Where has all the crabgrass gone? Update on eliminating crabgrass from the patio

It's only been a month since my last update, but I am very happy to report total SUCCESS on one of my many ventures this summer. There is no crabgrass on the patio. Where has all the crabgrass gone? You may ask yourself.

Into this bucket!

This was the last of it. And believe me there were many such buckets all summer long. This last one was captured on August 15 and I am pleased to report that today, September 7, 3 weeks and 2 days later, there is still no crabgrass. I have gotten out ahead of it -- for about 3 minutes.

You can track the allies who came to my aid on the various posts on this topic under the topic "patio crabgrass" to the right of the home page. But a picture is worth a thousand words they say, and here are the photos.

Patio back to front and side to side, this past weekend:

Close-up of the worst side:

You can clearly see that there are indeed other weeds on the patio, such as this interesting creature:

The friendly weeds are a part of the defensive strategy and except for a few clover are much easier to root out than crabgrass. I also have "friendly fire," so to speak, in the form of several different types of thyme. Here is how they have fared.

Creeping thyme, which went in last September. The difference between its growing over bricks and between bricks seems to be light foot traffic. A bit of foot traffic seems to confine it to the places where it is rooted. Not totally sure, because these bits don't get much foot traffic.

Wooly thyme, planted this June or so. So far, the tendency of this one is to mound up into a circle, rather than creeping along between bricks. I haven't  made up my mind about this one.

Pink chintz thyme, just planted a few months ago. This spreads very rapidly with long runners. You can see them in the second photo. It also blooms in late summer (rather than early summer like the rest). It's pretty and a welcome addition.

Mint thyme. These were planted about this time last year. This mounds, too, and so far most of what I've planted has not really put out shoots along the nearby cracks, though you can see in the lower photo a mint thyme that is starting to grow out perpendicular fashion. Also, it tends to die out easily from the center when it is too dry or gets foot traffic, so the jury is out on this one too.

Minus thyme. People say this is a low grower, but the bit I planted has mounded. Jury is still out on this one.

This photo shows two types growing in two different ways -- I really don't know which variety either of these are. Ultimately, part of my thought is just to introduce enough diversity that the patio gets populated by thyme, period, rather than crabgrass.

And, the winner by far: elfin thyme. This confines itself to the cracks between the bricks and tolerates heavy foot traffic. The one drawback, it grows unbelievably slowly. These bits have been in place for more than a year.  So they're not much competition for the crabgrass, and won't be for a long while, most likely. Still, I have decided, when I get the time, to order plugs of this variety and plant them all over the entire  patio and let it take its time to fill in.

Finally, for wet and shady spots, this little creature named Corsican Mint (a mint, not a thyme) is settling in quite nicely. It dies back anywhere there is too much sun or not enough moisture, but in several shady, protected areas of the patio it has not only survived the month-long drought of July, but even prospered. The only hesitation is that some of my research indicated it might be an aggressive grower, like all mints, and so I am waiting to see whether it is able to co-exist nicely with my other shade denizens or not.

Update on the patio: crabgrass and thyme

My sister is here for a visit, and I've gotten behind all around. I've been wanting to post these photos of the patio crabgrass and thyme, which are now already out of date. But to bring you up to speed, the crabgrass and I are about even this summer. He is not winning. But neither am I. I make onslaughts. He keeps up a steady pace. It is a classic case of the tortoise and the hare. Well, but crabgrass is like a tortoise-hare monstrosity, ... and I am a human, last time I checked anyway. It's really not fair.

To catch up, my last full post is here. A brief post from July outlining the additional new varieties of thyme and other stuff I put in this summer is here.

So, these photos are actually from a few weeks ago. The crabgrass had gotten tall in places, especially under the bench. Here's a photo of most of the patio. I am afraid that this photo was taken AFTER I'd done most of the weeding!

Close up under the bench, before:

Even in the most shady corner, crabgrass, oh so happy:

So I weeded all that by hand ...

I spent a couple of weekends out on the patio (not whole days), maybe 4 days, 2-3 hours at a stretch. And I got about half of the patio weeded. Here:

 

Here, by the patio pots:

But there is a vast stretch on the left-hand side that I didn't get to. It's a bit of a wild west out there:

I'm trying to keep ahead of the weeds in the vicinity of all my little thyme envoys. So here is the wooly thyme. It's grown quite a bit.

Here is some elfin thyme that I planted last August. It grows very slowly, but keeps to the space between the bricks.

Here are two more bits of elfin thyme:

Here is the first little fleet of mint thyme that I put in last summer ...

Here is what that same grouping looked like a year ago ...

Here is some pink chintz thyme I just put in. It is growing very rapidly ...

Here's another thyme. I actually can't recall which one this is:

And last, the Corsican Mint (not a thyme variety), which likes damp and slightly shady spots. It's doing better than I thought it would, especially considering that late June and early July were deathly hot and dry. I watered it a few times, but not more than once a week, and it seems happy ...

But alas, I haven't gotten any weeding done since late July, and the patio is once again totally out of control ... still more to come.

Thyme is on your side: Update on patio crabgrass

I tackled the patio crabgrass again last weekend. It's slow going so there aren't enough photos for a decent post. This is the part of the summer when its hard to keep ahead of the crabgrass. It grows like, well, like a weed. The thyme on the other hand, doesn't.

My strategy, for about a year now, has been to remove the crabgrass, mostly by hand, and substitute thyme. My last post on this topic is here.  Since that last post, almost a month ago now, I also planted three new kinds of thyme and a creeping shady creature called Corsican Mint. In this post, I'll show all four, and my method of planting.

Here is Corsican mint. It likes shade and moisture, and since I have an abundance of both in certain spots in the patio, I added it to my arsenal. It seems to be doing well in the month since I planted it.

More of the patio, though, bakes under sun and especially in the dog days of summer has very little moisture. Thyme loves those conditions, and so I'm trying pretty much every version of a creeping thyme I can lay my hands on, without special ordering. Here is a variety called Pink Chintz Thyme. It is a faster spreader than the others.

Here you can see how I take a small pot and cut it into sections with scissors. How big they are depends partly on how much root there is and how big the cracks that I want to fill. I cut the pots down to plug size.

Here are the resulting plugs of pink chintz thyme:

Here is one planted:

Here is minus thyme:

Here is Wooly Thyme. This one mounds too high, really, for the patio, but I put it over in a corner where we don't walk much and where a higher, faster growing thyme might be better competition.

Next up, how these fared in the latter half of June and first half of July, during a heat wave with  no rain. For the full series, see the topic "Patio Crabgrass" in the list of topics on the righthand side of the home page.