Are you worried just because your lawn has been invaded by weeds? Different types of invasive thistle plants, considered to be noxious weeds grow in many parts of the US such as Plumeless, Bull, U.S. Musk, Wavyleaf, Flodman and several others. These include perennial as well as biennial varieties. However, there is nothing to fret over! Find out a solution by removing weeds in your garden. Now, what could be the right way out of this problem? You may think about using chemicals. However, this is not a feasible solution pertaining to your home landscape and grazing pastures. It could kill your surrounding grass and plants. So what’s the alternative? Let’s check out in this respect some of the tips for removing thistle weeds, without using chemical:
- Improve the health of the garden
First of all, try to improve the health of your lawn and then start removing the weeds. Ventilate your soil for preventing the growth of the weed. Most of the weeds grow in dense and compacted soil. You can make use of a lawn aerator for completing this task. Besides, you should often cut the grass in order to prevent weeds from growing seed heads. It would be better if you leave your grass about two and a half inches tall for providing shade. This would deter the growth of the wildflowers. Dig up grass ends containing weed seed. Moreover, you should not forget to fertilize your grass for getting a luxurious and healthy lawn. When the grass becomes thick, the weeds don’t get a favourable environment for growth. Keep the area of your garden planted thickly with cover plants to avoid the recurrence of thistle weeds. In addition, you can reseed the bare-soil area in your garden promptly. Make use of rotational grazing methods for controlling thistle growth and stay away from overgrazing in your garden as this makes your grassland at risk for weed growth.
- Choose the ideal time for weed extraction
Remember that the ideal time for extracting weeds is just before their roots have become large enough to jeopardize your vegetation and flowers. Mow the wild plants when they are in their budding stage, but not yet seeding. Try to cut low to the ground beneath the noxious buds for stopping the re-growth. Cutting down the plants during the bud stage stops the weeds from producing seeds and growing. Furthermore, you should know that the weeds are easier to get eliminated between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. as the heat during this time exaggerates the result of weed-killing treatment. Nevertheless, pulling wildflowers can be difficult with fingers unless you get the right weeding tools.
- Opt for the right weeding tools
Before you select the tools for weed extraction, weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of various weeding tools available in the market. The best weeding tool for pulling weeds are not much complicated to handle, but they should be sharp enough for clearing a large swath of ground. You can make use of a long screwdriver and knives for digging deeply around the weed base, pull unwanted plants from the soil and remove them for inhibiting reseeding. However, gardening hoes offer the best solution in this respect and help to make the weed removing work easy for you. This is because the main purpose of a hoe is to aerate the soil and spread nutrients. Moreover, it is used for eradicating shallow-rooted annual weeds.
A wide array of classic chopping hoes is available, including Dutch, Collinear, Hula, Wheel, Hori Hori and lots more. Dutch Hoe includes a triangular blade counterpoise from the handle and it can be used by dragging through the soil below the surface. Collinear Hoe is made up of a long and narrow blade attached to long handle for cutting wildflowers and is designed to drag along the ground while walking. You can also buy Hula hoe for keeping the blade aligned to the direction pulled by you. Wheel hoe replaces the plough tool on wheel cultivator by using the stirrup blade with which you can skim large grassland quickly and get rid of thin weeds. Hori Hori is another multi-purpose Japanese knife with double-sided blades. One of its sides is sharp and smooth and the other is toothed for cutting tough roots. In this tool, you will find that the blades are coming to a sharp point for digging the soil and getting long tap roots.
Follow these simple tactics to remove weeds without using chemicals and without causing any harm to the surrounding grass or plants in your garden.
NikiJones says
Good article , thanks for sharing really useful information.