Cactus and weeds

[planthelper]

i'm new to this thread and haven't read everything...

that's what i do.

i plant everything with a distance and a layout which, agrees with my lawn mower (i hate whiper snipers, not just around cacti, ouch, but in general).

i remove weeds by hand using an adze like tool.

sometimes, and rather rarely i use round up, on total wind still days, and I USE CARDBOARD TO SHELTER, and protect the collums from any spray. this works well and fast. i rather use a weak solution, around the cacti, as it doesn't matter, if it takes longer for the grass and weeds to die. what is not dead can be removed by hand.

but let's remeber round up creates nursery space for weeds and grasses, because both need light to germinate.

if i got some short grass around the pedros, than i'm happy, the grass will supress weed growth, and be not of much competiton for the cacti either.

[shortly]

My latest trick that seems to work without problem thus far (fingers crossed) is to fence a small weed infested cactus patch with the cheap pet fencing from crazies, i only have 8 panels so it is only a small patch.

Make sure there are no gaps under the fence, get deck chair & cold ginger beer. place a small heard of Cuy in the fenced area. sit back & drink beer, your presence should discourage predators & you can enjoy some rays, a beer & read a book, Its all good. The Cuy graze the grass & weeds to stumps & fertilize as they go.

Edited August 21, 2012 by shortly

[PhoenixSon]

rock mulch + hand removal + roundup for borders and paths also do some spot spraying on large weeds or if i dont get time to catch them before flowering.

really need to invest in some lime mulch and some cheap rock mulch to bulk it up.

hate when i fertilize and the weeds tend to soak up all the goods, 20cm's of rock mulch would make my job a lot easier.

my problem is i have packed in a lot of cactus in my area's were im allowed to plant them out in, so cant really mow around them. Also packing them in close made it easier as i wanted to build up the soil, so when the rains hit, my plants wouldnt rot...

[watertrade]

I finally gave in and carefully applied roundup - it was great. as it kills the roots by being absorbed into the leaves you don't really need to get to close to the cacti anyway -. it it great - I'm never going to stop now. one of the better preventative measures I have is to plant tight growing succulents at the base of my Trichocereus. they grow thick around the base and keep the weeds out.

[Jox]

Roundup & other poisons work very well, the obvious problem is over spray, this is easily avoided by applying with a fine paint brush, this is quite tedious but works well for inside greenhouse etc..

[ThunderIdeal]

In the amount of time spent typing replies in this thread, you could have gone out and weeded by hand .

 

... think a fenceline with pots and cactii totally overgrown with tall couchgrass or covered about ten inches high. i'm not putting my hand in there for my plants let alone someone elses, are you craze?

PH, i'll just add that labels always recommend spraying in a fairly gentle steady breeze. still conditions let the droplets hang about. using a piece of cardboard to shield your valued plants sounds like a really good idea.

i will report back on any signs of damage to the cactus from fusilade but there will be no photos and detailed information since nobody has shown interest in it.

[r2pi]

... think a fenceline with pots and cactii totally overgrown with tall couchgrass or covered about ten inches high. i'm not putting my hand in there for my plants let alone someone elses, are you craze?

 

hah - I must be. I let mine overgrow a year or so ago, too. I even had "cuttings" (falling-and-breakings would be more appropriate) with lawn mower wounds all down one side. I took the "let them be" philosophy a little bit too far. but yeah, just I just grabbed the pot rims and dragged them out to a clear area. Stood them upright and weeded the pots themselves. Rummaged through the grass to find any "cuttings". No scary creepy crawlies got me although I did have one cactus fall on my thigh/knee, puncture to some depth and break off several spines. If I remember rightly those ones didn't ever come out... no sign of them though... can the body decompose them ???

[ThunderIdeal]

i'm not sure about your question.

creepy crawlies aren't the issue man, its the hidden cacti i'm worried about. in this situation most of them are in the ground, not pots, and more than half or totally hidden but their location could be guessed by the spacings perhaps.

fuck that, i don't even like cacti.

[r2pi]

fuck that, i don't even like cacti.

 

Problem solved, go ahead and poison them and dozens of other species (potentially including H. sapiens) in the local ecosystem then

[Sallubrious]

I don't believe roundup is safe no scientific hogwash will ever convince me that it is.

They (scientists) told us DDT was safe and look what happened to that. They even used to spray people with that crap.

A quick search on banned herbicides or pesticides will give you enough reading material to keep you occupied for a very long time.

Even though the "Glyphosate" is supposedly safe the synergistic effect of it when combined with the unlisted adjuvants is for the most part untested (I can't find any long term double blind studies on roundup with human test subjects).

Glyphosate has been linked to liver problems, lymphomas and myelomas in humans and causes all sorts of problems for the lower life forms such as amphibians.

Show me a double blind study where a test group of humans are repeatedly exposed to roundup and control group that is not. Then come back in twenty years to follow up the research and document the differences.

Until then I'll group it in with all the other toxic shit that's been used in the past and later been discovered to be poisonous.

http://www.i-sis.org...bicides_Now.php

I know this is a contentious issue and I'm quite extreme in my views on this topic, but I just think that it's wrong to go to a garden center and find a lot more shit to kill things things than there is to make things grow.

I suppose there's not as much money in making things live.

We all know how monsanto cares about the human race too.

I pull the weeds by hand and then use long nose pliers to get in amongst the spines.

For larger patches I use black plastic and leave it on until the grass goes chlorotic (about 5 days to a week) and then remove the plastic on a hot sunny day and the sun kills everything that is above ground because it has no pigments to protect it from the sun.

