Expert: Greg Simpson - 7/6/2007

Question
I have a large, fairly dense, 16 year old patch of prickly pear cactus that is being infiltrated by red sorrel. I planted only one plant, but I suspect it's "arms" have rooted into new plants over the years. Trying to weed around this cactus has been a painful experience, even with leather gloves the tiny hairs seem to work their way in. I need some advice on how to rid this weed without too much harm to the cactus. Thanks!

Answer
Diane,

I had no idea what a red sorrel was, so I had to look it up. I found some info at: http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/weed_web/descriptions/redsorrel.htm#  that may be useful.

You may try this: get one of those extended garbage picker upper (for lack of a better term). Water the soil around your cactus very well (or wait for it to rain). Use the garbage picker to grab the weed and pull it out. If the soil is wet, they should be easy to remove. You can try the pre-emergence weed killer to keep it from returning.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Greg