Invasive non-native plants:

[HillsideDigger]

How many of you are experiencing increasing difficulties with invasive plants?

Well, around here (NC foothills), thats whats happening.

When I was younger, honeysuckle and kudzu, were becoming common, but both of those plants have positive aspects like being nitrogen fixers and favorable wildlife food and cover.

Now though, the likes of some kind of ubiquitous and impossible to eliminate ground cover mint, wild roses, some kind of privet and numerous other vines and thorny bushes are taking over around here. Autumn olive is spreading rapidly also, but I do not mind the presence of it.

All I can advise is 'Nip them in the bud', dig, cut, lop, whack, burn and spend hours getting rid of these beasts every week of the year around your lawn and gardens but I expect it will still be a losing battle.

[Pharmerphil]

here it is Buckthorn, and wild cucumber, when I lived in Mo. we had a real Multiflora rose problem.

[TennOC]

Yup, we got all them here too. Nothing is constant except change......

[TennOC]

Reminds me of a few yrs ago, I heard on the news that in China, rats were getting to be a big problem so the gov over there put out recipes and was telling everybody how "good" they were to eat, hoping that would take care of the problem. lol. Maybe we should start a list of 101 things you can make outta invasive plants?

[toby55]

Here in Wisconsin the problems are multiflora rose, purple loosestrife, Norway maple and Japanese Honeysuckle.

In my yard, verbena bonariensis has self-sown from a planting I made 3 years ago, that I consider it an invasive! Beautiful to look at, but a pain to get rid of!

[FourDeuce]

Reminds me of a few yrs ago, I heard on the news that in China, rats were getting to be a big problem so the gov over there put out recipes and was telling everybody how "good" they were to eat, hoping that would take care of the problem. lol. Maybe we should start a list of 101 things you can make outta invasive plants?

I'm in a similar situation with bamboo. I actually encourage bamboo on my property. I have 7 different varieties growing now, and have room for more. I've found 3 of them growing locally, including one which grows to 50 feet tall. That's pretty tall for here in the Ozarks.
A lot of people are nervous about bamboo, with the reputation it has for being invasive, but I enjoy it on my property. I've had it growing for about 6 years now.

[TennOC]

Digger: It is kind of a catch-22, huh? We want the soil to be as fertile as possible, but don't want unplanned things sprouting up, lol. A chipper would turn all that unplanned green stuff into good compost-making material. Just pile it up and let it rot. Be glad you're not trying to garden in a desert.

[SB_Johnny]

We've got the same around here: J. honeysuckle, MF rose, canada thistle, dame's rocket, and garlic mustard are the 3 worst ones on my farm. Goats are doing a good job on all but the garlic mustard, which they ignore... if you've got goats, you start seeing some of these in a new light: fodder.

[TennOC]

Yup. It's all free organic material.

[redbrick]

Here's the real paradox: if you have REALLY rich soil, a lot of those weeds disappear! They thrive on poor soils. That said, I still have tons of perrenial thistle, creeping charlie, and purslane.

[zebraman]

Hey Hillsidedigger;I would love to get root cuttings from the Kudzu.And except with the sagebrush EVERYTHING in Southern CA is an invasive weed,including what are sold as houseplants in the rest of the Country.Even the Tumbleweed out west is an invasive weed from Spain.Anyways Kudzu makes the best anibolic compost on the planet.If you have some let me know.-

[Ms.Lefty]

We have a real problem with invasive callery pears here in Maryland. This article does a good job of describing the situation:

http://www.agnr.umd.edu/ipmnet/5-8art1.htm

[TennOC]

Since it is a fruitwood, I would think it might be worth trying the "weed" pear wood as smoking or barbecue wood. Turn weeds into money.....hmmmm.

[TennOC]

You might even get permission from the land owner to come back every year and rid hi/her land of this pest, load it all up and carry it straight to the flea mkt where it becomes "Bob's super Bar-be-cue wood" or some such.

[Mary]

I don't know what it is ,but it is like a creeping ground cover . It has small leaves and small white flowers .I can't be sure but I think the plant may have came from the seeds in my bird feeder.The birds didn't seem to like them seeds and would scratch them out on the ground, now the plant is going every where, its easy to pull , so I've been putting them in a sack. Now I buy sunflower seeds.

