Question
If the sugar kills off the dollar weed, what does it to the day lilies, hydrangia, begonias and other bedding plants?
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Followup To

Question -
HI,
I live in Houston TX, and all the rain is making the dollar weeds in one of my flower beds very happy. For the past few years I have been digging it out, but that is not working, it is just getting worse.  The lawn and other beds are not too bad?..yet!  The problem area is in a northeast corner of the house, so it is fairly shady, and of course right now, very damp.  How can I get rid of it?


Answer -
Hi Anne;
I say use sugar, Howard Garrett says use dry molasses, but I use 1 pound sugar per 250 sq.ft of lawn and garden, and he says use 10 pounds sugar per 1000 sq.ft. That is way more dry molases, and I like the sugar better anyway.
Sugar and dry molasses cost about the same per pound.
The 40 lb. bags of dry molasses are a bit heavy for me.
dollar weeds is one of the weeds i had that went away when I started using sugar on my lawn.
He says corn gluten is the best weed and feed he has found. Well, corn gluten is what is left after they make corn syrup, and there is still a lot of sugar in that waste, and corn is full of nutrients, and you get those husks of the kernels.
If you use organics, you have to go all the way or nothing. If you use any chemicals, you cancel out the organics.
throw sugar down in those beds, and all over your yard, and keep pulling them out, but they should start to die out, as soon as the micriobes have some time to get the soil richer, and the more they work, to faster those weeds will not come up in your yard anymore.
It takes a couple of years before you stop seeing some of them, but you should have fewer each year, till you eventually have none.
My soil was nice and loose, and it ws in pretty good shape already, so about the third year, I stopped seeing weeds come up.
Charlotte


Answer
It makes them grow, becauase what the sugar does is nourish beneficial mocrobes that enrich the soil. enriched soil is what gets rid of the weeds. Weeds thrive in poor soil.
Fertilizers don't enrich the soil, they just feed the vegetation, including the weeds.
whe the soil is rich, weeds don't grow.
Wheh you have weeds, they take up the nutrients that belong to the other plants.
It seems like they will slurp up a feeding, but they will sustain in soil so poor nothing else will grow. They will live, but if you put fertilizer on them, they will grow bigger. when the soil is very rich, they won't grow.
When you are using chemicals, you are growing in an artificial condition.