What to do with quack grass?

Greetings Wise Ones!

Help!!

This stuff drills holes in cement!

I'm down to Roundup. Does anyone have any better ideas?

How many years before it goes away?

Blessings on your garden,
Elf

You can do a search for how to control this using this- Elytrigia repens

I battle this garbage plant every single year and seem to do nothing but run around the yard spritzing them with happy juice every time I see them coming up. Year in and year out I am dealing with quack grass. Hit it with anything that will kill it. My happy juice of choice these days is fluazifop. You can order it online under the name of Fusilade.

My fears in continuing to use Round Up are that it will sooner or later become resistant. I've been trying different products on a rotational basis but anything that kills it puts a smile on my face.

I'll try the fusilade! Thank you!

Most of the time I mention quack, people just look at me as if I'm from Marse. I've never seen anything like it. Last year I lost a bunch of iris. It ignors them and bores right through the middle of them abd kills them dead!

I began trenching this year. That's a pain. My garden is a labrynth kind of meditation garden. Next year I'm hoping to be able to hardscape the paths. This stuff is evil!

My there certainly are a lot of people registering from Baltimore MD lately. Seems as if it's one after the next. Must be a run on DG from Baltimore. Really neat user name you have. How did you select it?

I like labyrinths. Have you any photos of your meditation garden?

I too am battling quack grass. In fact it strangled out almost all the new perennials I planted last year. The roots are like wire. I did lay plastic on it for a few weeks and that did seem to cook it a bit but not enough. I was told that Roundup will work. Best to do it when it's hot, let it dry and then pray for rain or water it because that makes the roots really drink it up. I was also told that a week after it dies back it's safe to plant. Does this make sense? Oh and no, it wasn't the Roundup salesman that told me that!

When using RoundUp, best to use it mid to late morning when weather reports forecast temps above 60F but below 80F for the next week or so. Once it dries, it doesn't much matter whether or not it's going to rain or not to the best of my knowledge. That's a foliar application.

RoundUp will work on the Quack Grass but it's not as target specific so it will kill just about everything else you spray. You might want to consider Poast or Fusilade.

Varying reports on when the coast is clear to plant in an area treated with glyphosate. I generally wait about 2 weeks.

Thank you Equilibrium. I will check out the other two you mentioned.

Yes. the actual grass killers work so much better. I use them in my iris beds and spray to my heart's content knowing none of the Iris are going to get hammered. I just love watching over the next two weeks as the grass slowly but surely turns to the color of straw. Makes my heart skip with joy as I watch all that grass dying and then I rip it out by the fistfulls with glee. Did I mention I hate Quack Grass.

Forgot to comment that if you are going to try to "cook" quack grass again (say that three x real fast), you would need to solarize quite a bit longer than a few weeks if your intent is to fry it beyond recognition.

My intent was to fry it, but my patience has run out so I am going the more violent way! :) It is the most horrible stuff I have ever dealt with. Well and that Snow on the Mountain I thought was so pretty. It will get the Roundup!

If the below link takes you to what you're calling Snow on The Mountain, you should add your experience in PlantFiles here http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/221/index.html

This is what I'm calling Snow on the Mountain but it doesn't look like any of the pictures. As you can see it's flower looks similar to Queen Anne's Lace. This thing spreads like crazy by runners.

Sure does look like Euphorbia marginata to me. That's one native plant that I removed. They don't call it Snow on the Mountain for no good reason. Beautiful plant when it is in its natural community. Planted as an ornamental without all the companion species that keep it in check... it can be a monster.

Editing to add-

Not Euphorbia marginata per greenthumb_OH! See her post toward the end of this thread on June 21!

americanwoman’s plant is a variegated form of Aegopodium podagraria which must also have the same common name as Euphorbia marginata. Aegopodium podagraria is definitely a formally identified invasive species and it's also formally identified as a noxious weed by quite a few states.

This message was edited Jun 21, 2007 3:02 PM

It would probably be good on a slope to keep erosion down, unfortunately I have no slope!

Well, I had the slope. I planted it. I mean... it was a native plant so what the heck. The day I did that could be the start of a whole thread titled "tell us some of your dumbest mistakes". That one was up there with some of my worst boo boos.

The funny part of this story is that it was planted next to my driveway by a neighbor. She was not a nice person and we had problems. I thought it was pretty, dug up a piece and you know the rest! I call it Estelle's Revenge. She died about five years ago but her "weed" still haunts me!

So what does quack grass look like? I've tried googling it but didn't find anything.

