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Thursday - December 02, 2010

From: Venice, FL
Region: Southeast
Topic: Non-Natives
Title: Selective herbicide for non-native bermudagrass from Venice FL
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Is there a selective herbicide that can be used for grasses like Floratam and Bermuda along with various weeds that will not damage Wedelia?

ANSWER:

No.

Wedelia texana (Zexmenia) is endemic to Texas, not natively growing anywhere else. Wedelia trilobata, which is probably what you have is, like St. Augustine 'Floratam' and bermudagrass, non-native to North America and invasive as well.

"Selective" herbicides, in terms of killing only broad-leaf (dicot) or only narrow-leaf (monocot) plants, do exist. Wedelia is a dicot, but so likely are the "various weeds" you also want to kill. No matter what kind of herbicide you apply, it will no doubt kill other, more desirable plants in the area, possibly contaminate the water supply with runoff into rivers and lakes, and still not rid you of the undesirable plants. The University of Florida Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants classifies Wedelia trilobata as an invasive, non-native plant. The Center does make some chemical recommendations, but in your landscape situation would probably not be practical.

So, you have three non-native, invasive plants. Perhaps you will have to select which one you want to keep, and manually remove the others. Good luck with that.

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