Page #3: Restoration of Garden 2018 - Bermuda Grass (Noxious Pest)

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Copyright © 2018 Lonnie D.Watkins

Restoration of Garden 2018 - Bermuda Grass (Noxious Pest)

Noxious Pest Removal

A Noxious Bramble - 21 March 2015

Thought: include a few hints to make clear why I name Cynodon dactylon a noxious pest for gardeners. It is a pernicious, virulent, infective pestilence, contaminating to my delicate, beautiful, flower gardens. No offense meant toward golf course gardening.

Table Of Contents

Page Name	Description
Introduction	Introduction
"Main" Page	Anchor page describing current garden
Old Garden 2012	Soil preparation at my old apartment
Noxious Weeds Removal	Removing Bermuda Grass from the new planter

To defeat Bermuda Grass in my garden area I decided upon research. How Bermuda grass grows, how it spreads, to discover its weaknesses in order to use them to my advantage. There are links indicated in orange inside this article. This is the best way to combat this noxious pest that plagues gardeners here in Las Vegas. Research!! Wikipedia gives the Latin nomenclature as Poaceae Cynodon dactylon, and teaches that the grass root system can grow up to six-feet deep. I have never seen this, yet am assuming that in Bermuda it is possible. The desert has caliche about four-feet down and it is impermeable,... water will not even drain through. I dig down one-foot and sift the rock out of my soil, removing the grass completely. Leaving no trace. One has to use care to leave absolutely no trace.

1. Rhizomes
rhizomes(below ground runners) grow away from a root ball and start new root balls. I dug into the soil... below are some examples of the rhizomes. The sparse grass dies back during the cold winter months, and in areas where the grass is thicker, it is insulated and hangs on, even though the weather is dry, bitter, and cold. This is why golf courses like Bermuda grass. It is a tough plant and thrives where other grasses die off.


Exposing Rhizomes



Dug down to expose roots and rhizomes - July 2015

Anyway, I went down a few inches and discovered the rhizomes. They are albino until exposed to the sun.Once the rhizome is under sunlight the chemical process of photosynthesis begins. If they are left exposed the rhizomes can potentially, and willfully "I" think, start a new colony of Bermuda grass. Any good-sized piece can begin a colony. I remove all traces of the grass so nothing new starts.


Rhizome Colony Removal



Summer Season 2015

Using the rhizome removal tool shown in the first image, I just yank the roots out. Sometimes the rhizome colony is three or four tiers, I consider a tier each year. Removing this pest is hard work but liquid weed killers will not kill rhizomes under rhizomes. With this labor intensive task the soil is not poisoned or altered... just turned and aerated returning dead and compacted soil to health. I learned this information first-hand from my own gardening and grass removal. Even though the top tier of rhizomes may be dead after using a poison(some poisons advertise below ground elimination of weed pests), there are usually different levels at different depths as shown above.

2. Seed-heads
Knocking seeds off of the seed-head doesn't help. After a long hot spell the seeds are ready to fall off. The first image at the top of this post describes seed-heads clearly yet those are green and still fresh... unlikely to disperse if kicked and cut.


Bermuda Grass Seed Heads



14 January 2018

The seeds are difficult to see, yet these very small seeds spread to a diameter of three to four feet when kicked or disturbed by wind. To me,as with all plants they deserve some positive remarks. It is resilient, drought tolerant, and great for sports fields. Nuff said about that.

3. Stolons
The stolons (above-ground runners), even if severed, breed thriving new colonies.


Six-foot Long Stolon



24 November 2016

Was quite surprised when removing weeds one year. Discovered the length of this runner of Bermuda grass reached six-feet in length. None of its section nodes had rooted so it could have grown even longer. Being in the process of removing this "weed" I will never know.


A Six-foot Long Stolon: Detail



24 November 2016

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Am preparing my planters for the restoration of the garden 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Lonnie D.Watkins
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