What can I use on my dymondia to kill the weeds and that is pet friendly?

Question

My dog is only 7 pounds and loves to eat the greenery in the yard.
I have 3 different types of weeds trying to take over the dymondia after all of our rain in San Diego coastal.
The weeds appear to be chickweed, sorrel, and ragweed.

Answer 1

I don't know if your dymondia is ground cover or alterntive lawn, but the problem is anything you broadcast over the whole area will kill the weeds and the dymondia. There are grassy weed killers for use on ornamentals but yours aren't grassy weeds. Even the organic weed killers will kill the dymondia, too.

If you don't have too many weeds as yet, you can cover the desirable plants, then spray or "paint" organic weed killer on the weeds. (But you will need to keep dog away while product is wet.) Pulling the weeds is the most dog friendly, but also labor intensive and if you don't get all parts of the weed, it may regrow.

If your dymondia is not thick enough yet to prevent weeds from growing, you can apply mulch after pulling the weeds. Or, if possible, you can cover the weeds with a thick layer of wet newspaper, then top with mulch to squelch them.

Also if you take the plunge and pull the weeds by hand, being careful to get all of it, you can then sprinkle products designed to prevent garden weeds from growing (we don't make product recommendations) over the area and they won't hurt your desirable plants. It won't kill the weeds, just prevent new ones from growing.

You can contact your local university cooperative extension agent who will make product recommendations.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/weeds/using-organic-herbicides.htm