Spring is finally upon on us in Northeast California. The joy of flowering trees, green grass, and warmer weather is here! Unfortunately, the familiar site of yellow dandelion flowers and other broadleaf weeds in my lawn is also abundant. As someone that works on a research farm (Intermountain Research and Extension Center), spring is my busiest time of the year. Most of my time is spent planting and managing crops. After working outside all day, the last thing I desire is spending time controlling weeds around my house. As such, my home lawn and garden weed control program is based around one principle. Control weeds using the easiest method possible. For me, this usually means using herbicides. Herbicides control many weeds in most situations, but as my wife has witnessed multiple times, applying selective lawn herbicides too close to sensitive garden and ornamental plants can result in herbicide injury. To avoid this, I often leave a 5 foot buffer around the garden and ornamental flower beds when spraying. Leaving a buffer avoids non-target herbicide injury, but the buffer area is often a refuge for weeds. In years past, I’ve removed these weeds using the effective but time consuming method of hand-pulling. In an effort to save my back, this spring I noticed a new weed puller on the market and decided to give it try. The weed puller is called the Uproot Lawn and Garden Weeder and it’s made by Fiskars. There are several hand-weeding tools on the market, but this model is one of the easiest and quickest weed pullers I’ve tried. It quickly and effectively grabs the weed and uses leverage to easily pull deep-rooted weeds. The Fiskars weeder also has a handy discharge lever for quickly removing the weed from the device. I’ve used the weeder for a couple of weeks and I’m impressed. It’s sturdy, lightweight, and easily removes dandelions, clover, and mallow from turf without removing a bunch of soil along with the weed. The Fiskar tool also works well for removing deep-rooted plants from gardens and flower beds. I’ve showed several co-workers and they are also impressed. The following YouTube link shows a short demonstration video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Bky74_2pM
For more information on hand-weeding tools and weed control, check out the UC Weed Research and Information Center “Learn Weed Control from the Expert” videos. http://ucwric.org/ Tom Lanini, UC Davis Extension Weed Ecologist, even put together a video comparing and demonstrating other great weeding tools for weed removal in lawns. http://ucwric.org/?p=94