Weeds are like taxes...they're a fact of life. We all have them, but some of us have worse ones than others. My particular ongoing nightmare is called Onion Weed.
I know - they don't look too scary, UNTIL you try to remove them! These nasty little blighters grow from a bulb that sets a multitude of baby bulbs off the main one. If you try to dig it up, or weed spray it, the trigger mechanism unlatches all the babies which are often too small to see. You think you got it all, but sure as eggs, up come the next round. Now as if that's not bad enough, this invasive weed also spreads far and wide when it grows its long stemmed flower heads (very similar to an onion flower). When the flower is dead it goes to seed rapidly and spreads a multitude of seeds - the beginning of the next generation.
See how the bulbettes fall off when under threat.
These garden nasties come up and through some of my cherished plants, making weed spraying a tricky business - especially the glyphosate sensitive roses.
When I first started gardening here, over 16 years ago, we had virtually no onion weed. My biggest mistake was letting my chooks free range. Always sounds good doesn't it, chooks skutting about? Wrong! Apart from forever exposing the roots of my veggies and every other tree and shrub, they happily spread the onion weed far and wide. The have their own yard now, and I have a garden full of onion weeds!
What is your worst garden weed? Here in Australia we have lots - Salvation Jane, Soursobs not to mention flick weed. Tell us your Worst Weed EVER....
No comments:
Post a Comment