With the house on the market and vines running rampant this year, I had to resort to good old herbicides to get control. Yes it was an admission of failure, but when over a barrel, you  have to do some thing. So off to jolly Lowes went I to get those pesky little wooden window thingies that need replacing in the kids bedrooms, and some Roundup.

I was delighted to see that Safer had a similar product, so feeling rather good about that I bought two to try. The problems were driveway cracks with clover and grass, tree beds that were planted with the dreaded liriope and a bed taken over by poison ivy.  I started with the product and within minutes was frustrated with the delivery system. The trigger spout was giving out a trickle at best after several pumps. With a 400 ft driveway this was not going to work. I unscrewed the top and thought about just pouring the liquid onto the weeds, but that seemed rather a waste. I resorted to the shed and picked up the RoundUp vine killer. This, of course worked, but there was not much in the container. The delivery system though was much better – they had a pull trigger that filled the cavity and delivered a full stream of herbicide to the weed area. It didn’t go far, but on returning to the good old shed with the abandoned Safer product, I noticed that the two screw caps were the same. A quick switch and I was off and running with the less toxic brand again.

The overall results were mixed: the Safer brand was quite good on most small grass and clover issues, but truly was no match for wicked veins (poison ivy, honeysuckle and wisteria). I noticed that the leaves were blackened but the vine itself looked untouched. Maybe I needed more thorough coverage, but my guess is that for serious problems, Safer is not a good option.

For general cleanup of driveway and smaller problems, I think it did just fine and will be in the shed for those areas as it is far less toxic than big commercial brands.