Is there a preferred way to distinguish a weed from a plant when your an amature gardener?

Question

Will clover kill your flowers if it invades your garden? How do you keep the grass from overtaking the space? Are slugs bad for a flower garden?

Answer 1

It has been my experience if you tend to it and water it and it dies, its a plant. If you pull it up and never watered it or tended it and it lives, its a weed. Haha, just kidding. The first answer is right. If you dont want it, its a weed. Many nurseries sell local weeds as wildflowers or drought resistant native plants. Sneaky.

Slugs. I hate slugs. Nasty, slimy, gross, all over everything when it rains. They hide under stuff like rocks and hundreds of them all ball up together, YUK. I always poured salt on them just to watch them dissolve. Maybe I have a mean streak. Nah, I just hate slugs. They will eat up your plants. Get rid of them.

Grass. Install a border around your garden that has at least six inches buried in the ground to stop the invading roots.

Slugs again. If you cant get rid of them, set out traps of beer or grape juice, they drown in either one. They also wont cross copper so you can get strips of it in the plumbing section of the hardware store and put it around the plants. Or go to the swimming pool store and get diatomaceaos earth(used in pool filters) and spread it around. Cuts them up and dries them up. You can get it at the nursery but they will charge an arm and a leg for it.

Hope that helps. Good luck with your garden.

Answer 2

I have a gardener friend who lets nature do a lot of things in her garden. She appreciates the wild daisies and native stuff blooming in her garden whether other people think they are weeds or not. That kind of stuff tends to seed in and establish itself in different spots around the garden. Her place is loaded with wild daisies and goldenrod that have been allowed but it looks beautiful.

If you are unsure whether something is a weed, you could let it grow and bloom and then decide if it is a plant you want, or want more of, in your garden. Observe if the plant is extremely aggressive in its growth and looks likely to crowd out the plant next to it.

You could take samples of leaves or flowers to your local professional garden center and chances are someone there could help you identify which of the plants you have are likely to become a problem. There are many good identification books out there that can offer advice as well. If the plant you are watching turns out to be a weed, or its flower of no ornamental value to you, you can then pull it in bloom so as to avoid seed propagation. The drawback would be allowing it to get good and established as in the case of thistle or something with a running root which can then be difficult to eradicate. You may decide to cut the seeds off a plant you do enjoy and want to leave there, as the seeds form so it does not drop more seeds and take an area over.

Clover can be pretty invasive and crowd other stuff out so I would probably advise you to remove it. True clover will usually bloom white or purple. There is another plant called Oxalis which looks like a clover leaf, but with a yellow flower, which is an obnoxious weed that goes to seed everywhere. I suggest you pull it also, it is easy to pull out where true clover is hard to pull out.

You can cut the flower beds out the old fashioned way to avoid grass taking over. This involves cutting straight down with a spade or sod cutter at least 4 inches deep where you want the edge to be. Then remove the sod inside the flower bed, leaving the cut edge exposed to the air. Slope the dirt in the flower bed back up to the level of the flowers, leaving the 4" trench. Leaves a nice clean looking edge but it is a bit of work. You could also install commercially available edging but PLEASE put it in deep enough, so you almost can't see it. You should be able to run your lawnmower over your edging without cutting it. It's purpose is to be a barrier to stop ingrowth of grass roots, not be a little wall to keep mulch in the beds!

Slugs can be bad news if they get to a population big enough to cause cosmetic damage. Hostas can look pretty bad by the end of the summer if the slugs are numerous. They don't generally cause enough damage to kill anything.

Answer 3

1. clover will crowd out less aggressive plants
2. Pull or dig grass out to prevent it's spreading
3. Slugs are bad for the garden
4. a weed is a plant you Don't want in your garden
what you call a weed another Gardner might call a flower, it's in
the eye of the gardener!

Answer 4

Clovers are invasive plants and they attract rabbits.

The only thing for grass is to uproot it where you don't want it.

Slugs are bad for gardens especially hosta. But you can use cat food cats with beer. Beleive it or not, the slugs drown themselves in the beer.

Get a good weed picture book. Then you know what you don't want.

Start out with EASY plants. Hosta, daylily, iris, Rose of Sharon, and lilac are easy plants.

Answer 5

Clover is good to renew the soil.

Slugs are gross and yes they are bad for plants.

AS far as weeds go, if it pulls out easily it was a plant, if it resists and the root stays in the ground while the rest snaps off in your hand, it was a weed.

Answer 6

HI You,
Get a good organic gardening book with illustrations of weeds.
Clover is very good for the soil. It has a deep tap root that " mines 'plant nutrients that are out of the root zones of cultivated plants and brings them to the surface. When you mow it it mulches the ground with rich organic fertilizers. It also is an effective ground cover in orchards, and between rows. I plant clover in my gardens intentionally. Slugs are very bad for gardens. Get rid of them with small containers burried to the soil
surface and fill with beer. They will crawl in and drown .
No chemicals ,all organic fertilizers and above all compost !.
Love and blessings,
Joshua*******

Answer 7

A weed is any plant that you don't want in your garden, so yes. Whatever you don't want is a weed and should be removed.

Clovers won't kill the space.

Grass needs a barrier of stone or a plasic wall, mulch also works.

Slugs are bad for all plants in the larva stage, so should be taken cear of.

Answer 8

slugs will make a happy lunch of your plants get some slug bait or if youy don't like chemicals use self rising flour lightly clover will not kill flowers put a barrier between grass and bed

Answer 9

1) If you pull it up and it grows again it's a weed if it
doesn't it was a flower
2) no, it doesn't get big enough
3) grub it out don't use weed killer you'll kill everything
4) of course they are what do you think they eat?
burgers and fries