I had been in great hopes last fall that the mountain of wood chips dumped on my garden by the Hydro crew would solve my on-going gout weed problem once and for all. It didn't. A gardening friend had gently hinted that the gout weed would simply grow through the chips, deep as they were. The spring shoots were only a little challenged by the chips -- I thought that destroying them as they came up would eventually make them give up the battle. But once again the gout weed won. The road side area is covered with plants. I am ashamed to admit this, but I have begun to spray them.
What I should have done is placed a relatively impermeable but biodegradable mulch, like layers of paper, over the cut plants and then put the heavy layer of chips on top. The photo (the identical view from the January 25th blog) shows the area where I had placed the tarpaulin the year before -- the gout weed there is virtually gone. The wood chips destroyed smaller weeds but some of the perennial plants that I hadn't relocated managed to come up.
Phlox loves my damp and rich soil and has become one of the dominant plants -- I have been moving them around the yard and have promised spring plants to a friend who hopes that they will grow in his sandy soil -- it will be interesting to see how they will do.
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