For Linda! Weed of the Day: Yellow Nutsedge

Cyperus esculentus "Yellow Nutsedge" looks like a grass but is actually a sedge. I am basically unable to find any positive discussion of this plant, though I do think it is pretty. And it has a tenacious grip on life.

So here's the lowdown: Yellow Nutsedge is a perennial sedge that propegated via seed and tubers. Tubers are capable of propegating 1,900 plants and 7,000 additional tubers annually. Infestations are extremely difficult to eradicate. In this post I read on davesgarden.com (last post on page) the writer had tried for 20 years to get rid of it, without success.

Getting rid of it:

1) pull seedlings before they develop tubers.

2) Do not allow seedheads to survive.

3) Put down HEAVY barriers, such as thick rubber mats. Nutsedge will grow through normal weed barriers, and through many other things, including cement.

4) Dig out tubers, which grow up to 18" below surface of soil (making soil solarization a pointless exercise). This will have to be repeated according to accounts I have read.

5) Use chemicals. Since Yellow Nutsedge is impervious to Roundup or any other weedkiller available through retail, I recommend hiring a professional. However, due to the tubers, applications must be repeated yearly.

I still think it's kinda pretty. In the wild, turkeys feed on the seeds, and pigs (another ineradicable pest) root for the tubers.

Let's Talk About Noxious Weeds

I took this pic on the path above Goat Rock Beach last year; it features thistles, those ultra prickly weeds that you just don't want to mess with unless you're wearing rhinocerous-hide gloves. I don't know what kind of thistle they are, as there are about 20 zillion different species of thistles. I'm posting this pic as an example of how beautiful even the most noxious of weeds can be.

Over the last week I have seen a lot of references to 'noxious weeds' in my online weed research. 'Noxious' seems like overkill to me, I mean, it's just a plant, right? Then I noticed that often this designation is followed by draconian efforts to remove said weed, efforts which are frequently in vain.

Here's a definition I found on the BLM weed website: a noxious weed is any plant designated by a Federal, State or county government as injurious to public health, agriculture, recreation, wildlife or property. (Sheley, Petroff, and Borman,1999). In other words, it's a plant that fucks shit up for people. I suspect that as this is a legal distinction, it affects what treatments one can legally apply to said weed in order to remove it.

Also, a noxious weed can be defined as a plant growing where it is not wanted while at the same time being persistent, spreading, invasive, and difficult to remove. In other words, it's a real obnoxious pain in the ass, hence the use of the pejorative 'noxious.'

References

Sheley, R.,J. Petroff, M.. Borman, 1999. Introduction to Biology and Management of Noxious Rangeland Weeds, Corvallis, OR.

I keep forgetting

It's funny how there can be one simple thing that one fails to remember again and again. For example, I keep forgetting to give Linda this present that I have had for her since her birthday in November. I don't know how many times she has been over and I just don't think to give it to her!

Maybe she will read this blog entry and then remind me about her present the next time she visits.

Weed of the Day: French Broom

French Broom, or Genista monspessulana, is a pretty bush, ranging from 7-10 feet tall, with soft green leaves, and in spring it is covered with small, cheerful yellow flowers.

It is actually a memeber of the legume family, and makes little pea pods for its seeds. I didn't see anything about it when I looked, but if it is a member of the pea family, then it probably adds nitrogen to the soil, yes? Or fixes it, or whatever.

It is from the Mediterranean, and people used to make brooms with it. I tried to make a broom a couple of years ago from one in my yard, but the leaves would fall all over the floor when I tried to sweep. Next time I'll remove the leaves beforehand.

It has been used a lot for erosion control, and in gardens, and from there it has escaped into the wild and naturalized itself. This is the "weed" part of French Broom; it is very aggressive and pushes out native shrubs like Coyote Brush and Rabbit Brush.

Leaves, seeds, and flowers are toxic. French Broom grows in dense stands that take over meadows (pushing out grazing animals) and shade out tree seedlings. They are oily and burn very hot, so supposedly they are a fire hazard, but (with apologies to all the manzanitas and chaparrals) what bush in California is not a fire hazard?

