HEY ALL,

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

We moved into our house two years ago this month. Its our dream home on 3.6 acres. The are several flower beds around the property and house. The neighbors tell me the previous owner would spend hours every day weeding these beds and planting new things. With two young kids and shift work, I don't have the hours to do this kind of weeding. I can keep a flower bed/garden looking good but have never used any type weed reduced other than Weed and Feed.

Another issue is there are several areas that greatly differ and I am sure I don't want to use the same sprays depending on what I am spraying around.

1. Around strawberries
2. Around raspberrys
3. Around your typical landscaping "plants and bushes"
4. large areas of small gravel walk ways (really hard to keep up with the weeds growing in these areas)

These is a few areas I am considering killing everything living in there now and starting over with something like sunflowers (small area)
Another area I would need to spray and then till to start a garden.......
I have access to a back pack sprayer and a regular sprayer. I was planning on buying a propane torch to use around the areas as well.

What do I need and when do I use it?

Thanks for any help

Lookinup

All landscaping requires care. Pavement, monoculture grass lawn, couple of native trees is the easiest landscape of all, but is that what you want? Educate yourselves on native and adapted species for your area, look at designs, dig in to work and enjoy it as a family.

I use a mix of 2.5 ounces of Roundup or Touchdown and 2.5 ounces of 2,4-D per gallon of water.  Will kill just about anything.  I am always careful so it doesn't drift onto things I want to keep alive.

Thanks,

Whatever I choose I am going to have to be careful where I spray. The owners before us put in a crazy amount plants and flowers and I just want to keep them weed free and purty.

My one and three year old volunteered to help but all they do is lick rocks and try to eat the flowers lol.

Lookinup

Put down casaron granulars in your gravel areas. It's a sterrilant and will prevent new weeds from coming up. Nuke existing weeds with roundup.

If you have grapes don't use 2,4D around them they are very sensitive.

You can lay down plastic and cover it with mulch for those areas you do not plant.  Save week pulling time.

This. If nothing else a fresh thick layer of mulch will be good. If your really feeling adventurous rip out everything, lay down the heavy duty 5+ year rated plastic, cut holes in it and plant your flowers in the holes and apply a good layer of mulch.

For the ornamentals around the house, I just add a lot of mulch and spray anything that pops up with roundup.  The more mulch you have the less weeds you will have.  

There are cheaper ways to get mulch, but I always get a truckload of the bags at home depot when they go on sale for $2/bag.  Should be coming up.  At mine, you just drive through and they load it for you.  Makes it easy.

For ornamentals, put down Snapshot Pre-M in the beds in Feb, then again 8 weeks later. It will cut down on weeds in the mulch, but read the label, because there are as few things it will harm.

Awesome advise from everyone!

Can I spray roundup or similar around established raspberries as long as I keep it off the plant?

Thank you all
Lookinup

I've got about the same setup. You'll want to spray the entire yard with 2,4-D to keep the dandelions and clover from taking over the grass. It kills everything except grass, so keep it away from gardens and trees. But you can get a 2.5g conctrate from TSC for like $40 and that will do 3 acres twice over. You'll want to apply twice in the spring and twice in the fall, so about 5g should work for the whole year.

As for the flowers, I apply a shit ton of mulch, and then hand spray Glyphosate (I mix in 2,4-D when necessary for a kick) in the open areas so nothing grows there. I should do this about every month, but I usually get behind and end up working real hard pulling weeds.

I had a huge strawberry patch surrounding a huge berry patch, but the strawberries all got weeds in them and I think 2,4-D may have blown into the strawberries. Anyways I lost all the strawberries. Not sure what the best thing is to do about weeds in strawberries. Actually I've had terrible luck keeping weeds out of my veggie garden too--that's the hardest thing.

Just because it's still doesn't mean you won't get drift. If it's hot you can get thermal drift. Or an inversion can cause drift.

Try and spray with the biggest droplet size you can get. By reducing your fines you will reduce your potential for drift and volitilization. You can also add a sticker or drift reduction agent to your mix and greatly reduce your drift potential. Products like in place or stayput are two we use.

Here is a decent write up on it.  The finer the droplets the better the coverage but the worse it drifts.  Larger droplets don't drift as bad but coverage is worse.

bigger droplets hit the weeds below it.  
a fine atomized mist drifts all over the place.

ar-jedi

Roundup!

Roll it up
Light it up
Smoke it up
Inhale
Exhale




Oh yard weeds.  Well i have the same issue.

Greasy thumb,  not a green thumb.
I just figured out this year that i can't put down  Crabgrass killer then grasseed for 4 months.  I waited a month and could never get the seed too grow.  Now i know why.

FIRESTORM PARAQUAT EVERYTHING!!!!!

