The War on Weeds

Weeding is probably not your favorite job but it is a necessary part of establishing a wildflower garden. It’s also a chance to get out into the area, spend some time there and see what’s going on. Whenever you disturb the soil you bring new weed seeds to the surface and a new planting site provides everything that weed seeds need to germinate. New plantings should be hand weeded regularly to reduce the competition for space, light, water and nutrients while the wildflowers have a chance to establish themselves.

It can be difficult to know which plants are the weeds and which are the wildflowers when faced with a patch of happily growing little green plants. Making a point to learn more about the problem weeds you will be dealing with can make the task of weeding a large area less daunting. Some weeds are short lived annuals that will disappear on their own or share the space; they can even act as a bit of a cover crop. Weeding them out before they go to seed is the most effective way to control them.

Other weeds are ambitious with plans to move in, choke everything else out and permanently take over the neighborhood. There are only a handful of really troublesome weeds as compared with hundreds of desirable prairie plant species that may arrive on your site of their own accord. Becoming familiar with the weeds that have the potential to create long term problems on your site and being able to identify them at different stages of development will enable you to target them when you weed. Canada Thistle, Smooth Brome and Creeping Bellflower are some examples of plants to watch out for.