Killing, and preventing weeds after the rain in Phoenix, Arizona

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If you understand germination and photosynthesis, you can prevent weeds and kill them in your garden. If you don't, you're really better off staying away from these techniques. So if you're just guessing, or trying to trust the "nice clerk at Home Depot", I recommend that you just wait until your weeds grow, and then go out there and dig them up.

I've done a lot of research on this, and have been around a lot of plant people, so I'm comfortable using controls, which you can buy at any Garden Center. I've been doing the "one-two punch" for weeds here at the Tropical Paradise for over twenty years, and it's something that all of this rain reminded me that I needed to do, so I did it today.

If you have an understanding of how all of this works, you start with a weed preventer, which comes in granules. Any brand will do, and all you do is sprinkle it all over the place, and water it in. Or if it's gonna rain, even better. No, it won't stop all of your weeds, but since it discourages germination, it will stop most of them. In fact, it stops seeds from germinating, so if you've planted flower seeds, don't use it. Otherwise it does nothing to your garden. That's step one.

The next thing you gotta do is kill the weeds that have already started to spring up. Yep, that's just part of the job (or the labor of love!). I use a topical non-selective plant killer, and I select. That is, I aim. If you use this type of plant killer, you are going to stop photosynthesis, so if you get it on a plant that you don't want to kill, you need to wash it off with plain water as quickly as you can. I pride myself on my marksmanship, so that hasn't happened much to me. In areas where the water has been standing, and little weeds are popping up all over the place, you just mist the area with the spray.

I was at my local Home Depot today and I noticed that the shelves of weed preventer were mostly empty, so I bought a different brand. It's been raining like crazy here lately! If you know how to use it, you'll be fine. If not, don't.

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