Weed Control
Question from Tricia:
First I wanted to say I’m very thankful for your knowledge and expertise in this field that I have very little of. I met you once a few years ago at a horticultural society meeting, and purchased 2 of your books.
I would love nothing more than to spend time gardening everyday, but at this point in my life I have very little time. So I need help in figuring out how to set in place low maintenance landscaping. Lately I’ve been overwhelmed with weeds since the rains we’ve had. I have a 10 acre property in Alpine. And as you can imagine maintaining the grounds is an overwhelming task.
From my limited knowledge I think it would be best to plant good plants in the place of weeds to choke them out. But I don’t have a massive water system in place to handle all the areas. And I do not have an unlimited budget either.
Also there’s the rabbits and gophers to tend with. So far I found they don’t eat geraniums nor lantana, so I have been planting a lot of those.
Any ideas or suggestions? I would really appreciate it! Thank you so much!
Answer from Pat:
Weeds have been a severe problem for many gardeners this year and even for parks. Only yesterday I answered a query on this blog that concerned foxtail grasses growing in a dog park. Please look at my answer to that query. It sounds to me as though you have a very serious problem indeed with ten acres in Alpine plus a low budget and only a partial water system. My first suggestion is for you to contact the tree trimming companies in your area and ask them to empty their chipper materials on your property. Do not worry if the trimmings are from eucalyptus or acacia or whatever. These will not harm your property and even eucalyptus leaves will eventually rot. This will save the tree trimmers from going to the dump and it will provide you with a ready supply of free mulch to hold down weeds. I cannot suggest how to get laborers to spread the mulch. That is for you to decide, but I assure you there are people out there who need work and who would be willing to spread mulch all over your property for as little as $10.00 an hour. Visualizing the right help often helps bring them into your experience. You will need to provide trash cans, wheelbarrows and tools for spreading the mulch. You are certainly correct in wanting to have a plan of action and that is what I am providing here for you. But you can also write out your aims and then work towards them.
In a fire prone area organic, woody and leafy mulch can be a fire hazard. We can’t help that. Stone mulch such as gravel or pebbles are more fire resistant, but these do nothing to improve your soil and they cost money. Also, it is necessary to spread a weed-barrier or landscape fabric under these pebble and gravel mulches or they will gradually sift down into the soil. We often have to make choices based on which is the better of two alternatives, neither of which are perfect. In this case I believe that smothering out weeds with a thick layer of organic mulch is the best choice because weeds are a more severe fire danger. First use a weed-wacker to cut down the weeds, then rake up the dead bodies and trench-compost them as I described in my answer to the dog park lady, and finally cover the ground with a layer of 4 or 5 inches of mulch. This will take care of the weed problem for several years. As the years go by winter rains will gradually rot the mulch which will improve the soil on your property, but then you will need to then add another layer of mulch on top since weeds can once again find a foothold in the rotted mulch and improved soil.
Once having used this method to destroy weeds then you can plan what to plant. Your aim should be to shade the ground with plants so that weeds cannot grow in the solid shade beneath the plants. My suggestion is that you purchase a copy of my latest garden book which is called “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month.” Please see pages 298 forward and follow the suggestions for Creating a Fire-Resistant Landscape. On page 300 you will find an entire plant list for this landscape. Plant the plants for Zone 1 closest to the house, Zone 11 further distant from the house, and so forth, following the directions that are in the text.
Use a system of well-mulched pathways to lead you around the property and to and from the house. Pathways can also add structure and design to the garden. Paths should always lead somewhere, but they also help in upkeep of the garden. Decomposed granite is another good path cover if you prefer it to mulch.
