Quack Attack
Copyright 2004 by Suzy Wurtz
A few
customers at a local store recently traded stories about seeing the first robin,
a sure sign of spring. I’d seen a robin, too, but before the robin arrived, the
surest sign of spring poked its ugly head through the ground. I pulled up the
first clump of that pernicious, pesky, perennial weed-the terrorist of the
garden-quack grass.
If you’ve never heard of quack grass, please tell me where
you live; I’d like to move there. You might call quack grass by one of its many
other names: dog grass, scotch grass, scutch grass, cutch grass, couch grass,
quake grass, quitch grass, witch grass, wheatgrass, devil’s grass, durfa grass,
durfee grass, chandler’s grass, Dutch grass, Fin’s grass, or Scotch quelch.
(I’m guessing that the latter three names are surely of a different ethnic
groups’ origin.)
As you can see, it’s a well-known weed. Its very name creates
anguish in all of us from the hobby gardener to the professional farmer. As a
matter of fact, the very names make menacing sounding exclamations. Hit your
finger with the hammer and holler, “Oh scutch grass!” Find your wall filled
with your child’s crayon drawings and cry out, “For the love of durfee grass!”
Ask your teenager, “What in the name of chandler’s grass are you wearing?”
But back to the heinous herald of spring. When me moved to
our current house, a neighbor told me that my yard was “full of quack,” which I
mistook for a similar “full of” phrase. Then another neighbor repeated that my
lawn had “the quack,” which sounded ominously like a sexually transmitted
disease. I soon found that quack grass (or any of the other names above) is a
quick growing, prolific weed that spreads not only by seed but also spreads with
a very tough, wiry, root system. It takes over cultivated ground, and it
strangles other plants. Literally.
I read that parts of this wretched weed had been used
medicinally at one time to treat various kidney ailments, but the only medical
thing quack grass does for me is raise my blood pressure.
So once again, I am psyching up for the yearly battle of
woman against weed: The Quack Attack. This is not merely a routine gardening
chore called weeding. It is a fight to the finish. Some years I win; some
years I lose.
This year’s fight began when I pulled up that first clump
this spring. Due to the elaborate network of roots, pulling quack grass will
often leave you 
with only part of the root. Since it will reproduce from a
teeny, tiny particle left in the soil, you must make sure you get the whole
root. But that whole root is the parent to many clumps, and may stretch 12
feet. The secret to the pulling method is loose, wet soil. I have been known
to go outside in a rain suit during a downpour just to get the upper hand on
eradicating this enemy.
The Quack Attack is not for the faint of heart.
The skirmish that occurs in dry weather is with non-selective
herbicide, the chemical that destroys any plant it touches. This is an intricate
confrontation because it is often difficult to avoid hitting civilian plants.
We have devised a number of shields to keep the herbicide off the good stuff.
They include poster boards, pop cases, plastic milk jugs, and magazines. In
front of it all is my 2-gallon sprayer that I call The Black Quack Attacker.
The third assault method is hand-to-hand combat and rescue.
Since quack strangles plants, I sometimes need to dig up the entire plant,
unwind the quack grass, and replant the flower. The good news is that my flower
gardens consist mostly of perennials, which need to be divided every few years
anyway. During this phase of the struggle, I have been known to mutter out
loud.
“Gotcha, you weed of mass destruction!” I proclaim.
“Whom are you talking to?” asks my husband. (ok, he really
says, “Who.”)
”Quack,” I reply tersely.
He knows to stay out of my way, then. A Quack Attack is a
serious, personal mission. And as garden season approaches, while the rest of
the world sleeps, I’ll be out there in my yard, fighting this wild, wicked,
weed.
|
Previous Column | |
Next Column |
Back
to Top
