April showers bring May flowers. They also bring May dandelions, and crabgrass, and weeds.
Weeds are just part of having a yard. They're part of having a garden. Heck, they're part of having a sidewalk, driveway, or parking lot.
They're frustrating, infuriating, and costly to control. They're also a tremendous testament to the ability of some plants species to adapt to and exploit an ecological niche -- a unique assemblage of space, conditions, and resources where they have a competitive advantage over other plants ... and even over some gardeners.
The classic definition of a weed is simply a plant out of place. But that definition leaves a whole compost pile worth of interpretations. If your garden consists of a Japanese-styled Zen sand garden that you assiduously rake every day after your morning coffee, a single dandelion can turn your daily meditation into a cardiac event. On the other hand, if you've turned the back 40 into a meadow of grasses and wildflowers, a few volunteers may not make a hill of beans worth of difference.
Whatever definition of "weed" you prefer, there are a couple of initial decisions you need to make to give yourself a fighting chance for success.
First, determine your weed tolerance. Do you want your lawn to look like the 18th green at a golf course? Are you going for a bit of a shaggy chic look with room for a few wandering volunteers here and there? Are you 100% opposed to herbicides or are you OK with some strategic spraying from time to time? It's much easier to accomplish a goal when you have an actual goal in mind. Otherwise you run the risk of just doing what the neighbor does. Not a great plan of attack. No value judgements here. There are good reasons to adopt a variety of end goals.
Second, determine your workload tolerance. Are you a meditative weeder -- the kind of person who loves the focus and sense of accomplishment you can get from an hour of good hard hand weeding or hoeing on a daily basis? Or are you what I call a halftime weeder -- run outside during halftime or the seventh- inning stretch of your favorite game and knock down a few weeds. Do you prefer to hire it all out? Again, no finger wagging here at either choice. It's just essential to match your goals with your willingness to take the required approach ... and stick with it.
Once you have identified your goals and committed to the required workload, it's time to get down to details.
How to identify common garden and lawn weeds
Weeds come in a dizzying diversity of plant types and designs. Knowing what you have is essential to knowing how to successfully control your weeds.
Annual weeds are those that go from seed germination to seed production in a single growing season. You can keep annual weeds under control by inhibiting seed germination. That's how most pre-emergent herbicides work. Crabgrass is an annual plant that grows anew from seed each season. Killing it in the middle of the summer or fall after it has shed its seed doesn't do much -- the seed is already out there, waiting for next year. Crabgrass is best controlled with a pre-emergent herbicide or by mechanical removal (hand weeding!) right after it germinates.
The rule with annual weeds is -- don't let them go to seed.
Perennial weeds are just like the daylilies and iris in your garden. They have a fleshy root system that survives the winter underground and regrows its top each spring. With perennial weeds, killing the roots is key. You can snap off the top (or kill the tops with spray) over and over again in spring, but the roots often continue to put out new growth. Perennial weeds can be controlled by digging out the root system. If spot spraying is your method of choice, it is most successful in late summer or early fall. At that time of year the plants are sending nutrients and sugars down to build up the root system for the winter. And any applied systemic herbicide will be absorbed and transported to the roots where they'll do their job.
If you're trying to maintain a healthy lawn, optimizing fertility for your turfgrass will give it a competitive advantage over many weed species. Many common lawn weeds have evolved to excel in areas of limited nutrient resources. Providing plenty of nitrogen and other essential nutrients flips the table on the weeds in favor of the grass.
If you try to starve the lawn, you'll most likely make your weed problem much worse. A soil test available through the county Cooperative Extension Service can help you target optimal fertility goals for the intended purpose.
How to eliminate weeds in the garden through watering
Just like nutrition management, too much or too little water can make the turf less competitive and open the door to more weed growth. But since every yard is different -- different soils, different sun exposure, etc. -- it takes a bit of trial and error to get it just right. One inch of lawn irrigation per week is a good place to start. You can adjust from there to meet your particular needs.
If you have an irrigation system or use a manual sprinkler, put a straight sided container out on the lawn the next time you irrigate to get an idea of how much water your chosen system delivers.
What height should you cut your lawn to eliminate weeds?
If the lawn is your thing, the best thing you can do is set your mower to the highest cut height. The shorter you cut your grass, the more you encourage the plantains, dandelions, and crabgrass. In garden beds, a good quality scuffle hoe, run over the soil surface every week or so, not only dislodges weeds but can also create a soil mulch -- a layer of dry, crumbly soil at the surface -- that is very effective at keeping new weed seeds from germinating.
Of course, spreading a good quality organic mulch also helps quite a bit.
More: The Ten Commandments of the garden, from plant coveting to tomato planting time
Paul Cappiello is the executive director at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road, yewdellgardens.org.