June, 2008 Be sure to stay ahead of the weed game this year. Get off on the right foot by treating your beds with a pre emergence weed control. Once you have your beds weeded from the fall and preferably before you mulch (although you can apply it after), apply a good application of pre emergence control such as surflan, preen, confront or other brands designed to do the same.

A pre emergence application kills weeds before they emerge. The granules are watered into the ground where they release their vapor weed barrier just below the ground surface. As the weed seeds germinate and begin to grow, they break into this vapor layer where they are killed off. This stops them before they get much of a start. If you need to plant some flowers in a treated bed, simply break the soil up in the area where the flower is to be planted and the vapor releases harmlessly away leaving no residual effect to the new plants.

A follow application should be applied @ 6 weeks after the first treatment depending on the amount of rainfall you experience. As always, follow the label on your herbicide.

Each weekend following your pre emergence application, follow up with a no select systemic herbicide such as round up to stop any small weeds still growing or that the pre emergence didn’t take care of. This should really help keep the need for hand weeding to a minimum at best.

During periods of drought, the earth may dry causing cracks that expose new weed seeds to sunlight and thus starting their germination cycle. These weeds will be eliminated by your round up walk. By hitting the weeds hard and early you can put a damper on their summer of fun!!!

For turf weeds start by raising the cutting height of the grass. This will choke off light needed by the weeds and can cut back their growth by as much as 70%. A small hand sprayer to apply a broadleaf herbicide specifically to each weed will be a good way to target the weeds without wasting excess chemicals on non weed infested grass.

In review; Keep up on the weeds often and early and you’ll find it looks better and is a lot less work than renovating neglected beds later.