Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Mugging the Mugwort

Mugwort plants in blackberry patch






Some weeds are just misplaced flowers, and some are just plain impossible.

One of the impossible weeds at Meadow Glenn is mugwort (Artemisa vulgaris).

Some of mugwort’s common names range from the descriptive to truthful. 

“Chrysanthemum weed” is descriptive. Mugwort’s leaf shape and aroma somewhat resemble those of garden chrysanthemums. “Felon weed,” however, tells the real story. What this weed does to gardens is nothing short of criminal because once it’s established in a garden, it is next to impossible to remove or kill completely.

Mugwort was well established at the south end of our house when we moved here 14 years ago. Knowing nothing about the weed, I cut, hoed, dug, and pulled mugwort during the spring and summer months for several years. In an additional fit of ignorance, I planted a blackberry bed where I had just dug out mugwort. Now, years later I still fight mugwort in our blackberry bed every spring and summer. It’s the weed that just keeps growing.

Mugwort's 'persistent' underground stems
Weeds of the Northeast (1997 edition), the handy reference work by Uva, Neal, and DiTomaso, hints why my past battle plans have failed: “Rhizome fragments [underground stems] can be transported by cultivation or with infested balled and burlapped nursery stock, topsoil, or composted organic matter. … Its persistent rhizomes make mugwort difficult to control in perennial crops. It is also well adapted to mowing and cultivation and is relatively tolerant of most herbicides.”

In the past, every time I tried to dig or hoe mugwort, I broke up the weed’s underground stems or rhizomes. If a plant had four rhizomes and I broke each into three pieces, I likely ended up with 12 new plants.

That’s why a premium crop of mugwort grows in our blackberry patch. But enough is enough, and I’ve decided to get serious about eradicating this plant pest. Mugwort often survives selective, broadleaf herbicides such as 2,4-D. It’s time to use the ultimate weapon, glyphosate, a non-selective herbicide that kills most plants.

The University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook explains that glyphosate “stops growth by interfering with amino acid synthesis. Growing plants slowly turn yellow and stop growing, and the entire plant eventually turns brown and dies. Glyphosate is quickly bound to organic matter and has no residual activity in the soil….”

Yes, I’m going to use glyphosate on the mugwort, but I’m not going to spray with abandon. One reason is that I don’t want to risk having the herbicide drift onto my blackberry plants. Another is that I try to use a minimal amount of pesticides of any sort.

Weeded bed awaits new mugwort sprouts
On Monday I took my Cape Cod weeder and uprooted all the mugwort I could in our blackberry patch. On the surface, the bed’s looking good now. But as I weeded, I could hear underground stems snapping, so I know that in a week or two, new mugwort plants will be sprouting from each of those fragments. I plan once a week to check for mugwort sprouts and then spray the emerging leaves with glyphosate.

After all these years of battling mugwort, will I finally win the battle in 2011?

That’s my plan.

30 comments:

  1. did it work for you?
    I am losing the battle over here. Linda

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  2. Anonymous: Earlier this week I weeded our blackberry patch. I was pleasantly surprised that last year's glyphosate spray had greatly reduced the mugwort. I'd say the first application was 95% effective--and maybe the 5% survivors resulted from "application error"--that I missed spraying some plants. This year's crop was not deeply rooted, so there's the possibility they were a new generation from seed from nearby fields. I've uprooted them and will spray once more if new leaves emerge. Bottom line: mugwort is about eliminated from that bed.

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  3. Glad I found your blog. I have mugwort issues. We just moved and I'm not sure if the owners planted the stuff on purpose or not. Not knowing what it was, I took about 2 hours to remove a huge root ball I came across when doing general "fix up" of the mulch bed early in the spring. Since then, it sprouted up full force! It's the most annoying weed I've come across. It took over my lilies. And the roots! Man, those are crazy big roots.

    Thanks for sharing your story.

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  4. Hi Bob, I too battle with this miserable weed. I just finished spraying round-up on it, figuring to dig up and pull out what I can after the tops are all dead. I will definitely try glyphosate next. I despise this weed like no others! I have since my days working at a nursery back in the 70s.....it's the bane of all gardeners!!

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  5. Oh wait! Just found that's what round-up is!! Silly me...hope it works, I'll try to stay on top of it going forward....

