There’s no need for Sacramento-area residents to rely on neighbors or home center clerks for weed management advice. The state’s top weed experts will spend a half-day Jan. 10 offering science-based guidance to local home gardeners waging the perennial war on weeds.

The California Weed Science Society’s free home landscape and garden weed control workshop runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon Monday, Jan. 10, at the Doubletree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way in Sacramento. The public is invited and no advance registration is required.

The workshop is part of the annual three-day conference of the California Weed Science Society.

University of California and industry weed experts will present information on preventing and controlling a wide variety of weeds -- pests that rob nutrients, water, sunlight and esthetic beauty from landscapes and vegetable gardens.

"It’s not uncommon for homeowners to see unwanted plants, and without identifying the plant or considering the alternatives, spray on an herbicide," said Chuck Ingels, the UC Cooperative Extension urban horticulture advisor for Sacramento County. "Being well-informed about weed pests and ways to control them -- both chemical and non-chemical -- can make gardening more enjoyable, safe and environmentally sound."

Topics at the weed workshop will include weed control in turfgrass and landscapes, managing weeds organically, thistle and brush control, and broadleaf herbicides for turf. UC Master Gardeners will also answer home garden and landscape questions. Living weed samples growing in pots will help participants in weed identification. Sacramento-area residents are invited to dig up and bring problem weeds from their own gardens for specific advice on management.

Weed management strategies to be discussed at the workshop include close plant spacing, subsurface irrigation, bark, gravel and fabric mulches, various types of hoes and herbicides and even the willingness on the part of homeowners to put up with some weeds in the lawn or planting beds.

Steven Zien, who runs an organic landscape maintenance firm, says tolerating weeds in turfgrass can diminish the need for extreme weed management measures.

"For example," Zien said, "at the turn of the century clover was considered an integral part of the lawn. But with the advent of herbicides, people started calling clover a weed. In fact, clover can be beneficial in a lawn because it provides nitrogen fertilizer to the turf, is drought tolerant, loosens the soil and has a deep green color."

Other plants considered lawn weeds, such as bermudagrass or crabgrass, Zien acknowledges, do diminish the quality of a lawn. At the workshop, he will explain how maintaining healthy turfgrass with the right amendments and irrigation schedule will help keep out unwanted weeds.

Foothill and rural residents who are faced with large thistle or brush weeds, such as poison oak, blackberries and yellow starthistle, will benefit from a combination of control measures for weed management, says workshop speaker Scott Johnson, vegetation management specialist for Wilbur Ellis Co. in Manteca.

"I will suggest an integrated approach to vegetation management," he said. "Mechanical, manual, burning, seeding and fertilizing are all tools that can clear unwanted brush. Then, residents may want to use herbicide sprays on resprouts."

information from a free workshop- contact Chuck Ingels