Last year I found a weed spreading like an ivy right on top of my strawberries, under my grapes. Due to the unseasonably warm winter, the weed has grown a lot and is creeping towards my roses and my Asian pear tree.
Does anybody know if this weed stays on the ground or does it climb on anything it touches? If it stays on the ground, I was thinking about tearing it up around my strawberries and plant new strawberries there and use it as a weed cover around my trees and roses. Otherwise, do you know of a cost-effective method to get rid of it before it starts becoming too invasive?
Any help would be appreciated.
by dbzgod9
1 Comment
That weed is a creeping ground ivy and using it as a deliberate ground cover around your expensive trees and roses is a bad move. I see this exact mistake all the time when laying out property visuals for folks who think any green creeping plant makes a good free mulch. It roots wherever it touches the soil and will absolutely choke out your strawberries while stealing water and nutrients from your roses. It will not climb your fences like true ivy but it will smother anything low to the ground. Get a hand cultivator, wait for the soil to be damp, and pull it all out by the roots.
You have bigger structural problems in that bed that need fixing while you are out there pulling weeds. Take those broken bricks off the trunk of your Asian pear tree today. Piling masonry and dirt right against the bark traps moisture and will eventually rot the tree out right at the base. A healthy tree needs the root flare exposed to the air right where the trunk meets the soil.
You also need to remove that random stump sitting inside the old tire. Good landscape design means building a clean functional structure first before you worry about the greenery. Rip out the creeping weeds, clear away the debris choking your tree roots, and put down a solid two inches of real wood chip mulch to keep the mess from coming back.