Your Guide to Annual and Perennial Weeds
Don't stop weeding yet! Just because winter is coming, doesn't mean it's time to neglect this garden chore. Learn how to spot annual and perennial weeds and the best ways to stop their growth, whatever the season.
How Do They Get There?
If there’s a bare spot in your garden, a weed seed will find it. Weeds aren’t bad plants, they’re just plants growing where you don’t want them to. Some weeds are easily removed by hand and others are persistent about growing back and become more and more difficult to eradicate the longer they are left to establish themselves and spread.
Annual versus Perennial Weeds
They may self-seed or they may be brought into the garden by birds, 4-legged animals or by sticking to your clothing as you walk by.
Examples of annual weeds include: bindweed, chickweed, crab grass, knotweed, lambs-quarters, mallow, pigweed, purple deadnettle, groundsel, nettle (common), purslane, speedwell, spurge and yellow oxalis
Just as with other plants, there are weeds that favor cool weather and cool-season annual weeds, and there are warm-season annual weeds.
■ Cool-season weeds sprout any time from fall through spring. They’ll go to flower in late spring / early summer. The plant may disappear when the weather warms, but you’ll see even more of them germinating the following fall.
■ Warm-season weeds tend to start growing in the spring and hang around all through the growing season. Either way, the only way to get control of annual weeds is to get rid of them before they go to seed again. Luckily annual weeds are very often shallow rooted and can be easily hand pulled or cut off with a hoe.
Hopefully, you will see less and less annual weeds as the season goes along, but new seeds will always find their way in and some seeds remain dormant in the soil until ideal conditions present themselves and they germinate, so weeding is an ongoing process. If you can get in the habit of doing a little weeding each time you work in your garden, it won’t become an overwhelming task.
Perennial weeds are the most difficult to get rid of. They spread by both seed and creeping roots and if you don’t pull the entire root, the plant can actually reproduce from every little root piece left behind. You’ll have similar problems with perennial weeds that grow very deep, hard to remove taproots This means hoeing and tilling are not good choices for removing perennial weeds. Hand weeding will work if you are very thorough about getting the whole plant and root system. Sometimes herbicides are the only solution for eradicating tough perennial weeds like poison ivy, ground ivy, and brambles.
Examples of perennial weeds include: bindweed, burdock, dandelion, dock, ground ivy, horsetail, Japanese knotweed, plantain, poison ivy, purslane, quackgrass, thistle, ragweed
Tip: If you can handle the cold, perennial weeds pull out most easily in the early spring, when the ground has recently thawed.
Taken from https://www.thespruce.com/controlling-annual-versus-perennial-weeds-
Till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa
Don't stop weeding yet! Just because winter is coming, doesn't mean it's time to neglect this garden chore. Learn how to spot annual and perennial weeds and the best ways to stop their growth, whatever the season.
How Do They Get There?
If there’s a bare spot in your garden, a weed seed will find it. Weeds aren’t bad plants, they’re just plants growing where you don’t want them to. Some weeds are easily removed by hand and others are persistent about growing back and become more and more difficult to eradicate the longer they are left to establish themselves and spread.
Annual versus Perennial Weeds
They may self-seed or they may be brought into the garden by birds, 4-legged animals or by sticking to your clothing as you walk by.
Examples of annual weeds include: bindweed, chickweed, crab grass, knotweed, lambs-quarters, mallow, pigweed, purple deadnettle, groundsel, nettle (common), purslane, speedwell, spurge and yellow oxalis
Just as with other plants, there are weeds that favor cool weather and cool-season annual weeds, and there are warm-season annual weeds.
■ Cool-season weeds sprout any time from fall through spring. They’ll go to flower in late spring / early summer. The plant may disappear when the weather warms, but you’ll see even more of them germinating the following fall.
■ Warm-season weeds tend to start growing in the spring and hang around all through the growing season. Either way, the only way to get control of annual weeds is to get rid of them before they go to seed again. Luckily annual weeds are very often shallow rooted and can be easily hand pulled or cut off with a hoe.
Hopefully, you will see less and less annual weeds as the season goes along, but new seeds will always find their way in and some seeds remain dormant in the soil until ideal conditions present themselves and they germinate, so weeding is an ongoing process. If you can get in the habit of doing a little weeding each time you work in your garden, it won’t become an overwhelming task.
Perennial weeds are the most difficult to get rid of. They spread by both seed and creeping roots and if you don’t pull the entire root, the plant can actually reproduce from every little root piece left behind. You’ll have similar problems with perennial weeds that grow very deep, hard to remove taproots This means hoeing and tilling are not good choices for removing perennial weeds. Hand weeding will work if you are very thorough about getting the whole plant and root system. Sometimes herbicides are the only solution for eradicating tough perennial weeds like poison ivy, ground ivy, and brambles.
Examples of perennial weeds include: bindweed, burdock, dandelion, dock, ground ivy, horsetail, Japanese knotweed, plantain, poison ivy, purslane, quackgrass, thistle, ragweed
Tip: If you can handle the cold, perennial weeds pull out most easily in the early spring, when the ground has recently thawed.
Taken from https://www.thespruce.com/controlling-annual-versus-perennial-weeds-
Till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa
