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week before tilling the new garden area," he said. "Make certain that the herbicide you use does not have any residual activity, otherwise you could damage future the plants that you will plant next spring."
• Specifically, Graper said gardeners need to watch out for products that say things like "ground clear" or "weed preventer." He explained that these can be effec

tive products used in the right spot but gardeners do not want these applied to garden areas.
• "A herbicide that has glyphosate as the only active ingredient is probably going to be your best bet," he said.
• Perennial broadleaf weeds in the lawn, like dandelions and thistles, are also quite frost tolerant so they can often be treated quite late in the year and still get good results. He explained that fall rains can also trigger more seedlings to emerge.
• "If it warms up enough for them to emerge, these little seedlings are quite susceptible to control," he said. "Some of the tougher weeds, like ground ivy or creeping charlie, white clover, and creeping bellflower often need two applications of a broadleaf, combination product to really get the control you want."
• Graper explained that some common lawn weeds like ground ivy, creeping Charlie and creeping bellflower become a problem in a lawn because the lawn grasses are not able to grow as vigorously as they should to out-compete with the weeds. He said this may be due to a lack of nitrogen in the soil, compacted soils, or there is too much shade from nearby trees.
• "You may kill the weeds but then have bare patches in the lawn. You will need to correct the underlying problems before you will have better grass and fewer weeds in those areas," he said.