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Terri9630

Terri9630

Internet Princess
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Central NM.
Anyone know what this is and better yet, how to kill it?

2021-06-29T17_32_17-06_00.JPEG
 
https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/4312/
Looks like one of the tumble weeds. Several different species have the common name tumbleweed. I don't see them around here so can't say for sure.

One is "Salsola tragus" aka russian thistle, came over with russian settlers.

Your plant doesn't grow around here for certain so I'd be guessing on two counts.
 
Now for the grunt work... here are a few hundred pasture weeds that grow in New Mexico. It's slow and tedious but sometimes the only way is go through university publications in your area. Here are photos and drawings of a few hundred plants.

Trick... copy and paste the latin name of a plant from the publication into your favorite search engine, select images. Even if a university publication only has crappy drawings, someone, somewhere, has posted nice color photos of the same plant.

Also, a key indicator is the bloom of a plant, color, shape etc can really help narrow it down. Be aware, lots of plants have green blooms, like ragweed.

A place to start...

https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR374/
https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR698/welcome.html

Hint, hint... try looking up this plant... Tetradymia canescens
 
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Peanut said:
Now for the grunt work... here are a few hundred pasture weeds that grow in New Mexico. It's slow and tedious but sometimes the only way is go through university publications in your area. Here are photos and drawings of a few hundred plants.

Trick... copy and paste the latin name of a plant from the publication into your favorite search engine, select images. Even if a university publication only has crappy drawings, someone, somewhere, has posted nice color photos of the same plant.

Also, a key indicator is the bloom of a plant, color, shape etc can really help narrow it down. Be aware, lots of plants have green blooms, like ragweed.

A place to start...

https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR374/
https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR698/welcome.html
Click to expand...
May God smile on you for sharing your hard fought fruits with us!

You are well down a path that I have only started and benefit from your postings. Thank you.

I can imagine what it will take to get descent at plant identification. I have started to a small extent. I had The Princess a rather costly book on all of the plants in PA. A rather impressive tome. But when I started to attack that book I quickly found my vocabulary was lacking.

The book uses a decision tree to ID a plant. I like the approach being a programmer and familiar with flow diagrams and successive approximation. But...

It is the decisions that drive us

and the book.

The tree starts by asking;

Is it XXX (a word that means the plant thingy relies on another thingy for its structure/support)?

That answer can lead one into questioning the fungus that grows in the SW PA low lands.

Then maybe asking if it is a fungus.

Is it basal(? No trunk or stock and only grows from the stock)

Leaves of or leaflets?

Opposite or alternate?

Palmate?

I made up flash cards of the the appendix to help learn. Sadly, I only got so far with that terminology.

Using that book I identified only one critter. And that wad by some wild guessing. "Scorpion Weed". I hate that stuff!

But I am still trying. Just last week as I was whacking weeds I spotted one of those words in action.

Both multi-flora rose and black raspberries grow side by side in my orchard. I wanted to preserve the raspberries but destroy the rose(that will rip your flesh from the bone).


But last week's work was timed for the raspberries starting to ripen and the rose forming rose hips. Hard to spot at weed whacker distance but the leaves... Raspberries were palmate (5 leaves from a single point) and the roses were compound.

So that is just one lesson along the road.

Ben
 
Multi-flora rose is not native, brought here from Japan I believe. It's a nasty thing that has driven a multitude of native species to the edge of extinction, mostly native wild roses. I kill it every time I get the chance.

@Neb Pick one... it's impossible to learn about trees, shrubs, grasses, lichens, mosses, mushrooms, vines or forbs all at the same time. So pick one, most useful, forbs - small herb like plants that include wild flowers, weeds... all the green stuff at the edge of a field or road that isn't a tree, pond scum, vine or grass. Learn how to learn about them, how to use university websites and resources, learn all the tricks then... pick another, not all previous lessons will apply but many will... then pick another... Some professors spend an entire career studying pond scum or maybe mushrooms and still don't get it right. Your book, "All plants in PA" sounds interesting but not very practical, it's too broad a topic for learning... start with a smaller group of plant life. Learning a bunch of plants is a good thing, learning how to learn about plants is even better.
 
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Here is a photo I found of rabbit brush aka Ericameria nauseosa. The dead stems look a lot like the 1st photo you posted...

Also, from Colorado state university...


"What is rabbitbrush?
Rabbitbrush is one of the most ornamental and useful native plants for a Colorado garden."

1741 - Rabbitbrush - PlantTalk Colorado


Ericameria_nauseosa1_Sarah_Malaby_lg.jpg
 
I do not know it.
We have Johnson Grass here, animals eat it. It is said that round up will Kill it, after four years of spraying it.

Johnson grass or Johnsongrass, Sorghum halepense, is a plant in the grass family, Poaceae, native to Asia and northern Africa. The plant has been introduced to all continents except Antarctica, and most larger islands and archipelagos. It reproduces by rhizomes and seeds. Wikipedia
 
joel said:
I do not know it.
We have Johnson Grass here, animals eat it. It is said that round up will Kill it, after four years of spraying it.

Johnson grass or Johnsongrass, Sorghum halepense, is a plant in the grass family, Poaceae, native to Asia and northern Africa. The plant has been introduced to all continents except Antarctica, and most larger islands and archipelagos. It reproduces by rhizomes and seeds. Wikipedia
Click to expand...
I have stuff that looks like that that is a curse in my gardens. If I dont get get all of the rhizome it comes right back. I pull out rhizomes that are 2' long and have 2 other plants attached.

Ben
 
joel said:
I do not know it.
We have Johnson Grass here, animals eat it. It is said that round up will Kill it, after four years of spraying it.

Johnson grass or Johnsongrass, Sorghum halepense, is a plant in the grass family, Poaceae, native to Asia and northern Africa. The plant has been introduced to all continents except Antarctica, and most larger islands and archipelagos. It reproduces by rhizomes and seeds. Wikipedia
Click to expand...

That stuff is a curse. Almost impossible to do anything other than cut it and try to keep it under control
 
"If I don't get get all of the rhizome it comes right back"
There are 5 or 6 perennial grasses like that, Johnson is one of the worst.
Sudan hybrid grass will get 6 feet in 90 day, if you do not cut it or you can cut it once a month all summer.
As long as you do not let it head & go to seed, the winter will kill the roots & you will have no problem with it.
 
Napalm would work only if it penetrated more than six inches deep into the soil, which would kill all life in the soil & make it barren & unable to support life. So use a nuke would do the same thing.
 
bertsevs said:
I had bushes like that too. They plagued my beautiful lawn. I tried to get rid of them, but nothing worked. They kept sprouting. I like to keep my plot clean and, until recently, I didn't want to touch the lawn, but I had to uproot them and re-grow the lawn, but after a while, the bushes reappeared. Someone advised me to use chemicals. But I didn't want to use them, as I would have contaminated the soil, and there would have been a hole in the middle of the lawn. My neighbor told me that I could remove the topsoil and put an artificial lawn in from https://www.artificialgrass-manchester.co.uk/ because nothing was growing at my place anyway.
Click to expand...
Cover the area after you cut back the bush to the ground then cover the area with 2 or more layers of cardboard. Cover the cardboard with top soil and then seed it. Everything under the cardboard should die and the cardboard will decay in time.

Ben
 
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