Editor's Note: Images are click to enlarge

We are now in the thick of the summer where beautiful plants are growing vigorously. It is also a wonderful time of growth for, you guessed it, weeds. I have previously touted the qualities of weeds that are worth celebrating, but now I would like to refer to the qualities that make them a weed.

Weeds are called such in part because they are invasive or have an ability to colonize areas where they don’t normally grow. There is another quality as well: they are usually non-native species and therefore have less natural competition or fewer creatures that eat them and keep them in check. Many beautiful wildflowers that have spread to the wrong place can become terrible weeds.

How do weeds seem to just show up in our gardens?

-Many times there are weeds in neighboring gardens or fields.
-Weed seed is notorious for effective methods of travel.
-The wind can carry the seeds (depending on the seed) for miles.
-Many times birds, animals, or pets are carriers of seed both inside and out of their bodies.
-We ourselves can inadvertently spread weed seed just by pulling out the weeds we meant to get rid of. 
-Weeds also spread prolifically through waterways.

What are some effective ways to get rid of weeds? Man has been working on this problem since he was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. There are many ways to weed, and, depending on your preference, time of life, and/or resources available, some ways will be easier than others. My practice of choice is just using my hands with my soil knife handy, just in case.

Here are some common methods (not a completely comprehensive list) to get those nasty weeds:

Herbicides

There are basically two kinds of herbicides: selective and non-selective. With selective you have your broadleaf killers (dicots are affected by this—meaning non-grasses). A good example of this is “2,4-D.”  With non-selective herbicides basically you get everything (although some things are still not affected as much). The poster child for these is Round-Up.

These chemicals are comparably safe to humans but should always be sprayed with at least long pants, long-sleeved shirt and gloves. Many labels are confusing with so many small words that aren’t the directions. However, if you read the label before you apply the herbicide, you will get better results due to your understanding of the methods and laws connected to your herbicide.

General rules for spraying conditions include obvious avoidance of rain or windy conditions. One rule that many people don’t know about most sprays is the principle of volatilization. When the temperature is above 80 degrees Fahrenheit the herbicide liquid can volatilize or evaporate and drift to the nearest cool surface (usually leaves of a plant nearby) even ten feet in the air and can travel much farther than that just above the ground! If your neighbor’s hedge starts dying after a hot day of you spraying you can bet there was some drift and guess what, you are responsible. Please, please be careful about this and spray when temperatures are cooler (morning or night). One way to decrease the possibility of drift is increasing the droplet size (i.e. go from mist to spray or spray to stream).

Mechanical

There are myriads of tools these days used for getting weeds out. There are digging tools that are large and small. Some of them turn the soil, some cut the weed just so, and some decrease your need for bending over. You can have them motorized or check out the newest cool tool on the infomercials. My only suggestion is ask someone who weeds a lot and see what they use. If they have one of these “miracle-weeder” tools and recommend it, go for it. It still might not work for you. Ask a garden center what they use (not just what they sell). The newest and the most expensive isn’t always the best. Sometimes grandpa’s hoe is the best weapon for the fight and has been for years. My father-in-law prefers using a hoe, and uses it masterfully.

Control/Prevention

There are three ways of controlling weeds:

Put down a barrier
Use a pre-emergent
Create a canopy

If you are creating a new garden bed that will be permanent, I recommend installing a weed barrier of sorts. You can use the geotextile fabric or plastic liner as a first line of defense. You will probably want to cover it with a type of landscape mulch or rock for aesthetics. This second layer also helps prevent weeds.

Many times weed seed still finds a way and grows through or around your barriers. This is where pre-emergent comes in. This is a type of herbicide that I didn’t mention earlier because it doesn’t really kill weeds. What it does do is prevents weed seed from germinating and many of these mild herbicides do not affect already-established plants.

The last method here is creating a canopy or natural barrier. If the plant material in your garden is healthily competing with the weeds eventually create a canopy where light and ground space do not exist. Weeds are competitive but you can fight fire with fire with very healthy plants or very vigorous ground covers. Remember that any space left with open dirt is just asking for weed seed to grow there.

So with all of this weed talk it is hard to finish this article without an allegory. I see our garden beds like our minds. We can plant good plants/thoughts there and sometimes invasive weeds blow in or insidious thoughts float into our garden beds.  Now, we can do things to prevent the weed seed from establishing even though we can’t change the patterns of the wind.  We can establish barriers to keep these thoughts out or from taking root. We can keep healthy good thoughts in so there is no room for the bad. If we leave these invasive thought/weeds in too long they will try to take over our mind. They will grow and then the worst of all they produce their own seeds. These seeds are ready to lead us toward greater temptations and more weeds are allowed in choking out the good thoughts/plants. If the weeds are left unchecked and no active role is taken in their prevention and control, they will take over. That is the natural man. That is the curse on this earth.

Let us get rid of these weeds and have happy minds and happy gardens…happy weeding!

Remember I love questions—send them to treesarelight@aol.com