Your worst enemy

What's the worst weed in your gardens?

Mine is grasses. Especially that kinds that has runners underground. It even gets into hanging baskets.

If Round Tailed Ground Squirrels were a weed...

Grass is my worst weed.

But ground squirrels are still my worst enemy. I don't care how cute they are, I want them to move to Timbuktu. (Sorry Timbuktubians, I'm sure you have enough things to worry about!)

Yellow woodsorrel pops up everywhere all summer long and the white clover is taking over our lawn.

Bachelor Buttons, hate them and just can't rid myself of them, of course along with the crabgrass which I can't spray cause everything is already planted too close together.

Anything with stickers, goatheads, thistles, and one particularly nasty one that I don't know the name of! It has a fleshy leaves, kind of sage green, and it doesn't matter how small it is when I try to pull it... it fights back... my poor fingers!

The ones that really blow are the ones that you just can't spray because they're growing at the base of plants. Round Up works pretty well otherwise. My mom found one that's supossed to work even better than RU and I think it does the job. I'll have to check and see what the name was.

Bindweed ugh, that stuff has roots miles deep. I might be exaggerating a little.
Mobi

Dandelions are a pain but DH manages to keep them out of the grass. In the front garden - some kind of creeper with hair-thin roots that I'll never get unless I just replace the dirt, some type of thistle that's relatively easy to dig out where they are but they grow incredibly fast, the usual variety of unknown sun-lovers along the driveway, and last but certainly not least - pokeweed. I've been pretty successful at keeping them under control as I find them, but my neighbor just started getting them last summer. I offered to dig them out for her but she decided she likes them (for now). I can keep them under control here and there but I don't know how successful I'd be if she asks me to help get rid of a mini forest when they start getting too big or taking over. I'm hoping it's sooner than later. For now I just hold my breath and close my eyes when I walk past them.

Bermuda grass that got here with some daylilies a couple of years ago... I had to completely empty a bed, pick through all the roots to make sure there was no bermuda in it and replant in a different area. We've sprayed that bed with roundup like 6 times, and it just keeps coming back....

Spiderwort.

bermuda grass! That's what I was talking about. I didn't know the name.

1) Bindweed ( Got this from a load of "well rotted manure" Bindweed seeds can live for like 50 years)

2) Artemesia 'Oriental Limelight' (I actually planted this once and paid for it since)

3) Dandelions ( Stirred up a bunch of these seeds when we built our house and relandscaped)

4) Sweet Clover (It's just everywhere!)

5) Lupines reseeds everywhere and has roots like clover)

6) Columbine ( reseeds everywhere)

7)Undesirable grasses (bermuda, quack, etc.)

8) Pigweed (this grows in the driveway, sidewalk cracks and everywhere)

We also have some canadian thistle and leafy spurge in the area. I have dug some canadian thistle out of our yard, but so far we are leafy spurge free. Both are noxious weeds here.

would you believe I've had to pull up oak tree seedlings from all the acorns that fell. That's not my worst weed, I just wanted to mention it, because i thought it was so strange. You pull up the little stem, and there's an acorn attached to it. lol

I don't know what the weed is called, but our back yard is full of these little white flowers, that close at night. Also there is something that smells like onions, but I can't figure out where it is. lol

The onion smell is probably onion grass.

Yes those little white flowers sound like bindweed to me too. They have really deep roots and the more you pull them the more they spread. the only thing that gets them is roundup. Luckily, this last summer is really dry so they haven't come up to bad this year.

Mobi

The property next door is badly neglected and ignored. But don't the sprinklers still come on every day to keep the darn asparagus fern alive that's threatening to envelope the entire neighborhood! I have cut and hacked and yanked until my hands are bloody and full of thorns and it still manages to grow, prolifically. I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I have a bottle of poison and have been climbing the fence to spray it a couple of times a week now for 2 weeks but even that isn't working. It's not as if anybody cares about it and I defend my actions. It's trying to choke out my moonflowers and morning glories and I intend to win.

grass and those lil bunches of clover!

Creeping crud vine, so called because I hate it and it gets into everything. Maple tree seedlings are pretty bad too.

Well, I hate those Dandelions! Oh yeah, and I have some of that "wait a minute vine" *smile* so called cause when it gets hold of you, you say "Hey, wait a minute!"

Lack of time to deal with all of the above!

Blackberries are the worst. Even round-up won't kill it. It just keeps coming back, and it's vicious stuff.

Next is what I call 'velcro weed', aka sticky willy. That stuff is just annoying.

I get lots of oak 'weedlings' too, jdee. They are easy to manage, just pull 'em up. Or whack 'em down. But it's odd to spot one growing in the center of a clump of lilies or something.

Cheri'

That doesn't look like the same flower we have here, but dh spread out some weed and feed, and I don't see them anymore. I didn't know that stuff really worked.

Good question..I hope no one minds if I take this general idea and make it into an upcoming pollbooth question ;o)

Jdee:

I think you may have clover. Does the flower head look like a little white ball?

Toni

That's awesome Terry! I don't mind at all.

Don't you all wish they had regulations in place when the US was being settled? If they knew then what we know now!

It looks like a tiny white daisy. I think. But I do also have clover. I used to have those orange daylily looking flowers, but they were pretty easy to get rid of.

OXALIS!! and of course crabgrass. The worst flower for me was calendula. Took me years to get rid of the stuff. (Now if I could figure out a way to croak my neighbor's cape honeysuckle......)

Hey frogsrus ... don't you know you can't kill honeysuckle? That's almost impossible! Ask anyone from the south!

I hate nutgrass with a passion. It seems like we never get rid of it--keeps coming back with a vengence. We sprayed with round up and covered the area with garden fiber cloth then mulch---aargh--now its emerging thru the cloth. Sheverne

Poison ivy is the worst. I can't garden in the back yard yet, because I'm highly allergic, and nothing will work for me except the shot. My husband has been trying to get rid of it since we got married, and it keeps coming back. This year, if he can get some free time, he's going to kill it out of our neighbor's yard. She said it was ok. She's a retired lady, and her son is allergic to it, so I think she'd be thrilled when it's finally gone.

frogrus, are you trying to get rid of it at the source? If they'll let you, you should cut it down to the ground and put round up into the stubs.

I'm found myself immune to Poison Ivy over the years. I didn't used to be when I was younger, infact I regularily jumped into patches to excape the camp counslers. I was sort of a terror...

You can hire people to come in and spray??? for poison ivy.

Vinca, Spiderwart, Johnson grass, And cheap labor hired by lawn companies that dont know if you weed-eat the bark off of Japanese Maples it kills them.

No body has mentioned dollar weed yet.I find that it is just as bad as mint.

I pulled one of those flower weeds, and took a picture. This is the first one I've seen since hubby spread the weed and feed over the yard. There used to be a sea of these all over my backyard. They close up during the evening and night time, but through the day, my yard was almost white with them.

For a weed it sure is pretty! I wish my weeds were pretty.

T.

I sure wish that weed and feed had worked for us! The only thing it did was feed the weeds LOL!

Yes, I think people are one of the major "weeds" to contend with in the garden. I don't think I've actually had a weed mow over a plant yet.

Oh no. Is this not a weed?

Actually, I normally don't mind weeds in the yard. We have so much shade that the grass doesn't grow in spots, so anything green is welcome. These flowers were just all over the place.

Well, that's definitely not bindweed. Phwew!

I have no idea what it is, but it must be something that doesn't grow up her in polar bear country. LOL I've never seen it before.