Wait.....you probably don't want scorched earth, nvm

Oh Firestorm Paraquat is some gnarly shit, which is why if you don't have the right papers to get it....you absolutely do not get it point blank period.

the are two types of herbicides:
1) selective
2) non-selective

in order for a herbicide to be "selective" about what it kills, there has to be some characteristic difference between the types of plants it kills and those it doesn't.   in many cases, the goal is to kill weeds, of which many happen to be annuals (they germinate, grow, and die all in the same year).  an example of a selective post-emergent herbicide is 2,4-d.  this chemical attacks *only* certain annual plants -- in this case, it is based on the fact that annuals and perennials regulate their growth using different mechanisms.  2,4-d turns an annual weed's growth regulation mechanism against itself -- in fact 2,4-d is a growth stimulant hormone.  2,4-d causes the plant's topside (green part) to grow more rapidly than the bottom side (roots) can supply nutrients.  this in turn causes a systemic failure and plant death.   grassy plants (including crabgrass, by the way) regulate their growth differently, and thus 2,4-d has minimal effect on these types.  

non-selective herbicides attack basic physiological plant functions -- for example, by interrupting some aspect of the photosynthesis process.  the most common non-selective herbicide is glysophate, which is the primary chemical in Roundup.  properly applied, glysophate is very effective against most non-woody plants, including grasses and broadleaf types.  glysophate is, however, a post-emergent herbicide; it only kills plants that already have established leaf systems.  it will not (and can not) prevent new seeds from completing germination and new plants from growing.  for this type of preventative approach, a pre-emergent herbicide is required.  

above, i have presented a very black and white (binary) view of herbicides.  the fact is that different species of plants are more or less resistant to herbicides because of their physiology, and things also change because of environmental conditions.  for example: tomatoes are annual plants, and because of their heavy dependency on adequate water, they are *really* susceptible to any sort of annual herbicide under drought conditions.  grapes fall into the same category.  for this reason, if you apply 2-4,d to your lawn on a blistering hot day and in a manner that results in the tiniest, tiniest bit of the herbicide reaching the leaves of these plants, they will die.   so, you may have solved the dandelion or henbit problem in your turfgrass, but you also completely wiped out your neighbor's tomato crop.  

for this reason, understanding what and how to apply herbicides is critical if you don't want "drift" -- namely, erroneous herbicide application to adjoining areas.   you can call it "overspray" if you'd like.  it looks bad on a household project, but it's really bad with some herbicides.  

ar-jedi

you probably won't have a "one stop" solution.  several varied approaches will be needed.

1) hardwood mulch w/ or w/o landscape fabric.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulch
2) pre-emergents designed for ornamental areas (for example, Preen)  http://www.preen.com/products/flowers-trees-shrubs/weed-preventer
3) post-emergents carefully applied (for example, Roundup/glysophate)   https://www.google.com/search?q=tractor+supply+glysophate
4) good old-fashioned manual labor.  perhaps use a loop hoe.   https://www.google.com/search?q=loop+hoe

ar-jedi

see also
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_19/681719_Show-me-what-you-used-your-tractor-for-today--pic-thread-.html&page=9#i11729351
and
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_19/681719_Show-me-what-you-used-your-tractor-for-today--pic-thread-.html&page=8#i11729278

while it's a system designed for herbicide application to large swaths of turfgrass, the same sorts of drift warnings apply.

What I was asked to elaborate on has already been answered.

If you watch when you apply a herbicide with a fine mist type nozzle you will see vapors "boil" off. It is even more appearant if you look at a 100' row crop rig but it even happens with your backpack sprayer. These are the fines that you want to reduce.

As has been stated a bigger droplet means worse coverage. However a bigger droplet greatly reduces drift, its simple to understand a bigger droplet is going to fall to earth faster then a small one, leaving it less time to be affected by the wind. Also, put your nozzle(s) closer to the ground to reduce the time it takes for your spray to hit the target.

So it's simple to achieve a bigger droplet use a sprayer nozzle with a bigger hole.  Google tee-jet they have everything you could want.

Also read your herbicide label. Lots of times they will tell you how many microns the droplet size should be to be most effective. The label will also let you know what kinds of adjuvants you can and should mix. Lots of times people just toss generic roundup in the tank and go to town. You should really see if you should buffer your water and should be adding a silicon surfactant (spreader) as well. If you are super worried about drift use a drift reduction agent like cross hair or in place.

Another option for established plants is to use pre emergents. Most won't kill plants that have already emerged. If you are already a weedy mess your not going to have luck with them but if you have bare soil they can help.

Wow,

Lots of great info. I am glad there are smarter people than me that have figured this stuff out already. Did the old fashioned pull weeds by hand for a few hours yesterday and today with the help of the wife, 3 and 1 year old. (Well, the 1 year old tried to eat flowers most of the time).

We are expected to get a bunch of rain the next few days, so when I get off work at 5am, I may strap on a head light and apply PREEN to the beds to prevent any more weeds, hopefully.

Thanks again!

Lookinup