weeding
It's the gardener's responsibility to decide which plants will be permitted to stay in the garden. Those that exhibit bad behavior, the ones that are in the wrong place or are simply too homely must be forced out. Some don't go easily though and it's hard to find tools to get the job done.
I have an especially hard time getting rid of bermuda grass in my flower beds. I dig it out when I am creating new beds, but I have found that bermuda roots go deep and eventually it will show back up. When that happens, I usually take a steak knife that I keep with my tools and cut the roots off as deep in the soil as I can. I use the same tool on hackberry and pecans when I let them get too large to just pull out. The steak knife lets me get down deep with minimal disturbance to the soil and other nearby plants.
Many of my gardener friends are using roundup these days to kill grass and other weeds. I have not had that good of luck with roundup. It seems to take several applications and I have had some bad experiences. I know that it is supposed to only kill the plants with which it comes into direct contact. But despite my best precautions some of my favorite plants have died that were close to where I was spraying weeds.
Another reason I don't like it is that we grow food in our garden. Considering the amount of chemicals that are probably in the food we eat in restaurants or buy in groceries, it is probably silly to try to keep our small garden organic, but we do.
Posted by Bill Hopkins on July 1, 2003 09:52 PM
