Year: <span>2015</span>

Year: 2015

Trees

Mulberry

 

Mulberry trees are one of the banes of my existence. We had a large one on our property that was a voluntary. I am pretty sure it wasn’t planted on purpose. It was big and it was ugly. Its roots were starting to destroy a sidewalk in one place and it was shading out other trees and plants that were much more interesting. When we had the Yew Tree incident, we were able to get rid of the mulberry.

Roots, Roots and More Roots

It still hasn’t wanted to go away. The tree company that took it down ground the stump but there were huge roots. Many of the roots were right where we were going to plant the arborvitae to replace the yew. The tree company knew this, so I was a bit miffed. I dug some of it up myself and then had them come back and finish getting the bigger roots out.

Even so, in a couple of places, a new tree is trying to grow up from the roots and I am having to combat it.

Birds love them and because of that you have to be constantly looking for small mulberry trees sprouting. Frequently under branches and bushes where birds sit and then poop. Get them as early as you can because they put down a long tap root amazingly quickly. They are a fast growing tree and are somewhat unusual in that they not only have a large tap root  but they also have large horizontal roots. Most trees have roots that extend about to the edge of the trees canopy if you were to draw a line straight down from it. The mulberry’s roots seem to go further.

History of the Mulberry

There was a native mulberry but others were imported from Europe and other places in 1733 by a General Oglethorpe and later by others who were trying to start a silk trade in the United States. They also liked the tree because it was fast growing and provided lots of fruit.

Good Eatin’

Farmers found they could fatten hogs with mulberry trees which would grow even on poor thin soil that other plants did not do well on. The fruit is apparently very delicious. I should have tried some before the tree was cut down. Apparently it is not a commercial crop in the US because the fruit is so fragile that it is difficult to pick and transport on a commercial scale. So if you have one on your property or know of one in your neighborhood, next summer try eating some of the fruit.…

General

Pergolas

Do you even know what a pergola is? I didn’t until my wife said she wanted me to build one. She figured it would be a nice afternoon project. A month later and many hours of work later, it was done. It was done all in wood, but they also done in metal. Bel Air Stairs & Railings ( www.belairstairsrailings.com ) has made some nice ones.

A Green Roof

OK, so what is it. It is a rigid canopy to shade a deck or pool area (not over the pool). There is no roof over it per se. It has pillars and then a frame over the top. It can almost look like the joists supporting a floor or ceiling, although more decoratively done with the ends usually cut in a fancy way and routed to look pretty. Or it can be a lattice work of metal, either flat or curved.

Well, this doesn’t seem like a good way to create shade. But, you get green shade. Vines are planted around the posts that support the pergola and the vines grow up and cover the top so you not only have the shade from the leaves but the cooling effect of the plants instead of heat radiating down from some roofing material.

Weeds or Vines?

But here is where you have to be careful. Some vines can be more weeds than decorative plants. Trumpet vines can be very pretty but they are very intrusive. Their roots go deep and wide. When we first moved into our current house we discovered a plum tree buried under trumpet vine. Getting rid of the trumpet vine was a major struggle but we have  mostly succeeded. The plum tree is much happier.

Wisteria can be similarly problematic. In some ways more so because most vines if you cut the stalk will die out. Wisteria can be cut and sometimes keeps living up in the tree despite being cut off from its roots in the ground.

I went to a flower show at LaDew Gardens where nurseries from all over the East Coast came to sell plants. One booth had trumpet vines, wisteria and other vines I knew to be invasive. After all the trouble I had had with them I was a little miffed that he was selling them. I asked him why and his answer surprised me.

Not All Varieties Are Created Equal

He said that it depends on the variety. He knew that some were horribly invasive and he didn’t sell those varieties. He only sold varieties that were well behaved and stayed put and didn’t spread like crazy. Oddly he said that sometimes it was the native variety that was well behaved and with other species it was the non-native variety that was well behaved. You just needed to know which was which and plant the right thing. So if you are thinking about a pergola, give Bel Air Stairs and Railings a call and also check carefully about the plants / vines that you plant.…

Weeds

Sedge

Sedges look a lot like grasses at first but are not the same. They can be very difficult to control. As one article said they are like the good witch and the bad witch from the Wizard of OZ. Some are used for ornamental purposes and others are invasive and difficult to eradicate once they are established.

