Roundup on Roundup

In the not-so-distant past, I was adamently organic. Growing all the vegetables for my family meant protecting them from the evils of herbicides and pesticides, especially Roundup. Back then, organic produce was difficult to find, and when found, prohibitively expensive. Hence, my organic garden.

Fast forward to the present day, when I no longer grow food except here and there. Instead, I have a large yard with large beds that provide room for weeds to grow. I now resort to Roundup to keep those weeds under control, especially the perennial and/or prolific ones like Canada thistle, pokeweed, trumpet vine, mulberry seedlings, etc.

Glyphosate is a systemic, non-selective herbicide that is absorbed by the plant and moves throughout the vascular system, ultimately killing the plant. Roundup used to be synomymous with glyphosate, but that is changing. Recently, Bayer announced that glyphosate would be phased out of consumer Roundup products.

So, what do I have? The product that I have been using on weeds in the mulched beds is Roundup Concentrate Plus. I dilute it with water at the heavier concentration, as I'm dealing with perennial weeds, vines, tree stubs, etc. The main ingredient is glyphosate, isopropylamine salt, with diquat dibromide added for quick burndown of the weeds. It works well. I just finished off a container of it. Should I buy more this season or wait? The formula may be different next year.

For the lawn, I use Roundup for Lawns. It targets primarily broadleaf weeds, plus crabgrass and yellow nutsedge. I posted about my nutsedge woes several weeks ago, thinking there was nothing I could do for where it grows in the lawn. Now I will have to try treating it with this product, even if it requires multiple applications. It pays to read the freakin' label! (The label does not mention mulberry seedlings, but the product works on them as well.)

One more product I use, straight from the bottle, is Ortho Groundclear Poison Ivy and Tough Brush Killer. Its main ingredients are triclopyr, triethylamine salt and diquat dibromide. Triclopyr is a systemic herbicide that affects actively growing plants by mimicking a specific type of plant growth hormone. Plants rapidly take in triclopyr through leaves and roots, which causes uncontrolled plant growth and plant death. When trying to eliminate something like yucca which keeps popping up in the middle of my 'October Skies' aster, I trim back the yucca and brush on this product so it touches only the yucca. Ditto mulberry and sumac seedlings that get beyond the seedling stage.

It may sound like I'm just covering my property with poisons, but that is not the case. Periodically, I patrol the yard, sprayer in hand, on a search-and-destroy mission. I spot treat the specific invaders. I'm careful about exposure to both myself and the pets. These products are tools that are effective and relatively safe when used in their intended manner. However, I would still not use them around food plants.

On a completely different topic, I visited Arbor Farms Nursery the other day, as their pottery was on sale for 50% off. I was looking for some new pots for some houseplants. I also checked out the ginkgo trees for future reference. The pottery was on tables near the butterfly bushes. And there were butterflies! It was all I could do to keep myself from adding a butterfly bush (or two or three) to my shopping, but I held myself in check. I admit I'm thinking of adding some to the landscape, to see if I have better luck attracting butterflies, but that can wait until next year.


I repotted two houseplants today.