Getting rid of Stickers?

Many plants can be called stickers, one common plant known as sandspurs or Cenchrus echinatus has nasty, pain-causing seeds.

A sure sign of fall is the abundance of the spiny bur that is the fruit of those sticky pest, sandspurs. You can find sandspur plants in dry, sandy, cultivated and disturbed locations. Sandspurs grow in the warmer parts of the United States from Virginia to California and in Mexico, Central America, South America, the West Indies, the Philippine Islands, and South Africa.

Sandspurs are an annual, which means they grow from seed on through to produce more seed in one year. The seeds, if they do not “catch a ride” on the coat of an animal or on you and me, tend to drop off and re-spout in the same place the next year. You will find sandspurs growing in open, sandy, sunny locations with little competition from other plants.

Preventing seed formation is the best control. This means mowing before the seeds form. Once the plant dies, if there are no seeds in the soil in that area, there won't be a sandspur plant in that location next year.

If seeds have already formed, use a mower with a catch bag to remove the seeds from the area.