Hippo @ Zoo

Hippo @ Zoo

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Reviewed: EcoSmart weed killer vs White Aster

White Aster.


It's a perennial flowering plant that can grow a couple feet tall. Bees like it. It is endangered in Connecticut. In China, it has a history in cough medicine. In my lawn? It's a common weed.

Since it is perennial (comes back year after year), letting the winter cold take care of the problem wont work. It will be here in the spring. It spreads by stolons and rhizomes, so lack of seeds doesn't mean it's not spreading.

I decided to use EcoSmart Organic Lawn Weed Killer
('kills weeds, not lawns!")
It was $10 at Home Depot for one gallon. This was enough to spray almost my entire front yard (the back is fine). The nice thing about this product is that it has NO smell! The color was kinda disturbing, as it looked like I was spraying liquid rust. This is due to the primary ingredient being iron. It is rusty! Iron is toxic to broadleaf weeds like dandelions, but actually provides a quick green up for grass. So if you accidentally spray the lawn, no worries. :)

The down side to this product is the trigger. About a quarter or the bottle through, and my hand was hurting. Also, I can't seem to find it online anywhere. The EcoSmart site still shows many products, but not this one. Their weed and grass killer is listed, but I wouldn't want to try that on my front yard....

Results are still out on the Aster, but EcoSmart took out the dandelions in under 24 hours. I checked today, and everything broadleaf I sprayed was a brown wrecked mess. The Aster has turned darker. I'm hoping it'll die soon. I'll edit this for the results.