Three weeks of my being sick. Several weeks of showers and warm weather. Perfect growing weather for kikuyu grass. And it's grown like Jack's beanstalk! It's past my knees in the vegie patch and trying to swamp everything!
I have tried to stop it in the past with a lemon grass hedge around the perimeter of the vegie patch, and a path just inside that, but the lemon grass keeps dying, presumably because it's been strangled by the kikuyu.
Secondly, the only thing that kills the stuff is glyphosate, but that doesn't work in a well-watered area -- so I can either spray the kikuyu or I can keep my vegies watered, but not both. The spray drift is another issue, of course.
In one spot, I laid a piece of old corrugated iron on the ground to kill what was underneath. It does seem to have worked, but that's only two square meters or so, and I've killed everything else underneath as well. Nonetheless, I will plant the edge of this area up with lemon grass and see if it survives.
Any other ideas?
8 comments:
does the lemongrass really work??
Ack - I hate those creeping grasses. Cooch, kikuyu... Like you said if you can't get to the garden for a week or two it just takes over. So far I'm finding that it is much better with my raised garden beds with a hard barrier (either plastic weed strip, bricks or sleepers) plus DH is rather fond of the roundup sprays. I've been trying keep a decent strip free of grass.
Glyphosate *should* be rain-fast or watering for that matter in a couple of hours. Can you do the glyphosate on a non-watering day (Saturday) and hope that it doesn't rain, then hose on Sunday.
Also, try painting rather than spraying the glyphosate, then no worries about spray drift. Also you can colour it with food colouring so that your DS's know not to go where the coloured bits are.
If you are using a hard barrier it will need to go down into the soil a fair way to stop the roots and runners from spreading.
The only good thing that Kikuyu has going for it is that it is green and seems to outgrow everything else that turns up its toes with a lack of water.
Sounds like a very nasty kind of weed and very hard to get rid of. BTW I hope you are much better now?
Kreativemix, the lemongrass should work. It grows into a thick clump that's nearly impermeable. My problem has been keeping the lemongrass alive, but with the arrival of La Nina, I'm in with a chance.
Staycalm, a single raised bed for herbs is on the agenda, but we're not handy so I haven't gone for any DIY hard landscaping.
Anonymous, I love the food colouring idea, and I do tend to throw Roundup around on non-watering days -- but we've had so much rain lately that I think the grass will fight it off!
Thanks for asking after me, Yolanda -- I am almost back to normal now. My boys each gave me a cold. Kind of them!
I'm so over with kikuyu grasses. Its invasion made my garden very ugly! And it's hard to kill them all.
I’m glad to share that I found a way to get rid of the Kikuyu effectively. I used a paintbrush and dipped it into a higher concentration of glyphosate (stronger than roundup). Stroking the paintbrush on the kikuyu turf a couple of times can do the trick and won’t harm other lawns.
While digging out the grass, we are careful to turn it over as sod and put it back into place once the hole is filled with best electric lawn mower
fresh dirt.
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