For Sale: Invasive Noxious Weeds

[catbirdseat]

Seen for sale at Lowe's Hardware, Scotch Broom (labelled Sweet Broom, same thing).

[mattp]

You'll find English Ivy at lots of local nurseries, too. I have not checked for himalaya blackberry.

[willstrickland]

Got Kudzu?

[Dave_Schuldt]

That sucks! If you want to see how bad this problem is volunteer to pull weeds in your local park. Or maybe mattp's place.

[roboboy]

Japanese knotweed shall inherit the northwest. It is common in most low elevation westside drainages, forming thickets like bamboo up to 10 feet high, choking stream banks. It doesn't respond to any herbicides and the root ball is large and inpenetrable, like concrete. The only way to remove it is with heavy equipment or continually cut back foliage during the growing season for at least 3 years. Hardly anyone is aware of it. The state doesn't do much about it, there's too much of it and it would cost too much. It came here as an Asian import landscape plant.

[catbirdseat]

I hadn't even heard of Japanese knotweed. Hmmm.

[marylou]

I'm looking for some bamboo that grows to about 8' if anyone has a problem they want solved. Clumping or trailing, I don't care, it's a rental. Have shovel, will travel.

 

I'll be buying some bamboo in a month or so otherwise and would rather help your yard prosper than pay money for an invasive weed.

[mattp]

Bamboo does not root very deep and is easily contained by root pruning. You can also line the hole where you plant it with heavy plastic. It will take a couple of years before it screens your bedroom window, though.

[mattp]

Japanese knotweed can be a fairly attractive plant in the right location. It has interesting bamboo-like stems and I have upon occasion considered planting it. I've seen it in the "wild" but had no idea it was such a menace.

[mattp]

Hey: now that we have the new GARDENING FORUM, does anybody know how to get rid of morning glory? I've pretty much done in the ivy and hamalyan blackberry that had taken over this lot, but that damn morning glory still grows among all the plantings I want to keep and I can go out there and carefully unwind it and pull it up as often as I want but it keeps coming back. Chemicals?

[Dru]

Eat the seeds until it can't reproduce anymore

[roboboy]

Japanese knotweed can be a fairly attractive plant in the right location

It dies back in the winter leaving tall ugly brown dead stalks that are bent over at varying angles until they finally collapse and decompose, awaiting the bountiful smothering foliage and unimpressive floral blooms of spring. It is invasive and difficult to remove, as I said.

[roboboy]

how to get rid of morning glory

If there is a small enough amount of it and it is contained, paint the new foliage with Roundup (has no soil activity) using a small paintbrush repeatedly during the growing season until all of the morning glory is dead.

Otherwise, you could cover the ground with black plastic or newspapers, if you don't mind not growing anything there for awhile. Black plastic has to be thick or plants will punch through it though. And you get a proliferation of creepy crawlies underneath anytime you cover the ground which is disgusting.

[tivoli_mike]

state site info on knotweed

 

[tivoli_mike]

website for invasive and exotic plant control and info

 

 

 

Kudzu, though, is the one that gives me the willies...

 

Edited February 4, 2006 by tivoli_mike

[EWolfe]

Agreed.

 

Driving through Georgia in 1997, I was horrified by the complete burial of houses, trees, power poles and hillsides by kudzu.

[Mr._Natural]

i have had limited success by gathering the vines and stuffing as many of them as possible into a yogurt container containg a diluted herbicide. cut a v notch into the top so you can close it. you may need to do several of these. hopefully it will find its way back to the main tap root. this is a much more focused application than spraying. good luck, that stuff is nasty. I was only to get it out of my yard my moving.

[mattp]

Thanks, guys. I'm gonna need a 50 gallon drum of roundup, though. The stuff is spread nearly throughout my entire lot.

 

Oh, and don't worry. I'll add Japanese Knotweed to my top ten most unwanted list.

[dalius]

does anybody know how to get rid of morning glory?

 

I've heard that only herbicide really gets rid of that stuff. I guess the black plastic would work, but tough to cover a whole yard. If you start pulling it up, you start realizing just how extensively that shit travels underground.

 

Another solution may be to douse your lot in diesel fuel and have a nice bonfire upon which to roast horsecock and snafflehounds.

[roboboy]

I'll add Japanese Knotweed to my top ten most unwanted list

 

The beauty of Japanese Knotweed in winter:

 

 

This stuff is...is...between me and happiness.

 

I tend to want to look over the fence at my neighbor instead.

[Dechristo]

...while pulling your knotweed.

[MisterMo]

Thanks, guys. I'm gonna need a 50 gallon drum of roundup, though. The stuff is spread nearly throughout my entire lot.

 

About the time you father children with, like, three eyes and flippers, you might pine for the good old days when Morning Glories were among your biggest issues.

 

Just pull em. They'll come back; other weeds will too, but that's all part of growing stuff.

 

Japanese Knotweed made a big entry into the NF Skykomish a few years back, but seems to have hit a wall in its spread. I don't notice more or bigger patches.......and I am looking. I very foolishly transplanted some to my yard before I knew about it; it took 3 or 4 years of repeated mechanical destruction (mowing all shoots) before it quit coming back. I didn't have to dig up the roots.

[marylou]

It will take a couple of years before it screens your bedroom window, though.

 

Funny, that's exactly what I'm planning to use it for

[mattp]

That has been exactly my hesitation, Mo. I barely use fertilizer, let alone herbicide. Sometimes, however, drastic measures may be called for. The idea of dipping the ends of the little darlings in a roundup cocktail sounds like it might work. Pulling them up has utterly failed because they are all intergrowing with lots of vegetation that I want to keep, much of it fragile.

 

Not wanting to use slug bait, I've been going out at night to pick cutworms by headlamp for the last ten years, and I might try something a little more effective on those little guys, too. Will that cause me to go mutant? BT on just the plants they are targetting maybe?

 

As you note: just pulling the weeds and preventing

regrowth has served me pretty well with a variety of pests, though. I got rid of the ivy and blackberry in this yard without a drop of herbicide.

 

Time for kickoff...

[MisterMo]

 

Not wanting to use slug bait, I've been going out at night to pick cutworms by headlamp for the last ten years, and I might try something a little more effective on those little guys, too. Will that cause me to go mutant? BT on just the plants they are targetting maybe?

 

As you note: just pulling the weeds and preventing

regrowth has served me pretty well with a variety of pests, though. I got rid of the ivy and blackberry in this yard without a drop of herbicide.

 

Time for kickoff...

 

Good on ya

 

First and ten.............