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Our knowledgeable staff here at Garden-Ville are available to answer many of the questions you might have about gardens, landscaping, and trees. Many problems with plants, however, cannot be responsibly diagnosed other than in person. We're located in central Texas and may not be familiar with the details of gardening in very different climate or soil zones. One of the guiding principles of organic growing is adapting methods to the particularites of local soil and climate. With that in mind we'll do our best to answer your question, but if we can't we'll be happy to help you find the appropriate resources or professionals in your area.

Feel free to browse the topics below to see if we've already answered a question similar to yours. If you can't find the information you need, the question submission form is located at the bottom of the page.

  • I have a problem with stickers.soil here is very sandy. Ive tried msma, which we know is a very strong and i feel leary of using this herbicide ..i have dogs and cats not to mention you cant use this stuff around any gardening. So how can i get rid of these stickers ? Bermuda grass is what i have here..HELP ! :)

    10/29/20089:07:37 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment

    Lawn Questions

    Organic control of weeds that are grown up in an existing lawn is pretty tricky because organic herbicides are non-selective, which means they kill everything green that they touch. Here's what I would recommend.

     

    First, areas of the lawn that are more weed than grass I would spray with our Natural Weed Control or a commercial strength Vingegar. This will kill grass as well as weeds, and it may take a couple of applications to fully kill the weeds. If you don't want to lose any grass you can skip this step, although remember that the grass will grow back, while the weeds won't.

     

    The next thing is to take a blanket and drag it back and forth over the lawn. Strange as this sounds, its an effective way of picking up most of the stickers, which are the seeds that the weeds use to propagate. I'd use an old blanket or sheet that you can then throw away, as the blanket will likely be more covered in stickers than you'll want to pick out.

     

    Next apply corn gluten meal (not regular corn meal) at a rate of 20 pounds per 1000 square feet. This is an organic pre-emergent herbicide, which means it kills germinating seeds but doesn't harm anything else. Once you've spread the corn gluten meal water fairly heavily. This will disperse the meal and prompt the remaining stickers to germinate, at which time they'll be killed by the meal.

     

    Finally, top dress the lawn with compost at a rate of 1/4" to 1/2". This will build the soil and encourage a thicker lawn that will help to out-compete weeds. This treatment may not eliminate stickers in the first year, but it will make a dramatic difference, and over a couple of years it should control the problem. As an additional benefit it will result in a much healthier lawn apart from taking care of the stickers.

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