Help needed with invasive Plant at Hospice

 


Can you please help. I work at a local hospice and am getting a majore
problem
with oxalis taking over in the bedding schemes every year. The
only way i can
see to control it is to replace all the soil in the beds
but that would be to
costly to do as we are a charity and the money is
better spent on patient care.
Is anyone else had this problem and how did you sort it out. Is there
anything i
can spray to control the problem..
Thanks in advance for any help


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--
Rich Taylor

 


R> Can you please help. I work at a local hospice and am getting a majore

Google for "oxalis control".

Looks like a difficult weed to control.

I think I'd go with black plastic.

Put black plastic over the bed, cut holes for a few
plants, cover the rest with wood chips.
The oxalis that doesn't reach the light should give up
in a year or 2.

Pulling and Roundup won't work.

 

despen@verizon.net

 


Rich Taylor;901025 Wrote:

am getting a majore

every year. The

the beds

anything i can spray to control the problem..

Hi Rich, In the past, I too have encountered this problem with several
gardens
and whilst glysophate (roundup) will knock them back, it doesnt
irradicate it.
You dont say what sort of area is involved but I would
imagine that being a
hospice, its fairly substantial !! Anyway, a method
I found to be fairly
successful is to clear the area of any low growing
plants, leaving any shrubs
and carefully lay mypex sheeting down to
cover the soil, ensuring that the edges
and around the shrubs are neatly
covered as best as possible !! This needs to be
left for several seasons
to allow all the little bulbules to try to grow, fail
and then die off.
You will have to cover the mypex with bark so that it looks
presentable
and the cheapest way to do this is to contact any local tree
surgeons
who often are pleased to have somewhere to dump thier chippings.
Obviously doing it this way, you will have to do each bed as these
chippings
become available !! I think, whilst this is not ideal, it does
work and will be
much cheaper than replacing all the soil and actually
will reduce the
maintenance required to the beds. Eventually you can
introduce some groups of
low shrubs and the whole thing will look quite
good and hopefully oxalis free.
best wishes Lannerman


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--
lannerman

 

Rich Taylor wrote:

Oxalis is a horrible weed to try to control.
Digging it up, unless you get the largish whie seed at the base of each
stem, is futile because the seed will soon send up another stem.
Pulling usually gets just the leaf and stem.

When those pretty little flowers form, seed soon follows and the plant
will "spit" the seed for a wide radius (10 feet or more.)

Any kind of plant in the vicinity that you may try to transplant will
carry the oxalis seeds with it and infect someone else's garden.

Even replacing the soil won't do the job unless you dig down far enough
to remove all the seeds,  If not, the plant will soon recover and sprout
again.

Do Google "oxalis control" to see what kind of chemicals are available
in your area.  It will probably take an entire season of applications
to rid the site.  We have been struggling with it for years, both in our
flower and vegetable garden and in the lawn.

gloria p