What's this?

Whatever it is, its days are numbered.


I still have no idea what this is. I'm praying it's not poison ivy, which is entirely possible given the huge specimen growing down the street. :(

I zapped it with the Roundup today, just in case. It is sprouting up all over one of my flowerbeds.

Anybody out there have any clues as to what this might be?

Thoreau on Weeds

Spent some time in the yard today building beds, planting seeds, and pulling weeds, which made me want to share this little passage from Walden:

Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds — it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor — disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. That's Roman wormwood — that's pigweed — that's sorrel — that's piper-grass — have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t'other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector,(12) that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

Poison Ivy in the Fall

Someone I know identified this plant growing near (but not on) our property as poison ivy. The tree that it its using for support is taller than a two story house. The vine itself has grown up to about two thirds of the height of the tree.



The pictures were taken in fall, before the plant dropped its leaves, which scattered everywhere.

Unfortunately, the vine grows in somebody's front yard, near the street, where the leaves fall all over the sidewalk.

Yet another mystery weed.

This is popping up all over the place in one of my flowerbeds. Anybody have any ideas?

When you have a little lawn in your winter weeds...

Someone at the home improvement store recommended a liquid post-emergent broad-leaf herbicide for Southern lawns over a granular one for this time of year.

Randy Lemmon, host of GardenLine, strenuously recommends against those very tempting weed-and-feed treatments, as in the long run they can damage other plants, including trees. Click here to see his lawn care schedule. The herbicide tips are toward the bottom. Or, if you prefer, he has an alternate Organic lawn care schedule. In both the organic and synthetic schedules, he recommends that a pre-emergent herbicide be applied in November, to prevent the rather astonishing weed growth that takes place in December and January if nothing is done. Ooops. I guess we'll do better next year. :)

Seasonal Allegy notice:

My doctor tells me that Ragweed (ambrosia artemisiifolia) is really bad right now.

Keep those antihistamines handy!


Informational websites:

Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
USDA Plants profile for ambrosia artemisiifolia

Noxious Weeds and Invasive Plants

Before getting too excited about an introduced species, check your state's Noxious Weed list, to make sure you aren't planting anything you shouldn't.

Here is the list for Texas.

For other states, click here.

Another Mystery weed.

This is why it is always good to dig up established weeds. You never know if they are spreading under ground when you aren't looking.

There were two of these. I wasn't even able to get all of the underground roots, as they went deep into the ground, but I hope I got enough to keep it from coming back.

Here is the first, and the smaller of the two after I first dug it up


Here it is again (much later after I dug up more of the roots, hence the wilting). I had to take it out in pieces


Here is a larger specimen of the same kind, in the ground.


I'd love to find out what this is. The two were not connected to one another, though they appeared to be perfectly capable of spreading underground. Their roots went fairly deep, and had a really good grip on the soil.

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Update: In an effort to satisfy my curiosity about this plant, I posted a picture of it on the GardenWeb forums at iVillage. Click here to read the responses. The general consensus so far is that it is a tree seedling. On the one hand, this kind of makes me wish I had moved or potted it, rather than killing it and digging it up. On the other hand, I don't know if that would have been a good idea either. Live and learn. :)

Emersonian Wisdom

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Invasion of Bermudagrass...

This is what crab grass looks like when it goes to seed.

This is how bermuda grass looks.

This is what the UC Davis Integrated Pest Management Program says about how to tell the two apart:

The flowering stems of crabgrass are similar to those of bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon), but the spikelike branches on the flowering stems of bermudagrass originate at the same point whereas those on crabgrass originate about 1/8- to 1/4-inch apart at the end of the stem.

By the way, unless you live in an area where summer is the dry season (not the case here on the Gulf Coast), their advice for controlling bermuda grass may not be applicable to you.

This is what I have in my lawn:



And it's not going away, despite the fact that we used a lawn weedkiller/fertilizer treatment. I couldn't get any pictures of it going to seed, but when it does, it looks more like Bermuda grass than crab grass.

It's in my lawn and it's invading my flowerbeds. Ugh. I hate this stuff.



Even more interesting, this that I dug up today looks suspiciously like nut grass:



Goody goody. And I hear mulching does not slow it down.

Oh, yes, and after pulling this stuff up from my beds for weeks, I found out today that pulling is a bad idea. Whoops. :)

This is why it pays to look up weeds.

Nutgrass control information.

The Mystery Plant

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Update: I e-mailed Betsy Dunphy at the Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac Information Center. She says it is not poison ivy (whew!) and looks like a type of bean, such as the Hyacinth Bean. Thanks, Betsy!
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There is no poison ivy in coastal California. Poison oak, yes. I can recognize that pretty easily.

Poison ivy is another matter. In the first place, I haven't grown up around it. In the second, there are so many subtle variations of it, and so many impostors.

So...I'm wondering What is this vine that I found sprouting up in my garden, and should I be afraid?

A close up of the leaves. Those two huge ones in the background are from the original sprout. That's the bark of a tree behind it.


Another shot.