Dayflower Difficulties

 While the rest of the world is occupied with either embracing or avoiding the inevitable summer heat of July and August in the Northern Hemisphere, ProfessorRoush is additionally fully engaged in my annual war with the Common Dayflower, Commelina communis.  Not as strikingly blue as its cousin, the Erect Daylily (Commelina erectus), C. communis is described in KSWildflower.org in unglowing and uninspiring terminology as "A common weed. The flowers bloom for one day, wilting into a moist, blue mass after a few hours."   I would add that if a "weed" is benignly considered to be any plant that is growing in an unwanted place, then the Dayflower is an overachiever; pernicious to its neighbors, invasive, impervious to glycosophate, and seemingly impossible to eradicate.

As an aside, the Wikipedia entry regarding Dayflowers is a model of "more than you ever want to know," and was obviously edited by some wild-eyed and socially questionable Dayflower fanatics.

Dayflower is supposed to be an annual (I'm not as convinced about that as Internet sources seem to be), so my primary angle of attack is to rip it out before it goes to seed.  Unfortunately, it has an uncanny ability to hide among irises and daylilies as it creeps along on the ground, popping up only as it gains the unsanctioned support of an neighbor plant, so I have to watch closely for the light blue flowers and rip them out at first appearance.  Equally unfortunately, the plant blooms during the hottest days of the year, so I battle both the plant and heat stroke simultaneously during my periodic forays into my garden beds.

Often, I find the Dayflower imitating and then trying to replace a desired plant (like an alien pod of 1950's science fiction) while mowing the lawn, as I did the weedy clump pictured above.   Beneath all those Dayflower stems and leaves is a desired 'Vintage Wine' daylily, which was blooming without care only the week before.  So, in this instance as in many others, I stopped mowing and attacked, wiping sweat away from my eyes periodically so I could discern daylily foliage from dayflower, and just generally resembling a bulldog attacking a bowl of soup.  Anyway, the final result looks much better (photo at right), a relieved daylily with a chance at survival.

 I'll finish by taking this moment to show you my latest lawn tractor modification.  I took this old 5-gallon bucket and have attached it to the tractor "hitch" point in order to always have immediate access to pruning tools and spray bottles of "Grass-B-Gon", yellow nutsedge herbicide, and brush-killer.   In other words, all the things I can't live without as a gardener in Kansas.   As I mow, I often spot a random clump of wild dogwood in a rose bush, or some yellow nutsedge in a bed, and it is much more effective to hit the brake and take care of it in the moment, rather than try to remember later what it was that offended me, where it was, and then make another trek to get the tool or spray I need to fix it.  I love my new bucket-basket!

Catchweed Nemesis

ProfessorRoush has briefly referred before to my exasperating experiences with "cleavers", or Galium aparine,also known as "bedstraw", "catchweed", "goosegrass" (geese eat it) and, in a modern twist, "velcro plant".   Some years it grows much faster and thicker than others and this year I almost had two different beds completely consumed by it.  So, once again, the enemy is at my gates and I'm in a wartime footing against this smother-acious pest.

Some may ask about the "catchweed" name, or wonder why I write with such vehemence about it, but if you have ever touched it, you'd know.  This weed-from-Hell attaches itself to anything and everything with the small hooked hairs on its stems and whorled leaves.  It frankly feels "icky" to touch it with bare hands.

Even worse, it has small globular fruits with the same hooks that attach to socks and shirts and underwear and sometimes skin.   I put a closeup to the left, above, and here to the right a wider picture of my T-shirt after one skirmish with the plant.  I'm sure an ecologist would be enthusiastic about the catchweed's utilization of me and every other passing animal to spread seed, but I'm less complementary about that feature, myself.

 Catchweed is an annual with sprawling stems that grow up to 3 feet long and branch and spread along the ground and climb over other plants.  It tries its best to cover and smother neighboring perennials and shrubs while the sadly smothered plant props up the square stems.  And Galium is quite successful in that regard.  In my front bed, for one example, I've got a 6'X8' area where the only recognizable plant is the catchweed on top of everything else.

Since I don't have a pet goose on the premises (nor am I willing to abide the resultant goose droppings that come with one), I've previously recommended pulling catchweed out while wearing cotton gloves as an efficiency measure, but this weekend I found this long-handled cultivator marked down on sale from $7 to $2.50 and I correctly recognized it might be just the nuclear option I was looking for.   My motto is "never use a grenade when an atom bomb is available." 

Anyway, a "picture being worth a thousand words", I'll let the next two photos speak for the efficacy of my inexpensive and effective tool.   Here, at right, I give you a daylily smothered by catchweed.

And a few minutes later, the same daylily from the same angle.   A little hacking-away occurred in the interim, but the cultivator's handle is long enough that I didn't have to bend over, and the catchweed, at least the bulk of it, is gone!  You can see that raking away the "bedstraw" hasn't damaged the underlying daylily (the streaks on the daylily are from hail damage last week!).   Yes, I know I'm not getting the root, but when the Galium grows back, by golly, I'll just do it again.  No seeds for you this year, Catchweed!