Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
sgtwarpig

Weed Identification and Destruction Method

sgtwarpig
16 years ago

I have been trying to identify this weed for many years now and also trying to kill it! I guess you could call it my arch enemy! I dont know if pictures work inside posting but if I could get a response I could email the pic. Its a weed that grows in various spots and they are all connected (tubular type dont know the correct word) but when you pull the tops off green thread like things remain from the stem. Dont have a clue as to how to get rid of these pests!

Can someone help? Frustrated in Chicago

Lou

Image link:

Comments (4)

  • duluthinbloomz4
    16 years ago

    Identification of this has eluded me for years... but I'm going to stick my neck out and say it's a variety of garlic mustard in its seeding stage. I get it everywhere - and have attacked it with a warren hoe - which probably only serves to leave the tubers deep underground and break up the extensive root system, pieces of which all seem to generate new plants. This one is frustrating because just trying to pull it out simply slicks off the leaves.

    I've never seen an individual plant get much larger than your usual wood violet (which it faintly resembles) and have never seen one bloom - so maybe I'm succeeding in only getting a new crop every year rather than letting them reach maturity. But I've googled this one until I'm blue in the face and I keep coming back to garlic mustard - one of the most noxious of the noxious weeds.

    There are a few more threads here asking about this one - some of the replies have been "snakeroot" and "blackberries", but neither seems quite right.

  • pieheart
    16 years ago

    I can't tell from the picture, it's too small for my eyes. But, if it is garlic mustard, there is a way to get rid of it (somewhat), but you need to be patient. Garlic mustard is a biennial, so if you can pull it out/round up on the first year plant you at least eliminated that plant. For the second year plant you can use round up or just keep cutting off the flowers so it can't seed. If you can keep up with the flower shearing until the plant dies or you have frost, that particular plant is no more.

    However, that doesn't prevent the multitude of seeds migrating over from your neighbor's property, down the street, around town. Whenever I see this one I just yank it out. Sometimes you can get the roots, sometimes not. Either way it makes me feel better. Honestly, though, it's a losing battle. Like trying to get rid of ground ivy or chickweed. Or poison ivy (that one just keeps on sprouting somewhere no matter what I do).

  • remy_gw
    16 years ago

    Hi,
    It looks like a Campanula of some sort to me. Some of them are weeds that have runners like C. rapunculoides and some like C. punctata can be very weedy pests though often grown in a garden.
    Remy

  • soitgoes
    16 years ago

    It is most definitely not garlic mustard. I am a bit of an expert on garlic mustard (currently trying to eradicate a stand that has been around long enough to leave a very fertile seed bed).