[bluelacedredhead]

At my house, I have a new invasive plant. It's called a Missouri Black Currant.
When I bought two plants three years ago, I tried to root more. Didn't work, because the chickens kept digging up the new shoots.
Well, One has just appeared all by itself, from beneath an old door up against the garage wall. Not sure this is a good thing, LOL

[ipaintedmyhousewhite]

We get the roses here too...I don't know what they are called, but they look ancient: white, single blooms that are kind of smallish. The climb really, really high. However, I noticed there are very beautiful hips on the bush when the blooms are all done. I wondered are all rose hips edible, because I think that would be a benefit of such an invasive plant.

[ipaintedmyhousewhite]

As for other invasive plants we have here, just open this month's issue of Organic Gardening to the article on using weeds to identify your soil problems. I have all of them in my yard. LOL!!!

[Cricket]

One man's noxious weed is another man's treasure. Our garden is being victimized by catnip and hollyhocks. Personally I don't like our state and county government's "war on weeds" and spraying 2,4-D and Clopyralid on every county right-of-way. I wish that it was a misdemeanor to have noxious weeds on one's road frontage and everyone had to address it non-chemically rather than putting more pollutants onto the planet. If I were capable of being a county commissioner, I'd approach it as resource managment, not only getting rid of the weeds, but doing everything possible for the health of the watershed, involving a lot of people in the solution. Recently, I visited an island in the San Juans off the coast of Seattle that did not have ferry service. They only had one or two dirt roads and people had old pick-up trucks, bicycles and they walked a lot. They had a nice school, a post office and an airstrip. Most people came and went by boat. The sides of the roads were only native plants and old madrone and maple trees like spreading oaks. It's really hard to keep this standard on the mainland because of vehicles spreading seeds and because of people's abusing the land by overgrazing and clearcutting on private and federal land. In our culture, most people think they're too good to pull weeds and show their status in life by the size of their herbicided lawn. I guess this is a problem that only organic gardeners know how to deal with.

[sparrowgrass]

My absolute least favorite invasive plant is spiny amaranth aka red root pigweed. It sets a kajillion seeds per plant, and the seed seems to set about 12 seconds after the plant pokes thru the soil.

Worst of all, it has, as its name implies, spines. Not just little stickers, but spines that go right thru a leather glove. So, you have to be really careful about pulling up any kind of weeds, because there might be an amaranth hiding in amongst 'em.

Got it with a load of beautiful horse manure 5 years ago, and have been fighting it ever since.

[HillsideDigger]

My property up in the mountains where I have attempted a little gardening on Saturdays has that pigweed, sounds the same as sparrowgrass describes, impossible to deal with.

[Cricket]

Our county public works department has a long list of invasive non-native plants that enable them to justify their deployment of "Curtail" (2,4-D and Clopyralid) on our road right-of-ways and "Aquakleen" (aquatically registered 2,4-D) in our large "pristine" lake. The whole theory of "exotic" plants has been put into question by a book by D. Theodoropoulos entitled INVASION BIOLOGY: CRITIQUE OF A PSEUDOSCIENCE which is offered by J.L. Hudson, Seedsman, Star Route 2, Box 337, La Honda, CA 94020 for $14.50. This is something to think about. I can see that spotted knapweed and orange and meadow hawkweed and common tansy which are on our county noxious weed list are terribly invasive and suddenly our lake is full of Eurasian Watermilfoil, but I abhor the use of herbicide for many reasons. A lovely group of people in our town who have named themselves "Citizens for Sustainable Solutions" have come up with a Working Paper on Eurasian Watermilfoil with lots of info on 2,4-D that I will be glad to send to anyone who is interested. Of course, the county goes right ahead with their chemical bath all over us every season and they stand rigidly opposed to anyone who tries to get them to practice integrated vegetation management.

In our garden, our worst "exotic weeds" are hollyhock, catnip, sweet cicely. and native grasses. I'm still digging up grass right now and I've actually offered my clients for catnip plants on the Farmer's Market the opportunity to come to our place and dig up as many small catnips as they want. What plants are weeds are relative--beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

[GrowTheSeeds]

Came across these posts and while reading them I remembered a news story about the changing climate is causing all vine plants to grow many times more than normal espicialy Ivy. I thought Ivy is a big consumer of carbon dioxide.

[April]

Purslane and Garlic Mustard are edible. I have had Garlic Mustard Pesto.

