use the Wipe in the names but it leads to a lot of confusion if the labels are not read; which they should always be read! I used WipeOut for many years on my Bermuda/St.Augustine mixed lawn. Note, the rate for St. Augustine is lower than on Bermuda as St. Augustine is more sensitive to the phenoxy herbicide ingredients. Works great on broadleaf weeds. The active ingredients work better in warmer weather if the weeds are actively growing and not drought stressed. Penoxsulam is another active ingredient that can be used to control Dollar Weed.