Pest Plants
Purslane – Control
Common purslane, Portulaca oleracea, is a weedy summer annual, invading vegetable gardens, bare areas, low-maintenance lawns, and ornamental plantings. It is particularly well adapted to the warm, moist conditions found in Georgia. Common purslane is edible, with a sweet, yet...
Wild Strawberry (Indian Mock Strawberry) – Identification
Indian mock strawberry, Potentilla indica, is a non-native weed only slightly related to “real” strawberry. It’s flowers are yellow while those of edible strawberry are white or pink. The fruit of mock strawberry is not poisonous but the taste is...
Wild Lettuce (Prickly Lettuce) – Control
It looks like dandelion leaves at first…..but it makes a tall stem. What could this be? It’s wild lettuce…..and it’s edible! You can dig the long taproot with a dandelion fork (click for sources) or uproot it with a Water...
Sowthistle – Control
The spiny leaves make this weed easy to spot. Fortunately, spiny sowthistle is easy to control. You can dig the long taproot with a dandelion fork (click for sources) or uproot it with a Water Weeder. A spot spray of...
Poison Ivy Oil – How Long is it Potent?
Copied from http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2000-April/006688.html A couple of weeks ago, Sharon Barnes asked a question on this listserv about the fate of poison ivy during composting. I found the question intriquing so I decided to use it for the BioCycle Q&A column....
FIVE STRATEGIES FOR WEED CONTROL
My friend Daryl Pulis and I share a common passion. We enjoy learning more about odd and uncommon plants and sleuthing out practical information about them. When the rare amorphophallus bloomed at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Daryl posted breathless accounts...
Bradford Pear – Wildly Sprouting Thorny Bushes
Curtis Young , editor, and other contributors to the Buckeye Yard and Garden Line have shed light on why there are so many thorny sprouts of wild pear showing up unwanted every year. “One of the certainties of education is...
Microstegium (Basketgrass, Stiltgrass) – New Disease for Possible Control
Microstegium is a terribly invasive grass in shady gardens. The great news is that researchers have identified a disease that has potential to control it! News release: In 2009, a previously undescribed disease was found on the nonnative invasive annual...
Microstegium (Basketgrass, Stiltgrass, Eulalia) – Identification and Control
This grassy weed is common but it doesn’t yet have a widely accepted common name. Most gardeners refer to it as “That summer weed that I can easily pull out by huge handfuls but it still comes back!” Eulalia grass...
Smilax ID and Control
It has wicked thorns, it laughs at herbicides and it always seems to come back, no matter how much you pull it out of your shrubs each spring. Nobody smiles when smilax vine appears The pest is smilax (deer thorn,...
Lichens
Every kid (and most adults) can remember being falsely blamed simply because they were standing nearby when an accident happened. Although accidents do seem to happen more often when kids are present, it’s erroneous to assume that they are the...
Lichen Quiz
PETER RABBIT? Here is a quick trivia question: What do Peter Rabbit, canaries and moose have to do with lichens? It turns out that Beatrix Potter, the author of the Peter Rabbit tales, was also a respected biologist. She was...
English Ivy – Control
I accompanied my son’s class on an overnight Environmental Education trip to Rock Eagle one year. One of his classmates was a great source of fascination to me. Whenever I stood next to him he was a model of decorum:...
English Ivy – Dermatitis
My son recently spent a day helping a neighbor clear English ivy from their landscape. He woke on the following day with itchy, spreading blisters on his arm. He says he saw no poison ivy in the English ivy patch…so...
Pokeweed (Poke Sallet) – Don’t Eat It
DON’T EAT POKE SALAD Auburn, June 18, 2002—Pokeweed is probably the best known and most widely used wild vegetable in America and Europe. However, a food scientist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System says no part of this plant should...
Invasive Pampas Grass
I live in Hall county and drive to work in Forsyth county. I listen to you every Saturday morning on my drive to work. In early September 2006 I heard you and Teresa Schrum talking about renegade pampas grass on...
Chickweed – Control in Fescue
Fall tilling brought up plenty of chickweed seeds that had been lying dormant underground. They sprouted last fall along with my fescue seeds. The recent warm winter weather has caused the unwanted plants to explode across my lawn. But here’s...
Bamboo – Control
Technically, bamboo is a grass, but certainly not one you’d describe as a premier turf product. The sprouts that shoot up from the ground each spring can grow 12 inches per day. Common fishpole bamboo usually tops out at 15...