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  6. When you learn something in the garden, Anonymous, consider it a great day! I suppose I didn't know that glyphosate was the generic name of Round-Up 10 years ago, but I do now. Now that patent rights have expired on the herbicide, you can buy the generic concentrate about half price of the name brand.

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  7. I am relatively new to the Midwest after living most of my life in Oregon and North Carolina. While helping out a friend, I was baffled by the "mum-like" non-flowering plant that was virtually everywhere on the property. I kept waiting for it to flower. After awhile even I could see it was invasive, but no one even my fellow master gardener friends could identify it. Thank you, Ancient G.!! Now I know why I have failed to eradicate this through organic methods like newspaper with lots of "hot" organic matter on top. My friend has a "field" of this stuff and calls it her meadow. Any thoughts?

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  8. Is there any alternative to Roundup which I am unwilling to risk?

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  9. I've been fighting the mugwort for about 15 yrs so tired of digging hate to contaminate soil with chemicals but enough is enough thanks for the info.

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  10. I'm so glad I found this post! I've been struggling with an invasion of mugwort but didn't even know what it was until today. I've spent years building up my soil, too, and am desperate to preserve it. The invasion is in one of my raised vegetable beds, and so I'd hate to have to use roundup in that bed since we'll be eating the food we grow there. Any other tips or experience would be welcome!

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  11. Thank you for this information. I have been battling mugwort and oriental bittersweet in my flower beds for several years and was beginning to think there was no way to get rid of it. Every year there just seems to be more of it. I will try glyphosphate and hope to be able to reclaim my garden eventually.

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  12. Building on Melanie's question - if I use glyphosphate on it, can I ever plant vegetables in that space?

    My yard guy said the old owner planted mums and they keep coming back - but I thought it odd that they never flowered. Now I know why. I am digging the everliving hell out of this stuff (I bought a hacksaw for some of the roots!) and hoping that helps.

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  13. Plants with rhizomes should not disturbed below ground. When you pull, hoe, dig you create a hundred separate plants that will then need to be killed individually. Poison the plant without disturbing the roots will allow the poison to kill the entire plant. Easier said than done but mechanical methods just don't work with rhizomes.

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  14. Your comment is certainly true about mugwort--every fragment left in the soil probably will grown into another plant. I don't like to use herbicides, but mugwort sometimes gets a spray of glyphostate here.

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  16. I am so happy I found this article, as I did not know the name of this weed. It is at the corner of my flower bed where I have many lilies and hostas planted, and I am slowly losing the battle to rid the area it is in. I am not a fan of Round-up but I am going to spray it and I read to cover it with cardboard. I intend to try spraying and then using the cardboard and hopefully have some results. Thank you so much for this information.

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  17. 6/30/20
    Anyone know how the evil mugwort is controlled where it is native?
    Can any of our native plants compete and prevail?

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    1. No, I have not read about a successful competitor plant that might crowd the mugwort. Would love to find one! I read that mugwort contains aleopathic chemical(s) that actually inhibit competition, and that is another reason you find dense stands of it. It is a really tough situation. I reduced it in one area with glyphosate followed by smothering with cardboard for the better part of a year. I have two more areas that are looking bad and am considering the same strategy.

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  18. I tried round up (glyphosate) on my field of evil mugwort...it seems to love the bath and has survived many applications!! No what? This stuff is the spawn of satan!!👿👹

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    1. Same here, Unknown. Ours came in on a load of driveway gravel. Now it's more than an acre in our field and near six feet tall in August. Considering goats.

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  19. I think we need to remember that Mugwort is not the only problem right now. Cities are being overrun with rats, locusts are a problem like never before, and other weeds like Creeping Charlies are also making gardening a challenge like never before. Diseases that were once only in the southeast are now everywhere thanks to giant retailers growing in these parts and selling their diseased merchandise across the country.
    Mugwort is evolving resistance to Roundup and it will conquer every broad spectrum herbicide eventually. If we as humans want to mix everything up and experiment on the landscape than we need to accept the consequences. For those of you who are enjoying success with chemical control, please appreciate this moment because it will not last. Mugwort will return and each time you need more and more powerful weapons against it, and the plants that you want to grow will never be as strong as Mugwort. We messed up as a society, there's no going back. Pay someone a living wage to pull weeds by hand and maintain the manpower needed, that's all we can do in the end. We're not bringing back the passenger pigeon and we're not putting back mugwort, in this game nature always bats last!