To make matters worse, there are different types of the invasive ones and they require different strategies. Some of the common problem ones are yellow nut sedge, purple nut sedge, umbrella sedge, globe sedge, cylindrical sedge and annual sedge.

Prefer Moist Environments

Sedges tend to like moist environments, sometimes marshy, although some varieties do fine in drier soil. They tend to grow taller, have larger blades to their leave and have seed heads that are much larger and not as fine and delicate as grass seed heads when you let grass get that long. Most of the sedges also have a triangular stem although some have round stems.

Since most sedges like moisture, one way to control them is to add soil to low lying areas so water doesn’t collect there as much. Another way is to keep the grass mowed so the sedge can’t form seed heads. If they are in the garden where you don’t mow, even if you don’t pull them, make sure that you cut off the seed head before they drop their seeds.

Different Strokes for Different Folks (Or Sedges)

You also need to identify which sedge or sedges you have so you can plan the correct means of attack. Some sedges are perennial and others are annual. If yours are annual, the key to control is to prevent it from dropping any seeds.

If you have a perennial variety, you have more of a problem. There are some herbicides that could be effective. They are different from ones for grasses and broadleaf weeds. One is called SedgeHammer.

On the Scott’s website it says that the nutsedges are perennial. They have roots that can extend down 10-14 inches and they have small tubers or nutlets that grown on the roots that new plants grow from. So if you don’t get all of the root, they just grow back.

Long Grass or Short?

Scotts says to mow the grass long. It says that nutsedge are stimulated by short cutting and by leaving the grass longer it helps the grass to crowd out the nutsedge.

An article by two weed scientists from the University of Tennessee say to cut the grass quite short and cut it a couple of times a week to control nutsedge. Not sure whether to believe them or Scotts.…

Weeds

Thistle – A Prickly Customer

Thistle. For those of you familiar with this weed, that’s all I have to write to get a cringe. Thistle is the weed that just won’t go away. We are in Baltimore, Maryland, but you could be anywhere on the East Coast, or across the US for that matter. Some are native and some are introduced invasive varieties.

I have tried to eradicate it from my gardens for several years now. I have gotten closer but not quite all of it is gone. There are a couple of tricky things with thistle. One, if you leave even a little of the root in the ground it will come back the next year. Two, if any single plant goes to seed you will have more work next year. This weed is more annoying than others because it has prickly stem and leaves, which makes it very unpleasant to pull up. Now that you are sufficiently warned, how do you get rid of them?

I’ll walk you through the several things I have tried to get rid of them. Disclaimer: These are just techniques I have tried and seem to work…

Dig out the root:

As I stated earlier, it is extremely important to get the whole root. This can be an unpleasant and difficult task if you wait until the thistle grows. It is best to try to dig out the root when they are young.

Clip the Bloom/Seeds:

If you can’t get to all of the thistles when they are young, at least prevent them from spreading about your yard. The best way is to cut off the blooms before they spread their pesky seeds further.

Use a pesticide (like RoundUp):

This will help for thistles that are not mixed up among all your other plants. Unfortunately, most thistles are in the thick of things, so using a pesticide might kill the plants you want to keep.

Using a weed preventer (like Preen):

A weed preventer is effective when used in the spring before the plants really get going and putting down roots. It also works on most other weeds as well which makes it a very nice tool against weeds.

I hope I have helped you fight back thistle if you are struggling with that problem. If not, I hope I have convinced you to tackle the problem quickly.…

Weeds

Japanese Stiltgrass

Japanese stiltgrass looks a bit like a miniature bamboo. Not the tall variety that you get bamboo poles from but one of the smaller varieties. Stiltgrass only gets at most about 6-8 inches high but if not controlled, it can get up to two feet high.  To see a picture, click here.