Animal pests are a separate problem, but one of my daughters grew a great garden in an old lemon grove despite having all the pest animals present there. Domestic pets such as dogs and cats can help control them and trial and error in finding the plants that can withstand their predations. I suggest using the Black Hole Trap for gophers and wire enclosures to prevent animals from reaching vegetables in raised beds. (See my video on that subject on this blog.) See page 385 in my book for a discussion of gophers and how to use the Black Hole Gopher Trap. Purchase here: .http://www.amazon.com/Woodstream-Black-Hole-Rodent-Trap/dp/B0007O24US Do not buy the Victor Black Box Trap. It is in many stores but it does not work. Gophers in my garden just laugh at the Black Box Trap and pack it full of earth. In my opinion it is a gyp, but the Black Hole really works, often in 20 minutes after setting it. Always stuff the dead gopher back into the hole whence he came and then cover the hole and his body with earth to leave a message to other gophers “This lady means business!”
If you are unfamiliar with the plants in my plant lists, please look up each of them in Sunset Western Garden Book. I wish I could in my book have a photo and description of each one, but that is not the thrust or aim of this book. I have written another book like that which is the “American Horticultural Society Southwest SmartGarden™ Regional Guide,” now out of print but you can purchase it on this website or at Amazon or any used-book search. Many books and magazines provide much helpful guidance of good garden design.
If you follow the basic guidance in my book you will then have a plan of action for creating a fine landscape. All you have to do is draw out a basic plan and slowly put into action these recommendations. Close to the house, if desired you could create a succulent or desert garden which will require a minimum of irrigation. Be aware, however, that many succulents can freeze in Alpine, where you live. A good way to choose plants is to look around for plants that are growing and surviving in other gardens near you. This will give you an idea of plants to use. Further away from the house, many of the best choices are native plants, such as ceonothus, requiring little or no irrigation once established.
Please refer also in my book to page 340 and the section called “Fall Planting for Desert Dwellers and Gardeners in Hot Interior Zones”. Read that and then read the section called “Making a Garden is Like Baking a Cake” on page 341. This will show you how to design a good garden close to your home. Also see the section on page 368 on “California Native Plants.” The native plant expert Greg Rubin believes the best way to plant natives is straight down into the natural bare, unamended soil. In this case mulch is a negative factor if it gets down into the ground. So when planting natives, rake the mulch aside first and make sure none of it is buried in the native soil and do not bother to amend the soil with organics. Just plant in the natural soil the way it is and then pull back a little of the mulch on top of the soil. The best time to plant natives is in November. This gives you all summer to plan and do the mulching. Then you can commence planting in fall.
I hope this helps and that with these ideas in mind you will be able to slowly and effectively come to grips with the problem you have described to me. My hope is that you will conquer all difficulties and end up with a satisfying landscape.
Wow, thanks so much for your quick and very detailed reply!
That makes a lot of sense what you said about mulch. We were part of the Cedar Fire in 2003, which pretty much wiped out our whole property and valley here. We lost approx. 30 trees, a mobile home and more. Since then we built our home 5 years ago and had a landscaper put in a basic sprinkler system around the house. He also put mulch everywhere!
Now I understand why the weeds haven’t shown up except in the last couple of years.
Also we have many eucalyptus trees, and where the leaves fall there are no weeds. So we could probably make a lot of our own mulch, and spread it around in other areas. My concern was that the dead leaves would be a fire hazard, so we’ve been bagging and trashing them.
Mulching sounds like the way to go, it will help me buy some time until I can afford to expand our watering system and get good plants to grow.
Concerning the gophers, one of my dogs is a great gopher hunter! She waits patiently for them to pop up, catches them, kills them and gives them to my other dog to eat. Too funny. But no matter how many she takes out there are always more of them popping up everywhere. 🙁
I will continue to check your website and books for your awesome knowledge and insight.
Thank you again for your time and advise, it is much appreciated.
I am delighted to know that my advice was a help and inspiration to you to spread mulch, and I strongly recommend obtaining the stuff from the tree trimmers chippers since you need a thicker layer of mulch than just a layer of eucalyptus leaves can provide. People use this free mulch all over Rancho Santa Fe and they put a thick layer of it on most of the horse trails. I have used several truckloads of it myself through the years.