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    1. Or maybe we'll use genetic engineering to bring back extinct species and make chemicals that only kill the specific weed you're after. We'll change our values and re-plant forests and native plant systems and as we'll bring back biodiveristy and when the earth's ecosystems regain balance than maybe invasive weeds like mugwort will become easier to manage. Dare to dream!

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  20. There is mugwort in the lawn; therefore there will always be mugwort in my garden, EXCEPT, I am thinking, perhaps a physical barrier, like a piece of metal, 12 inches, driven in at the fence line. I did have success, laying a 6X10 piece of wall to wall that was being thrown out, over an area for FIVE years...no mugwort...but FIVE years is a very long time. I agreed that hoeing etc, will result in more plants. I sat in the dirt of my garden today and loosened the soil gently until I could very carefully remove the entire root, but I KNOW for sure I left a piece and that is all you need...a piece of rhizome, doesn't matter how small. Plan to cover this small area, 6X6 with maybe carpet, and then 4 inches of wood chips and then will put my plants into nice ceramic pots this year...I just dug my verbena bonarensis out...refuse to have it contaminated by mugwort...

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  21. Hello from the future--2021! I have read in many places that at this point in history, mugwort needs many, many applications of glychophospate or it will not succumb. I am not willing to apply that much herbicide.

    I do not know if I will win, but I do have a non-chem plan for my medium size bed full of the stuff. Luckily I have very few keeper plants in that bed, very little to work around. I am using a garden fork to pry the mugwort up. I turn over each section and beat it with a hori hori knife, in order to save the massive amount of soil that sticks to each parcel of roots. Maybe I would be better off tossing all the soil I dig, but for now, I am just tossing all the roots I can find. If I ever finish this dig, I will then take a rake through the bed and see if I can find more roots to remove.

    There has been no rain, so I am working now with very dry soil, which is not that difficult. But it is time consuming and the high temps and the sun are a problem for me, so I am only working an hour a day, if I can.

    The soil is nice and loose and I plan to add more loose soil amendments, mostly to increase the soil depth. I can see there are some roots down deep that I am not getting with the fork. The mugwort will not sprout if it is buried deep enough. How deep? Not sure, so I will add depth just to increase my odds of success. I read a scientific study about goldenrod (another nasty I have to battle this year) and that study shows that goldenrod rhizomes will sprout when buried about ten inches deep, but ONLY if those are large rhizomes. The little rhizomes can't manage to sprout at that depth. I hope this is also true of mugwort.

    I will next throw several packets of annual flower seeds in the bed so they will grow to battle wind erosion. These will be flowers I don't care about, so I can dig around them if need be--or even dig some of them up and toss them. I will watch the bed weekly or daily, and re-dig any spots where I see a mugwort sprout. I think I will be digging for another week. And I plan to keep this bed in annuals all this year and all next year too. This is going to be a long term effort of gardening persistence. If I think about it, I will check in here next year and let you know how it worked.

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    Replies
    1. Good idea with the annual seeds. How's it going? I pulled it and smothered it with cardboard!

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    2. Going well, though I never completed the initial dig. In the regions I did dig, I see very few sprouts reappearing--maybe one or two for every fifty I had dug out. Life got in the way, and then summer HEAT......so I had to turn my attention to other things for a few weeks. I got back in to remove another section of the mugwort the other day and am extremely pleased that so few sprouts are coming up. I did apply a little bit of RoundUp to the bed, to tackle some other weeds and tried some on two spots of mugwort. The grasses died. The mugwort showed NO reaction to the poison. None. The cardboard surely should work! Good luck with it.

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  22. New year, new method. I pinch off the plant leaving about half inch of growth and inject full strength of generic round up, about 5 drops, using a medical plastic syringe, onto the freshly pinched tops. Crazy method! I cant wait to see the results.

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    Replies
    1. Let me know if you get anywhere. My wife suggested the same thing today.

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  23. Anyone have success with stomp and drop (crimping stems near base but not cutting or digging out) to slowly kill the mugwort? Or spraying vinegar solutions? I am trying this on a couple small patches using spray bottle solution of 3 cups 30% vinegar, 1/2 cup salt and a few drops of soap to make it stick. Most leaves shriveled up and died after one hot day. I will monitor to see if the plants resprout from the rhizomes...

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  24. How did the vinegar, salt & soap do?

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