I don't want to kill it, but I want to keep it from leaving my mulch bed and wandering into my lawn. If I spray the edges of the mass, will it only kill a small amount, or will it kill the whole mass?
1 Answer
According to the advertising for this product, yes it will kill the whole plant back to the root. In practice, it doesn't, usually, but the way to control your Vinca that's best for the plant, your garden and the environment generally is to give it a good haircut after its flowered by pulling up all the long strands of growth and cutting them off at about 2 inches high. If you haven't done this in the past, you've probably got new plants growing from where the long runners have rooted, so dig these out where they are getting too close to the lawn.
Cutting it back yearly after flowering also creates neater, bushier plants which are much more attractive than a random patch of Vinca with bare bits in between long runners.
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What stinks is this: Every little cutting can root and become a new plant like bent grass. I mowed it where it was coming out of my bed and now I have a bunch of little horrors! I am in the process of edging, so I can extend the bed to dig it out, but in the future, I am going to have to be careful on the cutting method. Brute force with a weed wacker may not be a good idea. Select cutting with a hand shear sounds like the way to go.– Evil ElfMay 14, 2013 at 12:13
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What about vinegar? It isn't systemic, is it? I assum e it only burns what it comes in contact with.– Evil ElfMay 14, 2013 at 12:25
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there is a product called "preen" which is a bucket of small little pebblish things, What it says it does is prevent plants from seeding, What it does is kinda do this. Might help?– Four_loMay 14, 2013 at 15:42
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Depends how much vinegar ends up in the ground - it'll be toxic in the soil. As for preen, it might stop plant seeds from germinating, but not sure it'll work for runners rooting themselves, will it?– BambooMay 14, 2013 at 17:48