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Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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Posted by joebryant zone 5 Indiana (My Page) on Sun, Aug 1, 04 at 10:26
This is the third year of my wf meadow, and most of the flowers are blooming for the first time; however, they first were covered with millions of white daisy fleabane. Now I can't even see the flowers from my window because the field looks white with thousands of mature blooms of Queen Anne's lace. Even if I were to mow to six inches now to cut off the heads of their white bloom, would the stems of the q.a.l. be enough to allow the white heads to mature the seeds, thus making the mowing useless?
My Kubota tractor's front wheels would knock most of them down before they were mowed, so I almost have to use the Gravely mower that will mow everything to about six inches at the most. What about all the plant debri that will be covering the flowers and lbs grass; could that smother what's underneath? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| BTW, I cannot burn this field this fall (poor pre-planning), it has to be mowed. I wish there were a farmer nearby whom I could hire to cut and bail everything and carry it off, but there's not one. I'm including my URL of my meadow's web site here. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Joe's Wildflower meadow
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| its too bad you cannot burn... because a mow right now would keep them from going to seed and a burn in the fall would do a great deal to kill of the remaining plants... i would say you are better off mowing than to let all those plants go to seed... perhaps you could rent a power rake to removing the mowings to prevent them from smothering whats underneath? |
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| Hmmm... zone 5... they're flowering right now. I went out and pulled at the base with both hands and they came right up. They are a biennial so get as many as you can. It took me little or no time and I walked around with a big hefty garbage bag and plucked those little buggers right out of the ground. After I gathered them, I stuck them on the burn pile to be burned at a later date but throwing them out with you regular garbage is perfectly fine too. I swear you will be totally shocked at how easy they come out of the ground. We did this before we moved to make sure they were bye bye. My neighbors have begun to hand pull theirs also which means that by next year, we should all have 50% less to pull. Queen Anne's lace is actually one of the easier things to ultimately get rid of and then all you need to do is maintain by spot pulling what floats in. Best wishes to you. |
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| Ditto what Laura said... and if they're growing in clay or a grassy area, you'll have an easier job of it after it rains. I pulled most of the QAL in my wild garden yesterday, and could not believe the size of some of the roots. On the plants that were just broken/cut off earlier this year (or last year), the root developed a second (and sometimes a third) "sub-root"... insuring it's survival I guess.... |
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| If you are trying for a little bluestem meadow, interspersed with prairie forbs, I'd just mow everything off right now at 6 inches. LBS takes 3-6 years to become well established, especially when it has been broadcast instead of drilled. If you mow off the weeds (QAL), you will allow a bit more sunshine to push the LBS along. Otherwise, it could be a longer wait. Frankly, QAL isn't much of a problem in an established prairie meadow. The dense root sod will keep QAL from persisting. A spring burn would be best. You want to promote the LBS, not the forbs, and spring burns promote warm-season grasses. |
RE: Should I mow down Queen Anne's lace now?
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| Thanks, John and others. I could not possibly pull them all; it'd fill two trucks, so for two days this week I mowed the entire field. Like I said though in a seperate post after this one, I had to mow and mow to get it all cut because the Kubota tractor wheels and the front of it mower on the back would push the plants down one way, then I'd have to go back the opposite direction to cut them. The same thing happened with the Gravely mower that has the mower on the front. Consequently, my field is now mown to one-two inches with lots of litter on top of that; this causes me to worry about the possibility of my having killed a big part of my wildflowers. I'm concerned that they and the lbs are not getting any sunlight even if they do/could make new leaves. |
I just realized what I should have done. Too late now though!
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| Where is my head? I was just sitting here reading the post that I just typed and realized that I could have driven the Kubota in reverse continuously with the mower lifted up a foot. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa NOW I THINK OF IT!!!!!!!!! |
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