Weed killer (1 Viewer)

[DavidAM]

I have a big flower bed that is full of weeds. I also have some bushes, plants and ground cover plants that I do not want to kill. If I spread out some weed kill or weed and feed stuff, will it just kill the weeds or will my ground cover plants and bushes and small palms be affected?

 

[John Giddens]

Most of the weed kill or weed and feed stuff I've used states on their warning labels to not use around anything you don't want to kill, with the exception of Miracle Grow Garden Weed prevent and plant food. I don't recommend the Miracle Grow Garden Weed prevent and plant food though because it didn't work for me. The only thing that has worked for me is a good weed blocking fabric with a healthy amount of mulch, but even after the weed blocking fabric and mulch I still get weeds, just allot fewer weeds, so there's still some back breaking manual weed pulling to be done. I'm going to guess that a warmer, wetter climate area is just going to be weed heaven. It got to the point that I gave up on pulling weeds when the temps are in the mid 90's with 90% humidity and let my yard maintenance company deal with it now.

 

[BrianW]

A growth hormone-based herbicide like Roundup is what you need. Just spray it on the weeds you want to kill. It affects plants only when it comes in contact with the chlorophyl (the green leaves), so it won't affect surrounding plants that aren't sprayed, even if it gets into the soil and comes into contact with the roots.

It's more time consuming than just spreading out some weed&feed, but it's ability to kill just what you want is worth the trouble.

 

[JohnRice]

David, Brian is right. to answer your question more completely, a weed killer will most likely kill your other desirable plants, it just won't kill most grasses. so it is great for killing weeds in your lawn because you can get it on the grass as well without harm. So, if you used it on weeds surrounded by other foliage, you would have to spot stray it, making sure it didn't get on the other foliage. Since you have to spot spray anyway, you might as well use a more powerful herbicide like Roundup, which will kill pretty much anything it comes in direct contact with. so be careful where you spray.

A little hint. If you spray some water with dishwashing detergent in it 15 or 20 minutes before the Roundup it will work far better. You don't have to be careful spraying the detergent, since it won't hurt anything. Put about a tablespoon of detergent in a quart of water. Do NOT use machine detergent (which usually has bleach in it) but hand washing stuff like Dawn. Spraying the detergent a few minutes ahead breaks down the surface tension of the plant and makes the herbicide (or whatever else you might apply) work far better.

 

[DavidAM]

Thanks for the help guys. I sprayed the weeds today so we'll see how good I did and hopefully I didn't kill any good plants.

 

[Rachael B]

I'd follow up your weed kill-off with a preemergent from Preen or Miracle Grow to keep your beds clean. It's not 100% effective, maybe 85%...? Reapply it again about july. It'll minimize your weeding dramatically. Ideally, your first application of a preemergent should proably be about late febuary since you're so far south. Remember that next year. You can use preemergent anyplace you're not starting any plants from seeds. It stops germination, afterall. Best wishes!

 

[Ted Lee]

hey all -

just to make sure i have this right...

i have a bed of rocks with weeds and some additional weeds coming out of my driveway, sidewalk, etc. in this case, roundup will work because i don't care about any collateral damage???

i think i have some weeds in the lawn too. in this case i need a more specialized weedkiller of some sort? any rec's for this?

thx!