Cindi - I feel your pain... this is the one time of year where I'm miserable because I'm allergic to cottonwood (something about the floof that makes my sinuses run like a racehorse).

Lyn - You got these kinds of weeds?



I try to keep them from not getting this big at home, but I have these same exact thistles at home. OUCH.

Toni ...

Yup ! and even more. The deer won't even eat them ...

I think my weeds know when I am taking a day off from gardening to do housework. They grow a foot and multiply fast enough to erase all of the weeding I've done. They are out to get me !

Smiles,
Lyn

Isn't that the truth? I swear that's EXACTLY what they do.. they know when I'm gonna weed, so they put down as deep as roots as possible so that it's rather futile to pull 'em up 'cuz they'll be right back in 2 days at the same height. And these darned thistles drink RoundUp like KoolAid. I swear they think it's MiracleGro or something...

Is this the annual, *My weeds are bigger, nastier, better than your weeds*, contest again!

Nyah... how about we just all commiserate that weeds suck? Especially bindweed! I have YET to find ANY kind of weedkiller that kills it.. even the stuff that kills poison ivy & poison oak & is supposed to be the strongest stuff on the market (so the nursery told me) doesn't phase it!! BLEH!!

Toni ....

I kill bind weed by cutting it off at the base all season and don't let it have any foliage for photosynthesis all during the growing season to weaken the plant. Then in fall, when the plant is sucking up nutrients for winter, I let it grow a little foliage and then I put round up on it. It sucks the RU up and usually dies. I never find it in the same bed again. Of course, I've eliminated it over the years, so it doesn't show up often.

Poison oak is harder, but I put a bag over the plant so that I don't touch it and it doesn't touch me, cut it at the base, pour concentrated RU on the stub, place a black plastic bag over the stub for the summer and let the heat cook it. By fall, it is dead, dead, dead.

I take the bagged plant to the garbage.

Thistles ... they are still winning.

Smiles,
Lyn

Don't have poison oak or poison ivy. But I have bindweed EVERYWHERE. And I've done what you said for 4 years now to no avail.. still keeps coming back. Anyone have any Agent Orange? Dynamite? Small tactical nuclear weapon? more than likely, it'd survive that too!!

Try Remedy.

My bindweed is blooming now so I'm in trouble.....!
It's been too windy to spray the poison ivy so it looks like I'm just going to have to grub it out. It's everywhere. The birds love it. I have some vines going up the trees that are thicker than any grapevine.
I get lazy about it because I'm unaffected. So far, anyway. I'm sure my day will come. I usually get it under control by now because of guests and garden tourists.
On the bright side, I've only had to cut out 1 rose so far this year from Rose Rosette Disease. Knock on wood...
And that rose had it last year, but it was such a big rose that I didn't get all of it cut out.

PPal - Only problem with Remedy is this:

Remedy Ultra controls more than 35 woody plant species and several broadleaf weeds, including:
Ash
Oaks
Birch
Sericea lespedeza
Dogwood
Cherry
Elm
Loblolly pine
Kudzu
Mesquite
Osage orange (hedge, bois’d arc)
Red oak
Poison ivy
Sweetgum
Russian olive
Multiflora rose

And according to this, I need one of their killers that can treat like 2 acres. I wish I had 2 acres!! https://www.dowagro.com/range/... And doesn't surprise me that the roots can go down 10-20 feet. EVIL.

Follow the directions for basal treatment.

Gonna have to order it first.. not something that I've ever seen locally.

Toni, Your roses sure took off fast. I cut all mine down a few weeks ago, so they won't be blooming a while. Look what came home with me the other day. I LOVE the yellow! The roses were a bit expensive, but I had never seen such healthy roses for sale.

Joanna - yum!!! You'll love that shockwave.. It's my best yellow. Doesn't shatter, keeps its color, pretty cold hardy...

Here's a frog for Toni and Porkpal:



Also, I don't remember Honeysweet having such scalloped petals in the past, but all of the blooms in this second flush are deeply scalloped. Could be weevil damage, I suppose, but I like it.

I do love your little green frogs! And if those scalloped petals are the work of weevils, they are quite talented.

Talented weevils with a sweet tooth and a sense of proportion. Nice!
The frogs in our ponds have been so noisy lately that I have to close the windows and run the a.c. to sleep. There's one with a real creepy voice, like a horror movie soundtrack.
They kind of freak my dogs out. They won't go out after dark any more. At least I think it's the frogs! Maybe a close encounter with a coyote or something else that they didn't tell me about.

I love how the froggies make themselves at home in the bloms! I had one on my kitchen windowsill this morning, inside! No idea how he got there or how long he's been in the house. Looked a little skinny. I carried him outside to his better home where he can fatten himself up.

OMG! Froggies!!! YAY!!! I the little froggies..

Still no blooms on any of my "established" roses.. heck, looks like I lost more than I thought. About 1/8th of my roses in the back are dead plus I lost a tree. My Golden Chain was killed by that last freak snow/freeze we got in the middle of May.. it had started to put out leaves and then BOOM. So it was dead from like 8" above the ground and this was a 12' tree. Sucks. Pulled it out today, gonna replace it with a red maple I guess. Probably Crimson Queen (leaves are red all season). The Fragrant Cloud has started to bloom new blooms since I trimmed it back after planting it, but almost no growth on any of the Palatine roses I got in this year. Probably that last freeze hurt them badly too. Bleh. But now it's been raining kinda sorta almost daily so that's a good thing. Every little drop helps!!

Yeah, I spent the day pruning out winterkill on my roses. I'm almost done with that chore. I had to go back over the first set I pruned because they've died back even further. Most likely, it was the same freeze/102 temp swing we had that caused that the additional damage. My mimosa tree did survive, the pecan did not. A couple of sweet cherry trees look iffy.
Edmunds has their end of season special going on, shipping is free this weekend. I've ordered in that late sale the last 2 years and I swore I wouldn't do it again because bare root roses don't handle our June heat well. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to start them in a pop up greenhouse, out of the wind. I still have other bare root roses in pots so it's not like I need any more roses or any more challenges.
We may get rain in the next few days. I hope so, because I still have not installed the drip system, and I can't get everything watered unless that's my only task for the day.
The clerk at Lowes asked if I had a cat. I said yes, why? She said because of all the scratches on my hands. I rolled up my sleeve and showed her my arms, and said I pruned over 100 roses today. She said oh I wondered why you were wearing long sleeves. Ha. I always wear sun protection shirts--these scratches happened while wearing long sleeves and gauntlet gloves. Some of those roses were just wicked! I should have worn long pants because my legs are all scratched up too!
Poor cat gets the blame and she's never scratched me.