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By Charles Fenyvesi
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, July 13, 2000; Page H12

It's six in the morning on a summer's day, and the sun hovering over the horizon has not yet blown off the dawn's mist. It's the best time for weeding. It rained a bit the day before, allowing many weeds to yield to sustained pulling.

Standing in the beds might compact the soil a bit, but weeding before seeding seems more important in the grand balance of gardening needs. My main tool is a sturdy hand spade with a stiff blade seven inches long and three inches wide ending in a sharp point. A blade that bends will not do. The connection between the handle and the blade must be solid to endure the clay soil.

My focus is on bindweed, a relentlessly spreading, trailing and twining perennial also known as woodbine, woodbind and devil's vine. It is about to flower now, and if I don't pull all its vines, the flowers will go to seed and scatter, which means additional plants next year. I have to sink the hand spade into the soil as deep as it will go and yank out as many of the soft white roots as possible. If the roots are numerous, I use a spading fork that can go as deep as 12 inches, and I patiently pick out the many pieces. Each bit of a rootstock can start a new plant.

How unjust this is: The bindweed's cultivated relatives, the climber morning glory and its evening-blooming cousin moonflower, are annuals; their seeds need to be soaked overnight or scored, or both, before they germinate, which they do not always do.

Another weed now going to seed is the plantain, which plagues lawns and sprouts out of gaps in brick walkways. Its rosette of leaves, veined like a hosta's, may be mostly upright or splayed on the ground. Its stalk, bearing hundreds of seeds, is vertical. It is not hard to pull up the entire plant, roots included, especially if you use a trowel.

The wild strawberry (with insipid fruits) spreads quickly by arching stalks touching the ground and taking root. By following the trail and picking up every new plant, we can evict this weed, but next year it may return, from seeds carried by birds or the wind.

Once established, thistles are about as hard to get rid of as bindweed. The taproot can be a foot long or longer, and all of it must be dug up. A spading fork is the best tool. Unfortunately, a tiny tip at the end of the root often breaks off and sprouts again. Or, if we cut off the stalk at ground level or a few inches below, the thistle will regenerate this season by forking into a bushy plant. But if one thistle goes to seed in July and August, more will rise from the ground next year. The Canada thistle, with its dark green foliage and reddish flowers, is a monster plant we just have to keep fighting year after year.

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