Malva Control

[cgrinar828]

Greetings. I live in Phoenix, AZ and bought a new home about 10 months ago. I have a pretty big backyard (corner lot) and have been chipping away at the daunting task of creating a desert habitat in my yard. We got next to no rain this past summer but have gotten a fair bit since November. Unfortunately I’ve discovered that my yard is infested with Malva neglecta/parviflora. I suspect it came from the 6 tons of fill dirt I had delivered and used to contour the yard. This is not ideal for sewing seed of a lot of native annuals as the malva quickly takes over and forms mats. I’ve attempted to hoe up sprouts but it does not seem to help. I put in several hours a week trying to uproot the bigger plants and it seems to work to some degree but again my yard is pretty big.

It’s just me living here and money is extremely tight. My 16 year old desert tortoise does like to eat it but his effect on it is minimal at best. I’ve never wanted to use any kind of herbicide but I feel like I’m running out of options to be able to get rid of it before he wakes up (currently snoozing in a box in my garage).

Are there any other options? If I bite the bullet now and spray herbicide before the spring and get rid of all dead plant material is that a good idea? I wouldn’t be asking this if my yard wasn’t completely overrun. My previous house had malva but it was contained to mostly one side of the yard where his burrow was and never became an issue.

 

[TammyJ]

Hello and welcome! In your situation, I would try anything except any kind of killer chemical including herbicide. I think @Tom or someone else more knowledgeable than I am would have some ideas.

 

[Yvonne G]

Malva (mallow) is pretty resistant to herbicides once it gets past the tender baby plant stage. Pulling it up by the roots, hoeing the baby plants are pretty much your only options. Join your neighborhood's "Nextdoor" app and advertise for an able bodied teenager to come help you pull the plants up

 

[cgrinar828]

Malva (mallow) is pretty resistant to herbicides once it gets past the tender baby plant stage. Pulling it up by the roots, hoeing the baby plants are pretty much your only options. Join your neighborhood's "Nextdoor" app and advertise for an able bodied teenager to come help you pull the plants up

90%of it are baby seedlings which have been resistant to hoeing. I’m banned from Nextdoor lol

 

[Yvonne G]

Look on Google for the recipe for vinegar, baking soda, salt weed killer. You can use this safely with animals. But you'd have to wait awhile before you can plant any seeds

 

[Tom]

Greetings. I live in Phoenix, AZ and bought a new home about 10 months ago. I have a pretty big backyard (corner lot) and have been chipping away at the daunting task of creating a desert habitat in my yard. We got next to no rain this past summer but have gotten a fair bit since November. Unfortunately I’ve discovered that my yard is infested with Malva neglecta/parviflora. I suspect it came from the 6 tons of fill dirt I had delivered and used to contour the yard. This is not ideal for sewing seed of a lot of native annuals as the malva quickly takes over and forms mats. I’ve attempted to hoe up sprouts but it does not seem to help. I put in several hours a week trying to uproot the bigger plants and it seems to work to some degree but again my yard is pretty big.

It’s just me living here and money is extremely tight. My 16 year old desert tortoise does like to eat it but his effect on it is minimal at best. I’ve never wanted to use any kind of herbicide but I feel like I’m running out of options to be able to get rid of it before he wakes up (currently snoozing in a box in my garage).

Are there any other options? If I bite the bullet now and spray herbicide before the spring and get rid of all dead plant material is that a good idea? I wouldn’t be asking this if my yard wasn’t completely overrun. My previous house had malva but it was contained to mostly one side of the yard where his burrow was and never became an issue.

Is this post a joke? You have mallow growing all over your yard, naturally, and you want to remove it??? WTH???

It has taken me YEARS to get a few tiny patches of mallow growing at my ranch and I still end up having to go collect more of it from nearby areas to feed out.

Mallow is a gift from God for a tortoise keeper. Why would you want to remove it? I would water it, protect it, and try to let some of it go to seed when the weather dries out and gets hotter in April/May. Your tortoise can eat it or hide in it. Its great food and makes a nice humid area to hide in.

