Fall regrowth of good and bad plants

In my last post I mentioned observing fall regrowth of golden Alexanders in a tallgrass prairie. I did a Google search to see if there was anything else on this topic and came up with my own post from fall 2007! (My memory is getting short.)

Among the good prairie plants I reported on then that showed significant fall regrowth were rosin weed, pale Indian plantain, yellow cone flower, columbine, alum root, and prairie violet.

I also noted several "bad" plants that showed fall regrowth (or just growth, it doesn't matter here). These were: Canada thistle, sweet clover, hedge parsley, and spotted knapweed. I pointed out that this fall regrowth provided us with an opportunity for control, since they can be sprayed with glyphosate. Others not on this list but applicable are reed canary grass and garlic mustard.

Fall spraying with glyphosate is a boon, since most of the good plants have senesced and are brown. They should not be hurt by this herbicide, which also has the advantage that it is inactivated by soil particles and hence has no residual in the soil.

We have major plans this fall to spray everything bad we can find. Every plant killed this fall is one we won't have to deal with next spring!