As a succulent gardener do you think succulents suppress weeds? Believe or not the answer is yes. Succulents in your garden will help you to preserve water and control weeds.
Most succulents are low growing plants and act as natural ground cover and prevent most weed types from emerging.
For example, If you have an outdoor grading area with chili-like plants, you can grow succulents in between those chilli plants. Hardy succulents can thrive in such places.
You have to choose hardy succulent for this purpose. Because some succulents can not withstand daily watering. So I have to choose a succulent who likes watering. For example sedum.
But there are some plants which can grow even among succulents. So we can talk about that too.
Weeds growing in succulents
There are several succulent types of weeds which could trouble you. Out of them Purslane and Oxalis would be a couple of weeds which could trouble you.
As aforesaid, both Oxalis and Purslane plants commonly come across when growing succulents and cactus as well.
However, weeds such as Oxalis stricta, (yellow wood sorrel, lemon clover, yellow oxalis) are some of the weeds which we could not easily get rid of. You cannot kill them easily as well.
They could be so annoying to the point that you could spot them anywhere and everywhere in the garden.
This is known as one of the most irritating and difficult weeds to overcome when they are spread in a cactus garden or in a succulent garden.
You could spot it in any other garden which has regular plants as well.
Purslane plants are the other set of weeds which could be annoying when you are growing succulents.
They usually tend to grow in a trailing manner, and they would take up a mat forming habit as well. In terms of their appearance, they are thick and tend to usually form with stems in red. Further have succulent like leaves.
Purslane plants are endemic to India and Persia as well. In fact, they have spread out in the whole world and have a close relationship with portulaca which is a quite famous bedding plant.
The germination of this plant would take place only when the temperature of the soil is quite warm, and chances are that they would go unnoticed until late summer.
In fact, they would start to germinate when the pre-emergent herbicide’s impact reduces.
However, you cannot apply these herbicides in vegetable gardens or any other gardens where you grow other crops for consumption.
What is more concerning about the purslane plants is that they could come out repeatedly every year purely because of the prolific seeds which they produce.
Purslane could make flowers in yellow. Once you realize that it is going to be invasive and problematic for your succulent garden, best is to get rid of them before their flower’s transformation to seeds.
In fact, the seeds of purslane plants’ seeds could stay viable for about a longer time like four decades.
How to prevent weeds from growing in succulent garden
Many people tend to grow succulents in pots and in containers as they could relocate them indoors when the weather conditions become unhealthy.
Further it is convenient for the people who wish to not to deal with weeds in gardening in an extended area.
However, if you have faced the weed menace with your succulents which you have grown in pots, you could practice the following steps to avoid that.
First and foremost, you could utilize fresh and clean pots so that you could avoid any potential threat of weed.
In addition to that, you could rinse the planters which you had used before using them again. Furthermore, you need to wash the containers, with hot water and with soapy water as well.
Alternatively, you could use a diluted bleach solution also to get rid of the seeds and the harmful plant fungi as well.
After that, you may use fresh quality potting medium instead of using used soil which comprises weed seeds and the rest of the contaminating elements.
The advantage of using a quality potting medium is that they are sterilized and do not contain any live weed seeds.
Furthermore, you could add a layer of quality mulch to prevent any potential weed attack. You may use hardwood bark or small or medium pine bark as mulch for this purpose and keep them on the soil layer.
There would be a minor possibility of germination when the weed seeds get in touch with the soil as the soil is cool and shaded. Mulch is also sterile and weed free and it is equal to quality potting soil medium.
Apart from the above, you may take the weeds off manually at the very moment you spot them coming out. That would help to halt a possible outbreak.
Make sure that you do not let them become seeds. As such whenever you spot the weeds, you need to pull the weeds off slowly.
When you take them off, ensure that you do it with a firm grip at the plant base. If you do it without caution, chances are that the left behind roots could regrow and could cause trouble.
Moreover, you need to keep the new plants you purchased from the nursery under your observation.
The reason for that is because they could harbor viable weed seeds which could spread to the rest of the planters.
More importantly, you need to keep the surrounding of the planters clean and weed free. As such, you could cover the ground under the planters with weed fabric.
Further, when you apply bricks or gravel for weed barriers, it would fasten the draining and stabilize the pots. In addition to them, it would help to overcome the weed spread too.
Finally, you could utilize a pre-emergent herbicide which is recommended to use for your plants, and which would work best on the specific weeds.
When you apply this, make sure that you apply them prior to their germination and ideally in spring and in fall seasons.
How to permanently stop weeds from growing
- You could kill the weeds at their roots; however, you could keep the soil and their dormant seeds as it is.
- Keep on mulching
- Start weeding when the wedding’s good
- Loop off their heads
- Avoid watering weeds and instead keep on watering your plants properly.
There are several chemical products available in the stores which you could use for this purpose. However, many people tend to go for organic solutions instead of chemical solutions.
If you consider mulching, you could use a newspaper to do that too. Weeds would not like that, and they would choke due to that.
Moreover, it would be beneficial to keep your soil fertile too. Moreover, you could utilize household products such as vinegar and salt as they would also be effective in overcoming the weeds.
You could mix these substances and dilute them with water and then spray them.
Killing weeds in cactus
If you wish to kill weeds in cactus, you could simply wrap a piece of cardboard around the cactus bottom part and spray stubborn weeds along with glyphosate weed killer.
The cardboard acts as a protective gear for the overspray and glyphosate could kill all plants when they reach the plants. However, their activation period is very short.
How to keep weeds out of succulent garden
Keep on adding mulch layers which would not allow the weeds to spot the light. Ensure you are keeping a proper gap between plants
Provide the proper care treatments for all your succulents so that it will avoid any potential chances of weed spread.
Conclusion
So I think now you have an answer for the question: do succulents suppress weeds? As now you know yes. Also some weed can grow in between succulents.
Hope the aforementioned information was quite beneficial for you and now you have a better understanding of overcoming the weeds in your succulent garden.
As long as you adhere to the above guidelines, you could successfully overcome the menace of weeds and make a flourishing succulent garden.
Read Next: What Kills Grass But Not Succulents? 4 Step Guide To Build A Weed barrier
