I had displaced a lot of soil in making my saffron bed and managed to get a lot of wild sorrel (the polygonaceae, not the oxalidaceae) seed in it and it was a foot high and looking very weedy. I tried mowing it but that didn't do much so two weeks ago I hit it with glyphosate and this week the weeds are turning brown as the saffron started poking up through. Sound tempting? Maybe it's time to come over to the dark side. As a disclaimer, glyphosate works only on healthy, growing plants, not on stressed or sick plants. And it is inactivated by soil and slowly biodegraded by soil bacteria. I suspect that the soil inactivation may only apply to fertile soils with a high cation exchange capacity and not on sand or peat, so don't try it on those without consulting your local ag extension people. Also, I am looking for aggressive, weedy but ornamental oxalis to upgrade the quality of weeds in my potted crinums so send me some before you glyphosate them all. Typically it gets down to 10 or 15F in the winter here so I doubt that they would be invasive except in the greenhouse. Also, geophytes in general don't stand a chance against our weeds like pigweed, lambsquarters or johnsongrass that can grow eight or ten feet in a month or two. On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 5:09 PM Pamela Slate via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > Tim, I wrote to you privately asking for you to reply. FYI. > > Jane, I have picked out an endless number of those bulbs over the years but > the bed is not sand and they grew into other bulb roots. Also, I'm finding > bulbs as deep as a foot - it could be more - so the problem is fairly > overwhelming in a 12 X 4 foot bed that's 25 inches tall. > > They are pretty plants and amazing inasmuch as even the tiniest bulb can > produce a "stem" reaching the surface from a foot below ground level. > > If anyone else has other suggestions/opinions, I am appreciative to know > them. > > Thanks all, > Pamela > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…