Annual but Long-Lived Seeds

It is an annual, so that makes it slightly easier to deal with. However, the seeds can be viable for years, so if you pull them and they are close to going to seed, don’t compost them. You will regret it next year.

Remove by Weeding / Pulling

Luckily, they barely have any root structure at all so they are easy to pull up. They appear in the summer but grow extensively in the fall. Pull them before they can go to seed. Pull the weed after a rain or wet the area you will be weeding. This goes for any weed. It is much easier to pull them and have the roots come to when the soil is wet. When it is dry, they tend to snap off and leave the roots in the ground and you will just have to come back and do it all over again.

Stiltgrass likes moister and shady conditions which grass doesn’t do too well in. You can condition the soil to make it better for your grass so it can compete better with the stiltgrass. You could also help things by doing some pruning of trees in the area to get more sunlight to the ground.

If the soil is too moist, core aeration can help. Also, once the stiltgrass is pulled, you should put down something to prevent the seeds from germinating. A natural product is corn gluten which should be put down in the spring. Or you could use Preen. You might want to retreat after 3 months with either Preen or the corn gluten.…

Trees

Tree Services – i.e. Giant Weeds

You might think of trees as giant weeds. At least some trees fit this category and all can in some circumstances. Besides my own knowledge, I spoke with Tree Services Annapolis, a firm we have used and highly recommend to get some additional insights.

One of the worst culprits are mulberries. A few are native but most could be considered an invasive species brought in to provide food for silk worms. The invasive gypsy moth was brought into the US to breed with silk moths at the same time and some got loose and started eating everything in site like a grade B horror movie.

Mulberries end up everywhere because the birds love the fruit and where ever a bird is flying when it poops is where a tree might start growing. Particularly at the base of trees and bushes where birds have been sitting in the branches. It can be difficult to see the mulberry growing beneath a bush until it gets fairly large.

The problem with mulberries besides their pervasiveness is their root system. Even when very small, they have amazingly large tap roots for their size.  Most mature trees put out roots horizontally about the same distance as that covered by their canopy. Mulberry roots seem to go forever horizontally. We had a large old (and ugly) one taken down. We had the company grind the stump. The main roots that came out from the stump were quite large and went in all directions. No way it could have been done except with a stump grinder.

Tree Removal

Unless it is very small and you are fairly handy, it is better to get a professional to remove a tree. Especially if it is near a house or the street. It may be that the tree died and needs to be removed, or it just doesn’t make sense where it is or is crowding other trees that are more desirable. We bought our house from a woman in her 90s. As we got to understand the layout of the property we realized that a lot of trees were voluntaries. In other words, they weren’t planted, they just grew where their seeds fell.  Some were crowding out the original trees, others roots were destroying walkways etc.

It is fun to watch the professionals take down a tree. They climb up and carefully tie off a limb and then carefully cut while people on the ground pull on the rope attached to the limb to control where and how the limb falls. Quite an art to do it an not get injured or killed.

Tree Pruning vs. Tree Trimming

Generally you want professionals to do a pruning and not a trimming. With trimming you just take a trimmer, kind of like a hedge trimmer and trim and shape the tree. But this only deals with the ends of the branches and you get forking where ever it is cut. Pruning is selectively taking out branches or forks of branches. This can open a tree up and get more air flowing through to prevent mildew and disease. It also give the tree a more natural look. Trimming can potentially have the opposite effect.

When you cut a branch, you also need to do it the right way. It used to be that people would cut the limb off as close to the trunk as possible. The problem is that branch tissue and trunk tissue are different and there is a barrier where they meet. You might think of it like the blood brain barrier. If a branch gets diseased, this barrier prevents it from spreading to the tree. But if you cut too close and damage that barrier, it can allow disease to get into the trunk and compromise the health of the tree.

