Using weed killer

I picked up a container of Ortho 'Weed B Gon' to control some weeds around my property.

First I tried it out on a few isolated smaller ones to see how it worked. I squirted them a few days ago. They still seem to be healthy though a couple have a few shriveled leaves. I had expected them to be totally dead in a day or so.

What am I doing wrong? Any guesses? Maybe it takes longer to affect them? You have to really soak them?

There is little info on the bottle and that is mostly warnings.

TIA

Reply to
KenK
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They should die, but it doesn't happen right away

Reply to
MLD

It's mostly 2,4-D w/ a little 2,4-5T iirc...depends on what your weeds really are.

Also, what's the temperature and soil moisture level? Herbicides work much better if the target is growing actively, not stressed.

Also, of course, depends on the concentration -- was this pre-mixed or did you mix a concentrate? You can also help a little if the leaves are slightly moist first or use a surfactant to get better absorption (a teaspoon or so of dishwashing liquid detergent/quart added to the bottle works).

Reply to
dpb

I use that, also. Takes 3-4 days for the weed to show distress and a couple of weeks to totally keel over. Hot supper weather makes it happen a bit quicker.

Weeds with a long tap root, such as the ones in my yard that pretend to be clover, are not killed by weed-b-gone.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Drahn

...

Intended to note that 2,4-D works basically by disturbing plant growth cycle such that it essentially "grows itself to death" -- iow, it doesn't just turn brown and die, the curly leaves are the symptom it's working...of course, again depending on the actual weed and the conditions and all that, occasionally stuff will wilt and then eventually recover, but most common broadleaf yard stuff will succumb.

Reply to
dpb

I've used WBG, both versions....regular and the one for St. Augustine. I think it works miracles. In my present lawn, I used it last year, mainly for dandelions, and there are very few of them this year.

Unless you are down south, it might be too cold yet for weeds to take up the WBG. Weeds (per package instr.) need to be actively growing and no rain for a couple of days. It should not be used during hot, dry spells because it can stress the lawn grass. When I used it on southern lawn (St. A. grass), I would fertilize about a week before and water a day or two previously.

If you mixed it, any chance you made it too dilute? I use hose-end sprayer for appl. If weed have real waxy leaves, it might be better to treat them individually with Roundup and a paint brush...tedious, but it works.

After application all over the first time, all I needed to do was occ. spot treatment. It takes at least 2 or 3 years (it can take a lot longer) for already present weed seed to germinate, so you won't have a permanent weed-free lawn from one appl. Proper watering and mowing makes a huge difference on weed growth, and cutting too short is encouraging weeds, especially in hot, dry weather.

Reply to
Norminn

When applying a broadleaf weedkiller, for best results:

  1. Don't apply immediately after the lawn has been mowed, wait a few days. The more leaf area on the weeds, the more weedkiller they will absorb. For the same reason, wait a few days after spraying before mowing.
  2. The lawn should be moist/recently watered, so the weeds are actively growing. If the soil is very dry, the weeds are barely growing, and thus won't absorb much weedkiller.
  3. Temps should be between mid-60s F. and low 80s F. The colder it is, the slower the plants are growing, and the slower they will absorb the weedkiller. Too slow, it'll either do nothing, or it will stunt the weed but not kill it. The hotter it is, the more likely the weedkiller will also injure the grass.
  4. Don't apply too strong or too weak of a mixture. Too strong, it'll injure the lawn. Too weak, it'll stunt the weeds' growth for awhile, but not kill them. Read the label to find the recommended rate.
  5. Ideally, no rain for 24-48 hours after applying the weedkiller. You don't want it washed off before the weeds absorb it.
  6. For stubborn weeds such as creeping charlie, a second application
7-10 days after the initial application will improve the rate of kill.

Finally, the best time of the year in much of the US to apply broadleaf weedkillers is late summer/early autumn. The ground is at its warmest, so the weeds are actively growing. It's usually not as unpredictably rainy as it is in the spring, so it's easier to find an optimum weather window to apply it. Also, seeds from the spring dandelion crop have already germinated and formed small plants that will winter over and bloom the following spring. Spray in later summer/early fall, and there will be far fewer perennial weeds to deal with the following spring.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

I mix a solution of Roundup in a disposable container, then I pull on a rubber glove, and cover it with a cheap cotton glove. I then dip the gloved hand into the Roundup solution and just grasp/stroke the weeds I want to treat. It goes very fast, and it's a very precise way to apply the solution. Of course, if the weeds are very short, this is hard on your knees and back, but it works especially well when you want to get weeds located close to desirable plants, such as in a garden or under shrubbery.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

I tried repeatedly to kill some poision ivy, roundup, and poision ivy killer just made them shrivle, then they would come back stronger than ever.

at the suggestion of someone here mix roundup 50 / 50 with poision ivy killer....

this combo kills weeds and poisdion ivy fast, although doing so is illegal....

Reply to
bob haller

Penn State U. says pig weed seed can remain viable up to 40 years.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

They _can_ but would be highly unlikely in lawn to be dormant anything at all like that long.

_Most_ seeds if dry and not heated too hot will survive quite long periods of time so that's not terribly uncommon.

But in a lawn there's almost certainly going to be enough water that they'll germinate with a few years at the outside.

Reply to
dpb

I don't know. It seems unlikely. Farmers around here were burning fields for awhile trying to get rid of shattercane. I don't remember if it really helped all that much. Fortunately, GMO came along so crops could be sprayed to kill it off. So now some farmers are back to planting grain sorghum.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

Be careful when reading the warnings. Reading in dim light may be harmful to your eyes.