Plant your other seeds in areas where the mallow isn't. The mallow will die off all on its own soon enough.

 

[Yvonne G]

Is this post a joke? You have mallow growing all over your yard, naturally, and you want to remove it??? WTH???

It has taken me YEARS to get a few tiny patches of mallow growing at my ranch and I still end up having to go collect more of it from nearby areas to feed out.

Mallow is a gift from God for a tortoise keeper. Why would you want to remove it? I would water it, protect it, and try to let some of it go to seed when the weather dries out and gets hotter in April/May. Your tortoise can eat it or hide in it. Its great food and makes a nice humid area to hide in.

Plant your other seeds in areas where the mallow isn't. The mallow will die off all on its own soon enough.

Most of us don't have as many tortoise mouths to feed as you, and at the rate mallow goes to seed we quickly have way too many hard to get rid of, mature plants with woody stems to dispose of. When mature, it doesn't die off.

 

[Tom]

Most of us don't have as many tortoise mouths to feed as you, and at the rate mallow goes to seed we quickly have way too many hard to get rid of, mature plants with woody stems to dispose of. When mature, it doesn't die off.

All of it dies off annually here. I can't imagine it would survive the Phoenix heat either if it can't survive the heat here.

 

[Tom]

90%of it are baby seedlings which have been resistant to hoeing. I’m banned from Nextdoor lol

If you really really want to kill it, which I can't understand, but if you really want to, get a hula hoe. Do the area you want to get rid of it, water it and wait about three weeks for it to all re-sprout and new seeds to germinate, then hula hoe it again. This will also prep your soil for the incoming seeds you want to plant.

This is what I do for the areas where weeds that I don't want like fiddle neck, Indian tobacco, or horehound start growing. That and individually pulling them out with their root.

 

[EppsDynasty]

If you really really want to kill it, which I can't understand, but if you really want to, get a hula hoe. Do the area you want to get rid of it, water it and wait about three weeks for it to all re-sprout and new seeds to germinate, then hula hoe it again. This will also prep your soil for the incoming seeds you want to plant.

This is what I do for the areas where weeds that I don't want like fiddle neck, Indian tobacco, or horehound start growing. That and individually pulling them out with their root.

I think @Tom is on to something here. If you really want it gone you will need to break your yard up into sections. The lines can even be imaginary, but if you have sections you can focus on instead of jumping around the yard. Imagine a grid of 10'x10' blocks and then you can have an idea what is working and where.

 

[Yvonne G]

All of it dies off annually here. I can't imagine it would survive the Phoenix heat either if it can't survive the heat here.

I don't know why yours dies and mine doesn't, but here, it's the bane of my existance. The following pictures show mallow that's been around since spring of '23. When I mow and edge, I hit it with the strimmer, but unless I dig it up it just keeps coming back. So these plants grew all last summer and now in the middle of winter are hale and hardy:

 

[Yvonne G]

@cgrinar828 - I hope you're still around. I have you solution to your baby malva problem. Don't know why I didn't think of it before

Today I decided to take the strimmer (string trimmer) to the weeds around the pond, and as I walked by the fence to the YF yard I saw a 5' square patch of about 50 million sprouted malva plantlets. I must've shaken a plant that had gone to seed as I pulled it up last year. So I hopped the fence and hit the patch with the strimmer. Now i don't just cut off the plants with the strimmer, I tilt the device a bit so it digs into the dirt a bit, cutting off the plants closer to their roots. Baby plants treated this way don't grow back, and it only took me about five minutes to do that section!!

If you don't have a strimmer but do have an extra $114 to spend, you can buy a pretty nice strimmer off Amazon. Mine is a black and decker 40v cordless. I use it A LOT, so I bought a couple extra batteries.

 

[EppsDynasty]

I sure miss that yard ... It looks GREAT though.