Keep in mind that Theodoropoulos has a vested interest in disproving invasion biology. His livliehood depends in large part on introduced species. His book is not about "exotic" species. Most exotic species aren't invasive. Therefore, they're no problem. His book is about debunking the theory of invasion biology, and he certainly hasn't put the theory to any sort of rational test at all. And why is it that dozens of scientists can prove bad things happen when non-native species push out native ones, but when one guy(one guy with a HUGE conflict of interest, BTW) differs with them...the one guy is right...everybody else is wrong?

The green industry would really love it if people would just shut up about invasive species, so they could continue importing and selling whatever they want, with as little regulation as possible.

No one needs a degree of any sort to see what is going on in the woods, fields and marshland that I do volunteer restoration in. I can see marshlands less than a mile from my house that have been taken over by phragmites grass, narrow leafed cat-tail, and purple loosestrife. And that's it. No other species of plants are present. Just 3. It is a near monoculture, I doesn't support much bird life, if any. Some red-winged black birds nest in it...but they have no food source in it. For food, they fly to bird feeders. These are marshes that even 10 years ago, were bursting with life.

Lobelia Cardinalis? Gone. Native Cat-tail? Gone. Sedges? Gone. Yellow-headed blackbird? Gone. Native water plants? Gone. Bog orchids? Gone. I don't see how any of this is good.

Our government spends $137 BILLION + a year on eradicating invasive species. Non-native invasive species are dangerous to the economy, can be dangerous to human health, and are a huge threat to the ecosystems that they disrupt.

For goodness sake...why would someone want to plant kudzu in CA? It's AGAINST THE LAW. Why would one want to plant something that will smother and kill everything it grows over? And will cost billions of dollars to control if it escapes cultivation. Have you seen what it's done in the south?

I'm not a fan of herbicides either, but you cannot restore a large prairie w/out the very judicious use of herbicide, usually Glyphosate. 2,4,D is another matter. As far as I'm concerned, it should never be used around people. But then again...it's chemically closely related to the same thing that's in the weed n' feed that some people put on their lawns every spring.

[winter_unfazed]

What exactly IS a native plant, anyway? How long does a plant have to be here before it is native? And how do we know what plants are originally form here, and which ones the Indians or Vikings brought? The gourds, for example, are often thought of as natives of the Americas. However, they are really natives of Africa. Scientists now say that they were either brought over to Latin America thousands of years ago (perhaps when some of Pharaoh Neco's fleet got stuck on something historians presume to be Brazil, while trying to circumnavigate Africa) or else, the gourds floated over--probably from the gourd sailing festivals of Nigeria. I don't know of this from any evidence, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that someone brought Virginia creeper, and it wasn't really native after all. It is very invasive.

[johno]

Interesting point, winter unfazed. I never even considered ancient plants brought over by "Native Americans" as being non-native. But at the outside range humans have only been in the Americas for maybe twenty thousand years (yeah, this figure is debateable...) Even if it were only ten thousand years, how long ago is long enough? Very good question.

BTW, Supposedly they have found corn pollen near Mexico City that dates back 80,000 years, but they also think corn was bred by man from primitive grasses about 7,000 years ago. How does that work?

[redbrick]

Simple, the dating system is completely inaccurate and without merit. A point that the scientific community at large, and Darwinists in particular don't want us to know!

[April]

I chose to believe what scientists have to say on the subject. Everything else is just wishful thinking, IMO.

The standard used by restoration biologists is this: A plant *may* be considered native to the U.S. if it pre-dates the arrival of Europeans in the US. It is fairly easy to see what plant life was indigenous to an area pre-European settlement by taking soil core samples.

A plant that's not native here is never going to be native, no matter how long it's been here, because it's not native. For instance, Queen Anne's Lace, while very pretty, is not native to this continent, it is thought to have been brought over by early european settlers in grain stores. It is naturalised here, but it is not native, and never will be. There is a difference between native and naturalised.

Yes, there are aggressive native plants. Virginia Waterleaf, some goldenrods, some asters, ohio spiderwort, virginia creeper, and ragweed, to name a few.

The corn pollen thing....I think that corn may have developed somewhat on it's own 80K years ago, but I don't think it would be recognisable as what we know as corn today. People selectively bred these grasses until they became what we now know as corn.

In any case...it certainly is not native to North America. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Like I mentioned above, I grow many exotic species, I just make sure they're not invasive. No one will make me give up my irises, or my tree peony.

