Actually I found this weeder tool several years ago when fixing a
water line using a tongue-groove-pliers
and then walking back to the house and seeing thistles along the way
and using those pliers to pull the
thistles.

There is no finer weeder than a large pair of tongue-groove-pliers. A
weed that has a single stem can
be pulled up from its entire roots. Yesterday I used the pliers to
take out baby locust trees the size
of my little finger. Some snapped at the base, but several came out by
their entire roots. And it matters
not if the soil is wet or dry.

They are super effective on thistle.

What makes the pliers so effective is the fact that the grip is tight
and the pulling upwards only tightens the grip
even more.

thistles are the wrong object to prove the effectiveness of the
recommended tongue-groove-plier, as they are extremely vulnerable to any
disturbance, the weak root endings are not able to re-establish for
moisture collecting

I would rather recommend you to try your experiments on canadian
goldenrod, momentarily the greatest pest here in central Europe - even
the smallest root piece can re-grow to a new plant, thousandfold - you
just could say "callus differentiation"

cheers kauhl

kauhl-meersburg wrote:

Will give it a try. First have to identify it.

try your experiments on canadian

you can't oversee them, start flowering in the moment:

flowerheads golden-yellow, each with 10 - 17 short rays, in broad
pyramidal panicles, and thoroughly covering vast semi-dry sunny areas
and dominating all other plants

... and keep in mind, all thistles are bi-annual: when you cut them
before ripening they cannot subsist

I am beekeeper with some other hobbies, have a look at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71092423@N00/

cheers

kauhl-meersburg wrote:

For me, the identification of weeds is not of high priority, only when
they catch my screaming
attention do I try to identify. I consider all weeds as compost for my
mower and so I am not
taken aback by any weed, unless they require more time than mowing.

Well I do have a pernicious weed that is multiplying and I thought it
was
some form of field-pennycress for it has the same upright structure
and
the same sort of leaves.

kauhl-meersburg wrote:

I see mostly hornets and wasps here. No goldenrod.

Recently I asked a question based on repeated observation that spiders
tend to move in where wasps have their hive. Wolf spiders and orb
spiders.
The question was whether the spiders benefited the wasps? Is there
some
commensalism going on between spiders and wasps?

plutonium.archime...@gmail.com wrote:

Okay, I think I spotted about a dozen weeds that look like Goldenrod
for today, but all their leaves were gone
and had only a brown stalk with flower seed head remaining. Hand
pulled them out with no problem.

What problem I do have is another weed that looks somewhat like
Canadian Goldenrod except that
the leaves are smooth and not serrated. And can grow higher than 6
feet as I witnessed some near the
outbuilding. They can grow as high as the stinging nettle.

So I looked through the weed manual and about the only weed that looks
close to this abundant
one is yellow-toadflax. However these abundant weeds are more often
having a single stem.

hello Archi,

heart affecting your description of your endeavours in determining
flowers, I know those difficulties also very well, as at the beginning
one has not yet an eye for those small differencies in flowerhead
composition and one always refuses to read those written dry listings of
flower characteristics

so at first you should develop an impression of families:

goldenrod = compositae
pennycress = cruciferae
curled dock = polygonaceae
stinging nettle = urticaceae
toad-flax = scrophulariaceae
loose-strive = primulaceae

all with their individual details - and don't throw those hand drawn
guides away, they are much more better than photos, because you see the
plant in its uniqueness - you should rather procure a field guide nearly
complete, the mine has about 2000 drawings

btw. "dm" means dezimeter = 10 centimeters = 1/3 foot

kauhl-meersburg wrote:

thank you for revealing - in Europe it's called erigeron canadensis, but
flower color greyish blue and the long panicle with single flowerheads,
not in long spikes -

so you still have a chance to experiment on goldenrod with your plier

cheers