How does Phoenix prevent weed overgrowth around the city? (Scottsdale: HOA, landscaping)

[New Horizons]

Driving around yesterday I could see how all that rain caused weeds to grow all over the place. Weeds on the side of the road, through slits in the concrete, through rock landscaping etc. It reminded me of a scruffy little town in the high desert. Places just didn't have that polished look that they normally do. Just curious, do the weeds just die off on their own, or do places have to zap them with weed killer?

[ScottsdaleMark]

I frequently see crews out spraying on the state highway systems (Loop 101 and 202 is where I drive and see them but I assume they treat the 303 as well) spraying for weeds / clearing up dead brush, etc. I know the City of Scottsdale landscapes and treats all its medians, etc., in this manner. I have definitely seen crews doing the same thing throughout Phoenix but the city of Phoenix seems pretty selective in the extent to which they they bother to eradicate weeds / overgrowth / blight, based on area. I guess it's all about priorities but I do feel they focus on some areas and neglect others, just as they ignore code enforcement for the most part in large swaths of the city. I guess being 517 square miles or whatever it is, that's just how they roll. I still think it's discriminatory and unfair that they let many communities suffer greater degrees of blight than others.

[cacto]

Yeah, native plants living out their seasonal cycle in this place we call home. Maybe after a decent monsoon season, in the middle of a long drought, we could enjoy some seasonal Sonoran greenery, or maybe spray some carcinogenic chemicals to check them, whatever. I profoundly wish we could see this place as it is and not the well manicured golf course delusion some new arrivals wish it was.

[DougStark]

you must be more observant than I am. I haven't noticed a lot of weeds lately.

[Colt AZ]

Weeds are weeds. Weeds come and go. They tumble to & fro. They prolly originally came from every other state in America -- from every other continent on earth.

The good news? The Arizona sun WILL KILL all non-native plants and non-native weeds which others keep bringing in here.

Thanks to the fact that it's most likely everybody else's fault that Arizona has weeds, and no one except the most skittish which have OCD really care, rest assured that someone will eventually clean up the mess which Arizonans didn't originally cause.

[Java Jolt]

A combination of efficient city services and active HOA neighborhoods help keep weeds and overgrowth in pretty good control.

The Phoenix area is pretty weed-free but some of that might be attributed to the dry climate.

[Eric618]

They spray a LOT of poisons.

[Voebe]

I'd like to know how to deal with it at my own place. I have some neighbors giving me a hard time. We've applied weed-killer multiple times, but they're still coming up.

[ScottsdaleMark]

The problem with spray is that if the weed is already grown and has flowered, spray or not it's still there, just brown and dead. Also, it's already formed its thousands of seeds etc which will scatter around no matter how you spray or remove them.

Anyway, if spray isn't working for you these are a couple tools I've used in the past.

This is excellent for larger/thicker roots that won't just break easily. you can kind of use it like a fork and wrap the weed stem around itself until it snaps. For lighter weeds you can just push it against the root and flip it up.


This is a somewhat useful tool for rock yards that supposedly allows you to scrape clean the earth beneath the layer of rocks (the rocks pass through the opening and the bottom part scrapes/cuts the weed roots. In practice it works well on lighter weeds but I found it to be insufficient to get through thicker roots/stems.

[Voebe]

Originally Posted by ScottsdaleMark

The problem with spray is that if the weed is already grown and has flowered, spray or not it's still there, just brown and dead. Also, it's already formed its thousands of seeds etc which will scatter around no matter how you spray or remove them. Anyway, if spray isn't working for you these are a couple tools I've used in the past.

This is excellent for larger/thicker roots that won't just break easily. you can kind of use it like a fork and wrap the weed stem around itself until it snaps. For lighter weeds you can just push it against the root and flip it up. This is a somewhat useful tool for rock yards that supposedly allows you to scrape clean the earth beneath the layer of rocks (the rocks pass through the opening and the bottom part scrapes/cuts the weed roots. In practice it works well on lighter weeds but I found it to be insufficient to get through thicker roots/stems.

Mark, if that was meant to be for me, the problem is that I'm not always around to be pulling weeds - and, really, they're so minor to me that I don't even notice them. I was to kill them, not yank them. The problem is with petty busybody neighbors. I don't like the idea of using Roundup, as I was just reading again how toxic it is. But haven't had much luck so far.

Want I'd like to do is find some low ground-hugging plant, start that, and thumb my nose at the complainants.