Tree Health

One of the most important thing for tree health is to have well balanced, healthy soil. A good tree services company can test the soil and determine what minerals and other nutrients need to be added to the soil to help the tree. If a tree does get sick, the sooner it is looked at by a professional the better since it is much easier to treat early in the disease progression.…

Weeds

Creeping Charlie Ground Ivy

Creeping Charlie / Ground Ivy

Creeping Charlie is a perennial that can be difficult to control. It generally stays low to the ground and puts out shoots or stems along the ground which root at spots along the vine or stem. It will sometimes go up if it has something to support it. It is evergreen and considering that it is in the mint family, it is not surprising that when crushed it smells somewhat minty.

If you are into brewing beer, you might want to encourage its growth. The ancient Saxons used to to brew beer. It is European and was brought to North America for medicinal reasons and is now found in almost the entire United States.

The stems are squarish and the leaves are round and scalloped. It gets into grass in shaded areas, preferrably moist and then expands to sunny areas. It is also happy in flower beds and can become a quite dense mat. It spreads in two ways, rhizomes and seeds.

The vines have nodes which is where the leaves grow from. If the node touches the ground, it will sprout roots. If you then pull the vine and it breaks and leaves those roots in the ground, it just starts growing a new plant.

Controlling / Killing Ground Ivy

To control it, use a broadleaf herbicide. The University of Maryland Extension program suggests one with several active ingredients. Particularly look for the ingredient triclopyr which is supposed to be more effective.  They say that two applications are usually necessary and that they should be done 14 days apart.

Another website says that the only effective herbicides for Creeping Charlie are ones that have dicamba. Apparently even this herbicide is only effective if done at the right time of the year. If you apply in late spring or summer, it will only stall its growth and not kill it. They recommend treating it in early fall when it is growing most actively. The idea is that it will weaken the Creeping Charlie enough that the winter weather will finish it off.

Here is the prescription for when you do do this. Cut the grass and wait three days. This will cause the ground ivy to put out more leaves and take up more of the herbicide. Once you have treated it, wait another 3 days before cutting the grass again.

In flower beds you can get rid of it by hand pulling (best after rain or watering). Or you can smother it which can be done with newspaper or mulch or both.

Good luck!…

General

Yew Tree Story

This isn’t about weeds. Just a funny story I thought you would like. One night around midnight my daughter and I heard a crash and a rumble. My wife and other daughter were asleep and didn’t budge. My daughter came in and said, “Did you hear that? What do you think it was?”

Since we had had an earthquake about a year before that was the first thing I thought of. We live not too far off a main street and the earthquake have felt like a parade of tractor trailers rumbling by. But it didn’t really seem like an earthquake or trucks rumbling by. So the two of us went outside to see if we could figure out what it was.

We looked around for a bit and didn’t see anything obvious. We had gone out the back door and looked around and up and down the alley. Just as we were about to go back in mystified, I looked out to the street in front of the house and realized something was funny. Why we hadn’t gone more to the front of the house I don’t know.

But, I noticed that there were two bright lights shining through a large yew bush/tree in the front left corner of our property. As we got closer, we realized that the lights were headlights shining out from the middles of the yew and that the car was on its side. Not your normal day to day occurence.

The driver climbed out of the window that was facing up and seemed to be OK. I watched the police give him a sobriety test and he passed with flying colors, so not drunk or stoned. I think he fell asleep at the wheel. He narrowly missed hitting a large tree. If he had hit that he might not have lived. It has made me more cautious about driving while I am tired.

According to the police the driver kept changing his story and it didn’t make much sense. He claimed that someone cut him off. Wrong. The road in front of the house is two lanes each way. He was in the lane towards the middle of the road. You could tell because of the skid marks which clearly went from that lane across the curb lane, up over the curb, across our neighbor’s yard and into our yew bush.

Not this was no ordinary yew bush. It had probably been planted in 1930 when the house was built. I was about 20 feet high and 20 to maybe 30 feet across. The trunk was at least a foot in diameter (diameter not circumference) at the base before it split into different branches which were also sizeable. The car had sheared it off at the base. Luckily for him, I think the large branches had acted as cushioning.