I would like to borrow your amusing dogs, so just send them trotting over in my direction. Tell them for me that I’m offering them a pleasant change of scene: A doggy vacation at the beach together with a certain amount of entertaining gopher hunting thrown in, no extra charge.
If your gopher-eating dog ever loses his taste for gopher meat, I suggest sticking the remains of the toothy ground-burrowing creatures back into the holes from whence they came. That should greatly diminish their numbers. Gophers abhor gopher graveyards.
Now is probably as good a time as any to talk about the mole and residential pest control. Their holes are kind of unsightly on our lawns and they can do a bit of damage to the root systems of our grass. They will also do harm to the roots of any of our garden plants. So we really need to find a way to get rid of them.
As you undoubtedly are aware, moles don’t eat plants; they eat bugs, grubs, and earthworms. However, they tunnel through moist lawns and vegetable gardens at root level thus disturbing roots and making ugly mounds and you are right they first get active now when the weather warms up in spring. Best way to get rid of moles is to own a good hunting cat or dog (dachshunds and Jack Russells are notoriously good hunters of gophers and moles.) Purchase two dwarf dachshunds and your animal pest problems will be gone forever including rats and voles. Next best control is to trap them. In my experience none of the spray-on commercial repellants work and nor do the supposedly repellant plants. Putting cat litter into moles burrows may discourage gophers better than commercial repellants for a while but it will not solve the problem. (Being an organic gardener, I do not believe in any chemical controls for killing grubs or control of moles.) I have a friend who swears up and down that Juicy Fruit chewing gum kills moles. He buys a whole package and chews each piece just long enough to get it smooth and tasty, then makes holes in several places in the active, fresh mole runs and carefully drops in the gum. He swears that moles eat the gum and that it kills them. I have heard this from several people. Other folks say it does not work, but maybe they don’t follow directions correctly. The gum has to land on the bottom of the run, it must still be fresh and juicy and not covered in dirt, and it must be an active run. If I had a mole problem this is what I would try first, but moles have not yet found the town in which I live. We had moles on the farm on which I grew up and we trapped them. I have gophers here in my garden and I trap them also with the “Black Hole” trap, which works like a dream. I have three of these traps. (NOT the Black Box which does not work!) I also use wire barriers installed underneath raised beds to keep gophers out. I suggested to one of my sons-in-law to put chicken wire on top of prepped soil before installing sod lawn. His was the only lawn in his neighborhood with no gophers. “Gopher wire” is smaller gauge than chicken wire and less prone to rust, but not available in all places and can also be installed under lawns, or used to line flower beds. One could conceivably line a flower bed or whole veggie garden with chicken wire or gopher wire and have no gophers or moles. I have heard of this being done but the wire must protrude a little all the way around like an enormous dish. Worth doing where critter problems reach the hair-tearing category.
May 18th, 2012
Thank you Tricia and Pat for airing and answering some of my concerns about my newly acquired 10 -acre property and home in Pala, California. It also is overrun by weeds and more weeds. In summer they are so dry and a real fire hazard. We have a water well but it is low to medium producing. We are trying to find an alternative to weed whacking every six months or more at almost a thousand dollars each time. Besides mulching, I don’t know what else to do to make the property more safe and useable. I think we eventually need to invest in some sort of machine that can cut weeds while going over rocks and stones in our decomposed granite soil.
I think if we had the financial ability, we would cover our acres in some sort of gravel or stone and leave only patches of bushes and trees. Until then, we sure could use some direction and hope.
Thank you for any help you might be able to give.
