On 9/18/11 7:15 AM, GARY wrote:
I live in Riverside, California (about 60 miles east of Los Angeles).

My garden is loaded with Senecio vulgaris (common groundsel) and
Euphorbia peplus (petty spurge).

When hand-weeding, what's the best way to make sure I pull ALL of the
weeds ("ROOTS AND ALL").

After weeding, what can I apply to prevent these weeds from re-
emerging? (Preen Weed Preventer doesn't work)

I'm not familiar with groundsel.

I weed with a paring knife, which I use to cut the roots of a weed.
When I pull a weed, I check to make sure that what I pulled includes at
least some root. Very few weeds can resprout from a fragment of a root.
This works on spotted spurge (Euphorba maculata), so it should also
work on E. peplus.

The problem with spurge is that a new plant sets and drops seeds almost
before you can see it. I use a thick mulch of leaves in beds that do
not have a vigorous ground cover. This reduces (but does not prevent)
the ability of the seeds to sprout and form new plants.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary