Stop pesky grasses in beds?

I'm building 2 of them now. Or I would be, since I got up this morning to work on them......raining and thunder, lightening, scared, quaking dogs drooling under the recliner footrest.....
 
Hi all... lol @ animals, sounds fun but these are just small ornamental beds... :)

No edible stuff here, will likely pull then spray, though I like the boiling water approach. I just don't want to kill the ornamentals (which are also grasses...)

I usually wear gloves when pulling, the somewhat tight, rubberized ones, mostly to get a really good grip.

Thanks for the help!
 
Yeah that looks like nutsedge, not grass. It multiplies in three ways. It makes seeds, which can last for years in the soil before they sprout. Don't ever let it go to seed. They send rhizomes out from the roots which can travel under ground for a few inches before they poke through the surface and form a new plant. And the really nasty way, they send out some rhizomes underground to form new nuts. Those new nuts send up plants of their own. They are doing those rhizomes by the time they are as big as the one in your photo. That's why they are so good at colonizing an area, they reproduce quickly and profusely.

When you pull the plant the nut stays behind and sends up a new plant. I don't know how many new plants it can send up before the nut runs out of energy and nutrients to do that but it's several.

Round-up will kill the green part but it doesn't stop the nut from sending up new plants. Long before it goes to seed the plant has made a lot of new nuts that are left behind it you pull or kill the plant. It's not a grass, grass killers don't work on it. You can get an herbicide that kills it and doesn't kill regular grass. I'm not sure if it kills your other ornamentals or not. It's made to be used in your lawn so it doesn't kill your lawn grass. It would mean reading the label very carefully. I have not used that Herbicide but my bother-in-law has on his lawn, I think the one from Ortho. He said it works. That herbicide is so nasty I would not use it anywhere around my vegetables, fruit trees, berries, anything I might eat. But in an ornamental spot I'd use it if I saw a need and the label said it would not harm other things I wanted.

I have black plastic stretched of a 20' wide section of my garden this summer to try to cook it out. I plan on leaving it there until next spring to see how well it works. At least it stopped it from reproducing in that area. In the rest of the garden I'm trying to dig it out, nut and all, as much as I can. And if I can't dig it out I try to pull it out before it gets 6 leaves which is when that rhizome thing is supposed to start. That will leave the nut behind but it at least stops it from reproducing.

I've just started fighting it this year so I don't have any great experience to draw on. Fighting it is really time consuming for me though. Maybe I haven't hit on the right way?
 
Andrew said:
Hi all... lol @ animals, sounds fun but these are just small ornamental beds... :)

No edible stuff here, will likely pull then spray, though I like the boiling water approach. I just don't want to kill the ornamentals (which are also grasses...)

I usually wear gloves when pulling, the somewhat tight, rubberized ones, mostly to get a really good grip.

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

I took a 5 gallon bucket and cut the bottom out of it to put around the weeds I want to spray so it won't drift onto the flowers.
 
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