While is sounds like something you might find in a $25 salad at a trendy restaurant, bittercress (Cardamine spp.) is a common weed in your yard during the fall and winter. This cool season annual prefers a shady spot in your lawn. It grows as a basal rosette, and being related to the mustard plant, its broad leaves that resemble it. The seed heads of bittercress resemble cigars and when mature and dry, up to thirty seeds will disperse explosively. Known as ballochory, this seed dispersal system can seed seeds out as far as twelve feet. Using this method, bittercress can spread quickly and can really take over your yard. Bittercress will often die back in the heat of the summer, but by then the seeds will have been sown for the next season. Hand pulling and mulch will help keep bittercress under control, and most herbicides will be effective if needed.  

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