Thanks, that did help. I finally found a good picture here:

http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/gardenplants/weeds/index.html

Funny, though, all three plants pictured here are my biggest problems. Well...I guess thistle, too.

I didn't know that what I've been battling in the yard was quack grass.

If you can get yourself a nice long pair of rose gloves, thistle pulls up and out of the ground virtually effortlessly at this time of year. I've got a nice big pile of it outside from this weekend. It feels sooooooo good to uproot those.

I've got Convolvulus spp. here too. I recently noticed a proliferation of it so I'm hitting it hard. One that gives me a big headache is that lousy Equisetum arvense. They aren't kidding when they say that's hard to get!

Sorry, Convolvulus is Bindweed or rather that Morning Glory crap. I've got at least two here so that's why I typed spp.

My Snow on the Mountain is a type of succulent looking plant that I think is a Eupitorium(?)and I've had a hard time getting a good stand of it. It is coming up very spotty and I want a clump of it. It doesn't seem to transplant very well here in central MO.

I don't think I really know what Quack Grass looks like either.

You want a quackgrass pic? I can take one.

Ohhh, Quackgrass.... no problem. I can get lots of pics of that too! No shortage of that around by me!

I was going to take them at your house anyway.

Oh goodie, bring your wife and the kids. We'll have a barbecue and I'll hand out party favors of mini spritz bottles of Poast.

Poast! Nah, I really like Roundup QuikPro.

Oh goodie, we can have our own private little happy juice free for all. What fun!

Someone please just post some good pictures so I will know if I have it. I know we are fighting wild oats(cheat weed), some Johnson grass, crab grass, wire grass, and Giant Foxtail in the yarden. I got glycoside from the man who farmed the land until this year at wholesale price or sometimes buy a product from Fertiloam at a local garden center called Finale'that kills in 4 days. No joke, total burn down in 4 days but it is expensive.

http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/wildthing/quackgrass.htm
http://www.co.shawnee.ks.us/images/nwImages/targets/quackgrass3targ.jpg
http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/agrre.htm
http://www.forestpests.org/images/1536x1024/1357004.jpg
http://www.forestpests.org/images/768x512/1357002.jpg
http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/grasses/photos/quack_grass2.jpg
http://www.pharmakobotanik.de/systematik/7_bilder/coolpix/01080704.jpg

This is actually a great photo as it shows the "red"-
http://www.crocus.co.uk/pestscards/?comboID=61

Great magnification of seeds here-
http://www.kuleuven-kortrijk.be/facult/wet/biologie/pb/kulakbiocampus/images/lage%20planten/Elytrigia%20repens%20-%20Kweek/Elymus%20repens-06-kweekgras5-G6.jpg

Couchgrass is another common name for Quackgrass-
http://www.the-organic-gardener.com/weed.html

Good black line drawings here-
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ELRE4

These photos illustrate one of the reasons why this is such a beast to eliminate-
http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/iac/e1363/e1363v10.jpg
http://weeds.massey.ac.nz/images/course/couchB1.jpg

I think we do have some of it in the yarden. Thanks for the pictures.

I took a pic today. I describe it as a dusty green and floppy.

Tall fescue is a weed for this area also.

It's a toughie. Don't feel bad, many of us have a little here and there.

It's not in my yard silly ;)~

Braggart.

I killed off my lawn with the quack and tall fescue in it and reseeded it. It actually gets very few weeds in it with proper mowing,feeding and watering.

Wow Al! What kind of turf is that? And the big question, do you use anything on it? Or just organic or nothing?

Only inorganics for me - I hate carbon.LOL

No, it's mostly bluegrass with some perennial rye. It is fertilized 5 times a year, 2 treatments are Milorganite. No pre-m even. The most important steps are to get the new grass to come up thick and to mow high to keep the weeds out.

You know, we have a bag of Milorganite down in the basement. Last year the plan was to kill off what little turf is left and buy some of that no mow mix from Prairie Moon, but the year got away from me. I'm afraid what we've got here is mostly creeping charlie, wild violets, clover and of course dandelions. I don't mind the clover, but the creeping charlie crept over here from the neighbors and I think they should really keep it themselves! You and my husband could have quite a talk about the importance of keeping the lawnmower blade high, not scalping the lawn...lol....drives him batty when he sees some of these yards.

The photo that american woman has above looks like Bishop's Weed (Aegopodium podagraria). Someone quickly identified my specimen last summer. I had the variety that was all green. Here is a link so you can see how closely your specimen resembles this one in the Plant Files.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/106037/

Karin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~