stickers and/or grassburrs???

HELP, please. moved to tx 1 and 1/2 yrs. ago. DH is Marine so we lease. i still plant....figure someone else will enjoy if we leave. have searched DG high and low for info on stickers...yard is full....spend many hours pulling up. have asked all over Waco nurseries for answers....all have different of course! sooo.....is there an answer and where do i find it ???? at this point, i don't know where to turn.
many thanks for ANY info....the dogs will love you for it too!

Here's the Aggie info: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/turf/grassbur.html

Might have to get into this myself as I've found some of the little devils on the soles of my gardening clogs!
Mary

I solved grassbur problem by mowing frequently and very low to the ground with grass catcher bag on mower to capture everything cut off. Then put clippings in garbage. It only took one season and almost all grassburs were gone. Ours were in a large area and after doing the above, our "grand neighbor baby" could play there barefooted. But you have to stay after it because just a week or so of letting it grow, especially after rain, and just a few grassburs will top out and, boom, they've re-seeded and you've got them all over again!!

thank you for the info!!! will buy next trip to town and mark calendar....sure beats trying to dig each plant.
also read somewhere to use old blankets to drag over yard this time of year...and throw away of course!!! intend to try that and see how many i can get up so they won't sprout. then the pre-emergence in march. any improvement will help!

we cross-posted....will lower mower also. one way or another, even if i have to plow up....rather have dirt then stickers!!!

I'll just put in a plug for natives, in addition to the A&M turfgrass propaganda... Sandspurs aren't a problem in a well-maintained prairie grass lawn, either. The key point is that they get established in disturbed areas, because they're little wussies and they can't actually compete with other grasses. If you've got a good stand of them going, you'll have to do all the low-mowing etc stuff mentioned above, but once you are winning the battle, counter-intuitively, switch to things like top dressing with compost, as well as seeding or sodding the desired grass. Yeah, it fertilizes the stickers, too, and you'll need to dig out the last little bits, but the other plants will be crowding them out and doing most of your work.

If you have a cordial relationship with the landlord, you might be able to get them to kick in for materials if you supply the labor or some such. Their property will be a lot more desireable to future renters when the yard is playable and walkable.


They do make little dog booties, btw - if you have a breed with deep pads they can really get stuck up in there.

Also, if you can, just before Spring, burn your lawn. That will take care of most of the seeds that are waiting to sprout. I agree on everything everyone else said, good advice. But I am a composter and would compost the clippings.

Chickens.
They will eat all the stickers, burrs, weeds, flowers and then some.

Glenna, I don't know what "goatheads" are, would you enlighten me me please?

Thank you for the information Glenna.
I think I may have seen those somewhere, but I am not sure, in any case, I hope they stay away from my place.
Josephine.

Photo here: http://www.goatheads.com/

Just wondering where Glenna comes from as the only place I have ever heard them called goatheads was when I moved to Nevada,the little sandburs are nothing compared to Goatheads which can pucture tires on bicyles and stop a tough dog in his tracks..

PS have seen the goatheads in west Texas and western Oklahoma

I never had sticker problems till they hitchhiked in with a load of sand I got to build a brick patio. This is the best info I have found applicable to my area as posted above. http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/turf/grassbur.html


This message was edited Jan 9, 2011 9:37 AM

I looked up Puncture Vine and it is an introduced species that grows practically all over the U.S. and Canada.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=TRTE

Here is some more interesting info and ways to control it;
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74128.html

moved from nw N.M.....spent 38 yrs. fighting goatheads! if you watch close when they get yellow flower buds, stickers will still be soft and when you pull up be sure to get long tap root. old-timers there claimed the heads could lay dormant for 20 yrs. and still sprout!!!

All seeds will decay if composted. I do not have bins just one big pile every year. This one is 45' X 18' This picture was taken much earlier in the Spring and isn't that full yet. It will be 6' high by Spring.

It appears that poor soil is the determining factor in both goats heads and sand burrs or grassburrs.

I have read in the past that the best way to prevent them is to spread spagnum peat moss as a top dressing about a third of an inch thick. Also works to get rid of other weeds like dollarweed.

My crop is wicked in spring and goes away in early summer but it returns with a vengance each spring. Need to treat early and see if I can change that.

What I know now is that Round up kills not just the plant but also seeds of most weeds I don't know if it will do in the Goatheads but it works wonders on the sandburs..Drastic plants take drastic measures

Called em goatheads in NM, West Texas.

Water is the answer. The grass does not produce seed until it gets dry. Water it a lot all year and next year, no sandspurs or goatsheads. Spectracide's roundup type product did not work for me at all. So I dug and dug, until I learned about water, and tested it. We have a drought now, but I only found about 4 plants last year. I had a full 1/6th acre in my septic field's sandy soil, just solid, when I started.

Did you notice how old this thread is? I wonder if theta have them under control by now. Lol

If they tried depriving them of water or used weedkillers probably not. Heck I got out there with a propane torch and a garden hose (to keep things from getting out of hand) in fall 2008. And the seeds didn't burn, so I used a shopvac and picked up the seeds. It slowed them down. The cool thing about a forum is that the information is still out there for the next person with a problem.