CONSERVATION CORNER

WEEDING: IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK!

As the weather warms, most of us dream of lazy afternoons in a hammock. Unfortunately somewhere along the line, modern man invented YARDWORK! For most of us our least favorite task is weeding. And along with the warm weather comes a brand new crop of weeds, which have become surprisingly large already.

It is more important than ever that we tend to this issue. With our continued dry weather, our landscape plants and beautiful pines need every drop of water they can get. Weeds not only rob our preferred plants and trees of moisture, they also absorb nutrients that would be beneficial to our landscape plants. The longer we let weeds linger, the more we'll need to irrigate and fertilize this summer. Thus weeding not only gives plants a head-start in spring, but it saves water in the long-run.

The last, and possibly most important, reason to eliminate weeds is the fire danger they bring once they die or the foliage dries. As we all learned last fall, wildfire is a very real and scary proposition. All of us need to maintain fire-safe landscapes. Not only are fire-safe landscapes important for securing our own homes and property, but they may be critical to our neighborhoods, as well. One critically placed ignition in windy conditions can threaten the entire neighborhood. Thus, all of us need to contribute towards the community's efforts for water conservation and fire protection. Happy weeding!!

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