Edited August 24, 2012 by SallyD

[Jox]

I under stand were your coming from SallyD, but half the stuff they sell at garden centers to make things live is full of chemicals.

I have work on a certified organic farm & it is a lot of manual labor, I don't have that time to put into my garden when I get home, If these chemicals are used responsibly & the correct safety equipment is used, they are safe. I understand that people are weary & so they should be, everything should be read & instructions followed.

[cactus kate]

i try to get under the base of the cacti and get what i can carefully and the rest i use tongs little ones they work well but over all i have a street load of newspaper followed by thick card then at least 20o mm of drain rock works the best garden if for three years and still no weeds every now and again a few strangers appear on top of rock from the god dam wattyl birds man they suck shit cacti thiefs they suck lol cheers kate

[Micromegas]

I have sprayed glyphosate on cacti during winter and it did nothing at all, a considerable amount of spray drift and just poor accuracy. I think, if dormant, they will not take it up at all. I wouldn't recommend spraying though (and this year my plants did not appear to go dormant) and no longer use herbicide, I would look at ways to out-compete weeds and treat them as part of the ecosystem of the garden. They sure can be pesky though and herbicides can help you get a foot in.

[mutant]

this is a tough problem

I havent done much apart from manual removing them preferably when the soil is wet

but if I made a 3rd cactus bed, now, I would probably use some plastic or material used to make such beds.

i dont like herbicides at all, but I would love the idea of natural ones, as I am looking for ways to kill very established plants sometimes...

will vinegar work for the insides too? some people suggest petrol! lol

[ThunderIdeal]

use kerosene instead of petrol or diesel please, if that is your chosen method, but no it won't kill the roots.

one of the safest and most effective ways to use roundup is to have a small bottle of water with no less than 25% roundup. cut the weed near the base and paint the strong roundup on, for large woody weeds you need only paint the outer ring where the cambium is. painting must be done ASAP after cutting.

-works when a foliar spray wouldn't

-uses less chemical

-doesn't spread (wasted) droplets all around the place

some great tips there sallyD and kate, thankyou

"go ahead and poison them and dozens of other species (potentially including H. sapiens) in the local ecosystem then"

you know, that's a bit of a bullshit remark, and unfair. i wonder how much of the poison in question (poison is a vague word by the way) was used to produce the food you purchased this year? it's probably best that we drop it but i'm willing to have a friendly debate.

[mushroomman]

Would sugar cane mulch be ok to use on a trich garden? My mum used it on her garden and had hardly any weeds come up for years.

[Jox]

I disagree with Tunderldeal on his most effective ways to use roundup on the smaller weeds, if you cut the foliage on the plants before you spray your weeds or the majority of plants in general will go into survival mode & even though there are open wounds the plant will absorb less of the chemical. Like Tunderldeal said, his method would be the best way to kill large woody plant & the chemical has to be applied ASAP. When it come to the common backyard weeds spray the foliage, simply for the fact that healthy undamaged leaves are the part of the plant that absorbs the most chemical.

@mushroomman, Sugarcane mulch is great. I used to get bails of it, the best way I found to use it was to leave the bail in the rain & let it get thoroughly soaked, The next day I put it down in thick wet biscuits, this seemed to stop the weed coming through a lot better than when I spread the mulch out dry. In saying that Sugarcane mulch holds a lot of water & I have only used it in the veggie garden & around moister loving plants, I have never used it around cacti.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Jox

[Sallubrious]

Some of the tougher plants resist that treatment as as well.

The only way I know to kill some bamboos is to cut them and apply the glyphosate to the new growth shoots.

That's possibly the only time I'd consider glyphosate.

Edited August 24, 2012 by SallyD

[ThunderIdeal]

well, not much resists the cut and dab treatment, bamboo is a thing of itself and i'm not sure about the best ways although i do remember sallyD's method being used (inadvertantly) and i think it worked. bamboo groves used to be treated and probably still are sometimes, after some contemplation of where the chemical will move in the soil, by placing a chemical in the soil which hopefully sweeps across the grove killing everything in it's path

cut and dab isn't used for small weeds because it would take a long time and spraying like you say works fine, but it will work, if you have some aversion to droplets. i could be wrong but i think when the transpirational pull from the top of the plant is gone, any liquid on the xylem at the time will be sucked down into the roots. that's a lot of chemical since it is not diluted much and that's why it kills nearly anything.

Edited August 24, 2012 by ThunderIdeal

[planthelper]

PH, i'll just add that labels always recommend spraying in a fairly gentle steady breeze. still conditions let the droplets hang about. using a piece of cardboard to shield your valued plants sounds like a really good idea.

 

because i'm australian, i never read the label, hehehe. by the time label readers finished reading, i already finished spraying.

no it's good advice you gave, but i use a crappy handmister, which hardly produces any fine mist, most of my droplets fall down very fast, because they are big in size. finer droplets would be better for me, as i don't get very good coverage.

[sharxx101]

Ive given up on seriously combatting them, just pull out what i can ever week or 2. I dont think the weeds do much harm anyway, what are they going to do, steal some water or nutrients from my slightly over watered over fertilised cacti garden?

 

I am with you eatfoo

[sharxx101]

Would sugar cane mulch be ok to use on a trich garden? My mum used it on her garden and had hardly any weeds come up for years.

 

I have used sugar can mulch in pots with no problem. I would put a layer of SC mulch around the cactus and then lay rocks on top of the SC mulch. This seem to work well at keeping weeds at bay.

[mushroomman]

I have used sugar can mulch in pots with no problem. I would put a layer of SC mulch around the cactus and then lay rocks on top of the SC mulch. This seem to work well at keeping weeds at bay.

 

Sweet, I might go buy some tomorrow