People get rid of it by hand pulling and by burning, and with herbicides. According to a study (click here for pdf file) by the California Exotic Pest Plant Council, the most effective way is to treat the plants with herbicide, then cut them down, and then burn the area.

Weed of the Day: Foxtail

Here is the common, invasive foxtail we are all used to seeing; it is actually a kind of barley. (Maybe everyone but me knew this already.) I'm not the best identifier, and there are a lot of grasses in the world, but I am pretty sure this is Hare Barley, Hordeum murinum, subspecies leporinum.

(hordeum is Latin for barley, lepidorinum means rabbit, I think)

Mostly when I see foxtail, all I think is keep the dog away! because the spiky dry seeds are like little barbed arrows that can burrow into dogs' ears and paws, causing infection and pain. Apparently they do the same thing to grazing animals like cattle, sheep, deer, elk, etc, and cause "lumpjaw" when the dried seedheads are eaten. But this is when the grass has dried, while it is green it is pretty innocuous.

Foxtail is tough. It is herbicide resistant, it can grow almost anywhere, it is a cool-weather annual grass that is short-lived and doesn't need much water, and it can take over the place! For control (and I do like to contain this one, simply because it is not local to my area-it's a European native-and can push out other grasses. And also because I don't like taking my dog to the vet to pull infected crap out of her ears.) Mow when seedheads are developed but still green, then solarize the seedheads. Or compost them, but only if you are a better composter than I and can count on your pile getting nice and hot and killing all the seeds. Or if this is a pastureland issue, then plow the grass under and reseed with something competitive.

Foxtail, like any other weed, does not exist in a vacuum of evil. I have to admire this grass for growing in the most dreary wastelands and finding a way to flourish almost anywhere. It also has been used for medicinal purposes: the Chippewa Indians used to make a poultice out of it for eye problems. According to another source, it is also useful as a diuretic, using a decotion of the plant.

The seeds are edible and can be cooked in porridge or ground into flour.

It can be used as a quick-growing ground cover to prevent erosion.

It is pretty.

But let's face it, it's a weed. The key words here are invasive non-native.

Instituting the Weed of the Day

Ever since I was a small child covered in oozing poison oak rash, I have been fascinated by weeds. These hardy, much-maligned plants can be beautiful, ugly, prickly, smooth, smell bad, smell great, be poisonous, be edible, in fact be about anything.

The only thing the group of plants known as weeds have in common is that they flourish whether we want them to or not. I like that! These hardy plants have plenty of spunk, and are often medicinal, or edible, or good for the soil, or provide protection and food for birds and animals. More and more often, proponents of permaculture and companion gardens urge gardeners to keep a "wild zone" near their cultivated areas so that the garden can benefit from proximity to weeds.

And I like them.

Today's Weed of the Day is the sow thistle, or sonchus oleraceus. The sow thistle grows to be about 3 or 4 feet tall, and has dandelion-like flowers; it is a bit prickly, but less so than prickly lettuce, and it is edible (but bitter). I have read that the young leaves are good in salads, and when eating older leaves or stems it is good to cook them in several changes of water.

Sow thistle is prolific, and will happily cluster anywhere that doesn't get mowed. Oh, and rabbits and pigs like to eat it! So if I ever get rabbits, I will have plenty of sow thistle to feed them.

Sometimes my sow thistles are literally covered in aphids; there are a couple of schools of thought on this: the anti-weed people think that sow thistles attract aphids into the garden and therefore we should douse these innocent plants in toxic chemicals to make them go away forever. Other people think that maybe the sow thistle is attracting the aphids away from the plants we want to protect; even better, there's the thought that these aphid colonies create a food source for predators like hoverflies, etc, attracting beneficial insects to the garden.

Finally, sow thistles are a food source for a number of species of butterfly larvae. So yay for the sow thistle!

I would love to hear comments from people about the sow thistle, or who have a favorite weed they would like me to feature.