Hi, I have a hillside full of little juniper pacificas, which were planted with one of those antiweed tarps, and then mulched. We had a big hailstorm and the tarp got several minor knicks in it somehow, even covered by the mulch, and other stuff is popping up. I've weeded but it is getting out of hand timewise, and I was wondering what I could spray that would not kill the junipers. Oh and anyone that says 'just get out there and pull them up' probably does not work 60hrs a week. :)
thx,
itchy.
I can't imagine it would be too difficult to patch the holes... some extra tarp, scissors, and a big roll of duct tape is cheap.
With your busy schedule you want something more low maintenance. You might consider moving into an urban apartment, or condominium.
On the other hand, the junipers are perennials, and the weeds are annuals. As the junipers grow, they will crowd out the annuals. It may look a bit trashy at first, but the junipers will fill in where the soil gets light.
Tarp with nicks, or not, the wind, birds, and animals will deposit seeds which will sprout on your best laid plans. If you don't want to pull weeds, lay newspaper over them, and then spread mulch over the newspaper. You will need to do this until the junipers are large enough to shade out the weeds, but even so, there will still be the occasional weed that will need to be pulled or covered.
You might be happier just paving over your hillside, and painting it green, but the results will end up being the same as above.
Consider this your tuition in landscaping.
If you are contemplating using "Round-Up", you may want to look at the following sites first:
Junipers are about as low maintenence as it gets... pacificas is extremely low maintenence, grows fast and will in short order cover the ground completely. I'd pull up the weeds and patch and mulch the holes... don't really need to but will look unsightly until the junipers spread... those junipers will spread weeds or no.
Not true... most "weeds" are perennials... to some they're weeds to other's they're wildflowers.
************************************************************ I had a problem with large amounts of weeds crowding out some of my flowers also.
I bought a 4" x 2' plastic tube. I place this around the weed near my flowers. I then use a spray bottle full of the strong vinegar like they sell in the garden department at Lowe's, and spray the vinegar down through the tube onto the weeds.
For the vinegar to be most effective, you need to do this on a hot, sunny day.
For the weeds that are really up close to the flower, I pull them out by hand or use a small hoe or pair of scissors and cut them down.
That is not a bad idea. I had pulled up a few weeds and disturbed a yellowjacket nest so I'm leaning towards the spray method, also for the time factor. A little hand sprayer and close spraying is working for now, although there is this cataloupe type vine with thorns that is getting the shears asap.
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