Home Guru: The Joy of Weeding When it Stays Weeded

By Bill Primavera – This has always been my favorite time of year to weed because when I yank those nasty invaders, they all stay weeded and I don’t have to worry about the chore again until next spring.

But I speak out of both sides of my mouth because I actually enjoy weeding. To me it’s therapy, and it’s a compulsive activity.

It never fails. I’ll be in a rush to meet a client, dashing to my garage across my parking area, covered with crushed bluestone, and I’ll spy a tiny fleck of green peeking through the gravel. I must stop to pull it out.

When I bend over, I drop my car keys, my glasses fall out of my shirt pocket and, if the weed is deep-rooted, like a dandelion, my hands get dirty, requiring that I return to the house to wash them after the deed is done.

Or I’m coming home very late, dead tired and I notice that, almost like spontaneous combustion, that nasty grout weed has all but consumed a clump of perennial geraniums. It’s getting dark but there I am, stooped over again, releasing those delicate flowers from the clutches of that hostile invader.

Worse yet, we might be entertaining guests on our patio and, in my peripheral vision, I detect another unwelcome visitor in a nearby flower bed. Nonchalantly, I’ll push myself out of my glider, perhaps in the middle of a sentence and conduct an enemy attack without missing a beat. Annoyed, my wife later tells me that I must not have been giving full attention to our guests.

Yes, I confess. I’m a compulsive weeder.

When I first discovered the joys of gardening as a youngster, it was all about planting annuals and seeing quick results. But by the time I was in high school, perhaps in dealing with my impetuous nature, I found that I equally enjoyed pulling weeds to help ease those first bouts of post-adolescent anxiety.

My weeding addiction became full blown as an adult when I moved to Westchester from the city and my responsibilities were upgraded from a small square patch of earth in front of my house, where a sickly gingko tree sprang from the concrete sidewalk, to a verdant acre-and-a-half of lawn and garden.

At the same time, I had started a new job and commuted a long distance every weekday to report to a boss who was the “Mr. Hyde” personality of all time. My weeding activity was especially intense during that period. Every time I yanked a weed, it was as though I was vicariously yanking his head bald, even though he was already bald.

Lest one think that I need intervention, I would say that there are good compulsive habits and this might be one of them.

Considering that a single weed can produce as many as 250,000 seeds, and that those seeds arrive through a multilevel attack from the air, rain runoff and bird droppings, weeding would seem to be a losing battle. But there are preventative measures that can help diminish sprouting weeds.

Just keep up with the following:

* Uproot the offenders and place them in the compost pile before they go to seed.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch. A three- to four-inch layer of mulch applied between plants or garden rows can slow down or in many cases prevent the re-growth of weeds.

* In the spring, after preparing the soil for planting, let it set for seven to 10 days. Then work the surface of the soil with a hoe. This will slice off the newly emerged weed seedlings. If you have time before planting, let the soil rest another week or so and hoe again.

* Cover the soil for a short while with black plastic, but don’t leave it on for more than a couple of months because the soil needs air and water to remain healthy.

* Use those vertical barriers, such as wood, metal or heavy plastic edging to prevent grass and weeds from encroaching from lawn to garden.

And be mindful of what William Shakespeare wrote: “Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.”

Bill Primavera is a Realtor® associated with William Raveis Real Estate and Founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). His real estate site is www.PrimaveraRealEstate.com, and his blog is www.TheHomeGuru.com. To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.