Alternatives to RoundUp in the Home and Urban Landscape

Wendy Krupnick 2016

Alternatives can: • Be beautiful • Provide habitat • Sequester carbon • Absorb and retain rainwater • Be edible • Improve soil

Get to know your weeds Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

1. Identify 2. Monitor 3. Evaluate options 4. Use cultural controls 5. If needed, use least harmful material controls

6. Prevention

Consider allowing “good” weeds to grow, at least for a limited time.Edibles – Eg. chickweed, Miner’s lettuce, lambsquarters

Soil building weeds – harvest for compost; roots loosen soil

Eg. mustard/wild radish, mallow,

Blooms can feed beneficial insects Eg. fennel

Alternative herbicides (kill plants): • Vinegar (horticultural strength –

10-20% acidity) • Hot water (not recommended) • Biosafe (fatty acids) • Ecosmart (2-PEP + clove oil) • Avenger (orange oil)

Alternative practices to kill weeds: • Flaming • Blasting • Hand pull or hoe • Machine tilling/disking

Weed suppression • Corn gluten • Mowing, weed whacking, grazing (especially for grasses)

Weed prevention – Mulches, non-organic: Durable woven fabric.

Mulches NOT recommended: Plastic, weed barrier, small rock

Weed prevention - Mulches: Organic materials – Must be several

inches thick and renewed periodically. Recycles carbon,

adding it to the soil and increasing water retention.

Leaves – Can mow to chop up

Wood chips

Weed prevention – Ground covering plants

Several manzanita & ceanothus varieties spread widely

‘Bees Bliss’ salvia can spread 20’; Creeping thyme spreads a few inches

Municipal programs: • City of Santa Cruz – Goats, mowing, flaming,

mulching, targeted drip irrigation (no watering weeds), ground cover plants, rock hardscapes.

• Santa Cruz County banned RoundUp for roadside weed control in 2005

• Portland began Pesticide Free Parks in 2004 • Seattle began maintaining 14 parks without

pesticides in 2001; currently 22 parks use no pesticides

• Boulder CO banned RoundUp in public places in 2011

Resources for more information: Managing Healthy Sports Fields: A Guide to Using Organic Materials for Low Maintenance and Chemical Free Playing Fields, Paul Sachs The Wild Wisdom of Weeds, Katrina Blair

Non-toxic Weed Control - www.birc.org/Winter2003.pdf

Weed ID - www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/TURF/PESTS/weedkey.html

How to Hand weed effectively! www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/TURF/PESTS/weedhand.html