We've all heard about the negative effects of Round Up, its chief offending ingredient being glyphosate. The potential negative impacts on the environment and human health are still being discovered, but we know enough to understand that its use should be avoided at all costs. If weed control is your main concern, here are some helpful alternatives to poisoning the planet!
Manual Weed Control: Yep. The good ol' weeding, or hoeing it your prefer. Effective in small areas, but time consuming. Some people find this type of task soothing, but if that's not you, this is a great first "job" for a young child, whether that be your own or a neighbourhood kid looking to make a little candy money. Kids still do that, right?
Mulching: This is something we already highly endorse for trees for many reasons (see our tree planting guide HERE), but for weed control, mulch simply helps to block sunlight and prevent seed germination.
Homemade Herbicides: There are many recipes available online for your own homemade herbicides, but the most popular options include are vinegar-based or boiling water. Either of these options are great for small-scale weed control, like in small gardens, driveways, etc. *Simple recipe: fill a garden sprayer with white vinegar and add about one teaspoon liquid dishwashing soap.
Flame weeding: This is just as cool as it sounds - killing weeds with a propane torch. However it's really only suitable for areas without other flammable material, so its useful application is limited. Probably more enticing for your son than hand-weeding though, so if it's safe (and supervised), why not have a bit of fun?
Biological warfare: This is a bit more sophisticated, but bringing in some natural enemy insects can be a helpful solution.
Cover Crops & Crop Rotation: For large-scale weeding, these options are the most beneficial. Cover crops are planted to prevent weed growth by hogging the weeds' necessary resources - sunlight, water, and nutrients. And while crop rotation is mainly used to help fight pathogens and insects, this practice of moving crops around to different fields does prevent a specific type of weed from dominating completely, as differing crops offer differing levels of competition for weeds.
As homeowners who want our property to look as nice as we can manage, we understand the temptation to use what seems to be the most quick and effective form of weed control, but as tree care specialists, we simply cannot endorse synthetic herbicides that poison the very ground we plant our trees in (never mind our food!). And while not all arborists would agree, we would never recommend the use of glyphosate for weed control (read why HERE) - we hope you agree and give these alternatives a try!
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