Using herbicides in the garden

Alta Grade's picture

Please see following post for correction. This correction states the entire root of the dandelion must be pulled to prevent it from resprouting.

McDonough wrote:

Hoy wrote:

A special idea, Mark. Not unlike your wheelbarrow trough ;) How does it look like now btw?

Good color on the "semps" in spring, but the whole affair got weedy during summer, I tried to pull some weeds here and there, but many of the weeds are taprooted dandelions that seeded between the semp rosettes... I plan to extricate the perennial weeds in spring. The area my wheelbarrow planting was also ignored, as was my main Allium garden... this year with this new & crazy job, I had so little time in the garden that parts of the garden became disastrously weedy.

A small paintbrush used to carefully apply roundup to the leaves of weeds is helpful. In a tight spot, like your semps, I would use a razor blade to cut the taproot below the crown. Generally, I believe prevention is the best medicine. I put weed fabric down under my mulch and only cut holes in it where I actually plant. This works well for perennials and shrubs. The easiest way to weed bulbs is to let them go completely dormant then spray the weeds. This worked well until I decide I needed something to cover the bare ground. Snapdragons have seeded into the area where I grow Spring bulbs and now fullfill that need.

James