Your question outlines perhaps the most difficult scenario I have ever before been asked to answer as a horticulturist and agriculturist: How to remove weeds on ten acres of ground in Sunset climate Zone 19 with little money to spend or water to spare. Your problem appears to be three-fold: You need to get rid of the weeds, obtain more water, and also make some money to cover the expense. With ten acres of decomposed granite land there should be a way to make it pay, instead of being a place to pour money into and get nothing out of it. After reading your question I went for a walk up and down hills near my home and wondered what I would do were I in your shoes. I also wondered why your land is covered with weeds instead of chaparral? You may not even know its history, but my guess is that years ago, perhaps in the 19th century it was grazed by cattle who killed or ate all the native plants and once it was bare it filled up with weeds. It might even have been used for growing crops and depleted of everything except the rocks and decomposed granite soil, which as a matter of fact is a rich source of potassium and phosphorus. All it needs is nitrogen and water in order to grow good crops. If this land were mine and I had enough money to purchase a machine that could mow weeds on such rough land I would not use the money to buy that machine. Instead, I would purchase a breeding pair of goats. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2002-06-01/Want-Milk-Get-Goats.aspx Goats require water to drink but you have have enough for them. They eat anything and will be delighted to eat your weeds and give you milk in return as well as manuring your stony soil so it holds water better and will gradually become more productive. You can either drink the goat milk, which is extremely healthy, or you can make goat cheese of it, which is easy to make and will give you a small home business.http://www.shesimmers.com/2010/05/how-to-make-fresh-goat-cheese-at-home.html. There are a number of books and magazines that describe in detail the various ways of making goat cheese. Organic Gardening magazine last year devoted an entire issue to this subject. As your flock of goats grows in size you can sell the cheese at your local farmers market or simply to your neighbors. You do not mention if your property is fenced, but if not, you would need to tether the goats and move them often as they will be chomping away and running out of weeds to eat. Additionally, you will be expecting some young ones and the size of your flock will thus increase. You will need books and instruction on raising goats, but goats are well adjusted to your climate and are easier to raise than sheep.http://blackmesaranchonline.com/animals/goat101/getting_started-text.htm You will get much better milk and cheese if you feed your goats good hay or pellets, but the point is, start slow and eventually you will be able to afford a fence, better food for the goats, a pasture, a deeper well that will give you more water, or a second well, all on the profits from your goats. You can even eat some of the meat. Before you have enough money for a pasture and water to irrigate it, you could plant your land with white California beans. These sprout with the rains and grow without irrigation. They will improve your soil and also feed your goats,—and yourselves as well— tiding you over to more prosperous times. There is one source of revenue from goats that I have failed to mention. You can rent them out as a flock to get rid of undergrowth and reduce fire danger in canyons and under trees. They eat all foliage and some twigs lower than 3 feet. They have been used effectively on Palomar Mountain and other parkland for this purpose. I have often thought that Southern California cities with bad fire danger caused by a build-up of dry undergrowth—thick tinder for fires in canyons should use flocks of goats to clear out the undergrowth and make their communities safer. The great benefit is this does not kill the plants, it just cleans out the understory.
I am happy to hear the suggestion of eucalyptus as mulch. A friend of mine just received a gift from a tree trimmer – a nice thick layer of pine and eucalyptus mulch. She recently removed all her lawn, but with no plan in place, weeds took over. He said this mulch will burn the weeds.
If I were able to receive the same mulch, would you recommend it under my trees in a large bed surrounding my yard?
Also, I have a smaller bed with my water loving plants such as azaleas and camellias. Would this work there too?
I have used eucalyptus and pine mulch on all these places and it’s fine. However, pine alone along with pine needles is best for azaleas and camellias due to greater acidity. But all wood chips are acid. Eucalyptus won’t hurt as long as not dug into the ground. It is important to put fresh mulch under camellias and azaleas after their feeding that follows the flowering season. i.e.: when flowering season is over. This helps cut down on blossom blight on camellias. (Always pick up dead blossoms as soon as they fall!) Best to mulch after the flowering season of camellias has finished, so fertilizer goes on ground first. Water in. Then mulch over. Do not fertilize camellias while they are in bloom.