We were amused when we spoke to his insurance company and found out that he had neglected to mention to them that he had ended up on his side in a bush. He had apparently greatly minimized what had happened.

Although we miss the magnificent yew bush, it worked out allright. The insurance money from his company paid for removal of the mess and planting of arbor vitae as a new screen. Huge old azaleas that hadn’t seen much light in probably decades started to thrive again. This spring they were spectacular. One is probably 8 feet high and about the same across and was just covered in blossoms.…

Weeds

Purslane

Purslane’s scientific name is Portulaca oleracea. This one is interesting because it can be seen as an invasive weed or something great to eat. It is native to India and Persia and has spread to many places around the world. In some cases it spread by accident, but other times it was spread on purpose because many people like eating it and brought it with them to plant.

Purslane has fleshy leaves and stems. Almost reminiscent of aloe plants or other succulents. The University of Illinois Extension program has a nice article about purslane which was one of the sources for this.

Purslane as Weed

Now, if you want to control it and consider it a weed, the first thing to know is that it is an annual. Therefore it is critical to not let it go to seed. Even if you leave some of the plant, get the flowering portion. The seeds can remain in the soil for as much as 40 years and still be able to grow. During the growing season, it can sprout from sections of stem as well. So if you chop it up and leave it there, bad move, you will just get more purslane.

It likes a soil temperature of 90 degrees or more. Therefore it tends to germinate in June and on into the summer. Pre-emergents like Preen are effective for about 3 months. So many people put Preen on first thing in the spring and then forget to spread it again in June or July. This gives purslane and other plants a foothold.

Purslane as Food

Purslane used to be eaten commonly and in many parts of the world still is. Mother Earth News has a nice article about it as a food and health food. It has started to make a resurgence in restaurants that are into local produce and in farmer’s markets. It is high in Omega-3, so it is very healthy and beneficial to eat.

Purslane has a lemony flavor and because of the fleshy leaves and stems is crunchy. When it is young, it is quite good in sandwiches and salads. It can also be stir fried and used in place of spinach. If you make pesto, try mixing some in to that too.

Purslane as Health Food

You will wonder why more people don’t eat purslane when you find out what is in it, which is rather remarkable.

It has more Vitamin E and Omega-3 fatty acid (alpha-linolenic acid or ALA) than any other plant. If you think spinach is good for you, purslane has 6 times as much vitamin E. And what about carrots and beta carotene? Purslane has 7 times as much! And if that is not enough, it is also has magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, phosphorus, and vitamin C in abundance.

The human body doesn’t produce vitamin C or essential fatty acids. They must be eaten and the current American diet high in processed foods has no where near enough Omega-3 which has been linked to increasing heart problems and other health issues.…

Weeds

Lesser Celandine

Another invasive weed that is difficult to control is Lesser Celandine. It is native to Europe and West Asia and is in the buttercup family. Wish they had kept it to themselves. It does have a pretty little yellow flower, but it gets into everything.

Due to the fact that people used it to treat hemorrhoids, it used to be known as pilewort. In German, the word for it translates as Scurvyherb because the leaves are high in vitamin C and it was used to treat scurvy.

The good thing about it is that it comes out early and dies back early. You might have a chance of eradicating it when you first get it if you are diligent about weeding. But once it gets a foot hold, it is almost impossible to get rid of. When weeding, make sure to get as many of the underground tubers as possible. Also, get to it before it dries up and drops its seeds.

Lesser celandine likes wet areas but will do fine in drier areas. You can almost forget about getting it out of wet areas but there is a chance in drier areas. Test the pH of the lawn or the garden bed. If it is low, spread ash, and put a heavier load on the areas with lesser celandine.

There are also natural broadleaf herbicides that has iron as its main ingredient and works well on celandine. One is named IronX.

Also, because lesser celandine loves water, don’t overwater. Another thing you can do is to put down Preen early in the spring. That will help prevent the tubers from the prior year from sprouting and coming up again. It won’t be perfect but should improve things year to year, until eventually you should have it under control if not completely removed.…