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Controlling weeds takes time, persistence

Eloise Ogden/MDN Common milkweed is best known as the food source for Monarch butterflies. It and other weeds become an annoyance when they show up in lawns, gardens or flowerbeds.

Getting rid of weeds is a problem.

Common milkweed is primary food source for the monarch butterfly but this wide-leafed weed can be an annoyance when it pops up in lawns, flower beds and gardens, it can be an annoyance.

When milkweed is in a lawn, Ken Eraas, horticulture assistant with Ward County extension, said it won’t last there for very long. “It will not tolerate continuous mowing. In a garden it’s a little more difficult,” he said.

He said people can literally use just drops of a RoundUp mix on the leaves. “It’s probably not going to kill it the first time. You’re probably going to weaken it, you’re going to kill part of it, then put more drops on it and then you can take it out,” he said. Especially toward fall is a good time to do this.

If milkweed is in a lawn, Eraas suggests using 2/4D amine formulation.

There’s two basic formulations of 2/4D – amine and ester. “Amine is a salt base and it does not volutize – it does not drift,” Eraas said. He said the ester form will volutize or will drift very easily.

“The bad news is just about every product sold for lawn weed control is ester formulation,” he said. Because of that he suggests people look for 2/4D amine to use.

For those who prefer to use natural products, he said vinegar will work very well on seedling annual plants or very young seedling perennial plants.

“It’s an acid and it ruptures the cell wall in these leaves and the plant literally dries out or dessicates. In that regard at that stage of a plant, it works very well. In a large plant it’s way more difficult and in a perennial plant all you’re doing is your continually taking the top off. Now if you’re faithful with that and everytime it starts to get green you take it off, what you are going to do is exhaust its root reserves and eventually kill it but you’ve got to be very faithful doing that,” he said.

He said some of the tough perennials, for example, Canada thistle, are very well equipped to live in North Dakota.

He said the roots of Canada thistle routinely go down 6 to 8 feet. “That root system is a great big storehouse. You’ve got to kill it all the way down to the bottom of 8 feet,” he said.

Timing on those tough to kill weeds is more important than what you use and fall is the best time to control weeds such as dandelions and thistles, Eraas said.

He said people will look at their yards and think they don’t have any dandelions. “What you have is the little, tiny seedlings. That’s when they start and you have to literally get down on your hands and knees and get your nose down there to see these four or five-leaf tiny plants. That’s when they start, in the fall. By applying herbicide in the fall, you take care of them,” Eraas said.

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