I used that product, with crabgrass killer, a couple years ago and was quite happy with the results. It takes longer than they say. Spectracide had made me happy too, years earlier. I liked Ortho because the sprayer pointed down, but with spectracide and the most natural way to hold it, it pointed horizontal, and when the kinks in the hose took control of the hose, I killed part of the branch of my tulip tree**** and maybe some other stuff ****(Yes a tulip poplar, but in Indiana where it's the state tree, and we had 4**, it's just called a tulip tree.)

I was late this year because it's been cold, and I used the second half of the bottle yesterday, hoping it would kill dandelions that had already bloomed. They didn't look different 24 hours later. I'll look tomorrow.

Planned to spray on more today, went to the store and the sold Ortho weed-b-gon in 3 forms. The 24 oz. garden house bottle (which is what I used) , the stuff you mix yourself and use your own spayer (called Concentrate), and a gallon plastic bottle with a hand squeeze sprayer.

What caught my eye is that the garden hose liquid was not called concentrate, and was the same price as the gallon bottle (about 11 dollars) but only had 32 oz. 1/4 of a gallon. So I called their 800 number (Open to 8AM to 10PM ET M-F, to 6 (or 5?) Sat and Sun) and twice the girl told me that the garden hose bottle is not concentrated, it's the same as the gallon stuff. Which means not counting the value of the spray container, it's 4 times the price.

800-225-2883

You've used part of what you bought already, but you might save the empty bottle, take out the two screws and see if the top unscrews, then buy a gallon next year. I wish I'd saved my empty bottle but I do have another brand's empty and I think I'll use that, but tomorrow rain is expected. It will have to be the weekend.

I have to reread the labels. IIRC both this and Spectracide** say they kill creeping charlie I have a lot of that, and it annoys me. **But at least one product did NOT list creeping charlie.

**I wasn't going to tell this story but when we moved into the house in Indianapolis, one tulip tree was only 4 feet tall, and only the trunk, broken off at an angle from the top (4 feet) to 2 or 3 feet high. (The other 3 trees were 10 or 20 feet tall.)

The broken one stayed that way for 4 or 5 years, not a sign of life except that it didn't rot, and then started growing again, quite fast.

Reply to
micky

I just followed the instructions, although I guess I did give extra sparying to big ugly weeds. . It's hard to judge or to calculate how big my yard is (It's 5-sided) but somewhere along the line I figured

2500 feet, a half bottle, and I sprayed moderately so I did the yard in a half bottle. Maybe that's what I liked about Ortho, that you can tell how much you've used.

Some of the big ugly weeds were wilting today, 24 hours after spraying. A competitor claims it will be dying in 6 hours, but they probably spray it on watercress or something delicate. Anyhow, I'm not in that much of a hurry.

Reply to
micky

For the powders or solid products, there's a mnemoic, EMIL.

Easter, bag I Memorial day, bag II Independance day, bag III Labor day bag IV.

But bag 1 stuff just lies there until it's warm enough to work And the schedule couldn't be correct for all latitudes.

The cherry trees reached their height iin DC two weeks ago last Tuesday, and mind just started blooming two days ago (Tuesday) Only 45 miles north, and a couple hundred feet more elevation.

For newbies, that's becaue Round-up kills or at least might kill anything it touches. Or anything that grows in the dirt it touches, I think.

Reply to
micky

I forgot why I was going to spray twice in two days.

It rained last night, not sure how much, but i'm sure some of my spraying got washed off.

Reply to
micky

Pig weed is amaranth, isn't it? Just eat it.

Reply to
rbowman

It does take several days. But I don't know what variety was used. If something like Spot Shot, it isn't very effective. Yes, it will kill the weeds that you see but in the meantime they may have reseeded. Spot killing like this gives you no better results than if you were to dig up and dispose of every weed that you see.

I know. I tried both of these methods when I lived in military housing. We had a huge yard with woods alongside and the crappiest grass you've ever seen. This was on Cape Cod so the types of grass grown there are not what I was familiar with coming from Washington state. Whatever the grass was nearest the house, would grow three feet high in a week! Normally I would use Weed and Feed but I was afraid if I did that, I'd have huge bare spots.

Keep in mind that I didn't own this yard nor did I intend to stay there as it was military housing. So I felt less need to keep it up like I would with a rental or a house that I own.

I own this house. The yard is pretty small and I have a gardener. He uses weed and feed and I never have any weeds whatever. I always worry because the guy next door just hacks his weed/yard down at best, 2/3 times a year. Nobody lives in that house. They are doing a remodel but it has been going on for years with little being accomplished. We still never get weeds in the lawn but we will get a few in the flower beds.

Reply to
Julie Bove

Yes it does! I used to manage a garden shop and a couple of my idiot employees thought it would be funny to spray some of the plants we sold with the stuff. I didn't know that they did this. Customers began coming in for refunds right and left because the plants they bought were dying. I then heard these two buffoons laughing about this over in the corner. I was not happy! I was also not happy when I discovered that my husband had put it in all of our flower beds. Daughter and I had just spent a few hundred dollars planting flowers out there. :( I have given up on real flowers with him around. Although we have a gardener now, any time he sees something threatening to flower, he has the gardener remove it. So... I have to make due with silk flowers now. Oddly enough he seems fine with those.

Reply to
Julie Bove

You aren't doing anything wrong, your expectations are just too high.

First, the leaves shrivel, then the stem. In a month or so it will be gone.

Reply to
dadiOH

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