Indian Grass is a native grass, and one of it's common names is Indian Popcorn, because Native Americans used to do just that with the seed. They didn't have time to establish a breeding program, though. They were busy being driven off their land by another invasive sub-species ;-)

[winter_unfazed]

Thanks for the explanation, April.


Corn pollen--now that is from Central America, rather than North America..

[Cricket]

Hi April,

Glad to know someone from Illinois is working with native plants.

Here in Idaho where we still have a lot of wilderness, the county, state and government government agency people are using the conventional agriculture paradigm to manage wildlife areas. They are arial spraying federal land and using all sorts of pesticides like Tordon and 2,4-D because a few old ranchers run cattle on federal land and overgraze it causing the problems with spotted knapweed, etc., to become worse.

We had a non-chemical roadside vegetation management project on our 8-mile county road
to keep "Curtail" (2,4-D and Clopyralid) off the right-of-way and out of the creek and the lake (This become moot when they deploy 2,4-D and fluorodone in the lake.). After 4 years of volunteer work and research I finally realized that the conventional agriculture paradigm just didn't work with the roadside situation in our county, and we took on the IRVM name that originated in Iowa with the prairie grass movement there. But our local county people can't manage to allow even one project with a different paradigm in their territory.

I threw in that reference to invasion biology to help people to think out of the box. Thanks for responding. You must be a professional in the field. I have done all my research on my own time, but we had some good help from a BLM biologist on the native grasses and I haven't had the time or energy to follow through after the county weed superintendent spot-sprayed (we got that respect) our 4-years of work last year with 2,4-D.

I can't figure out where to go from here and I'm enjoying putting that time into our own garden this year. How do you ask residents in a watershed to volunteer their time and energy to do handwork on a county right-of-way when it has 2,4-D and Clopyralid intermittently all down the road? We've revived an old organization, the Panhandle Environmental League, with people who are protesting 2,4-D in the big lake. It remains to be seen whether this organization which we hope someday to be a 501(c)3 will be interested in roadside vegetation management and invasive weeds that overpower native plants. Who knows how Global Warming will affect the native plants in a brittle, arid climate?

[April]

Hi Cricket,

Thanks for your reply! I'm not a professional, I just play one on TV. Actually, I'm self-taught, but I've done a lot of restoration work in the last 25 years, so I've also learned tons and tons from botanists and park rangers employed/formerly employed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources(IDNR), and from native plant people on Gardenweb, too.

Does the lake you're speaking of have a problem with Eurasian Millefoil? It sounds like that's what they're going for. Personally, the strongest chemical I use here is Glyphosate. They must have gotten a bulk discount price on the 2,4-D, because glyphosate is a much shorter lived herbicide that doesn't bind to the soil like 2,4-D does. Then again...you can't use Roundup in a body of water that has fish in it. For that, you'd want to use Rodeo.

I used glyphosate 3 times over the course of 1 summer to prepare a seedbed for prairie plant seed..and this was 4 years ago. I have used it for spot treating since then, but only on individual aggressive native or non-native invasive plants. I apply the chemical with a 1" paintbrush, so there's no danger of overspray.

Every piece of information I acquire on botany and restoration ecology makes me realise how much I don't know.

I think that since native plants have been here over thousands and thousands of years, they will adapt to climate change...somewhat. Some may go extinct without intervention..i.e., deep freezing seeds. And there is a national seedbank.

In Illinois, there is a program run by the Illinois Department of Transportation to seed the road-sides with low growing native plants. I think it's more active in southern Illinos, though. Perhaps your state has a similar program, and the county needs to be reminded of it. They just mow here, they don't use herbicide.

[Cricket]

April,

Unfortunately, Illinois is way ahead of many western states as far as pesticide choices are concerned. We have much undeveloped land, but our county has changed so much in the last 6 years. The people who run for county offices are very business- oriented and don't value natural resources. We just lost a beautiful slough filled with native plants and animalsto 2,4-D, and we couldn't find any Eurasian milfoil there contrary to what the county official in charge claimed. It was rumored that 500 houses, a golf course and a marina are in the works for that site. It is a historic place where the native tribes held their ceremonies in the past.

It's too bad and makes me very unhappy just like looking from the highway at the buffalo crammed in a small canyon behind a heavy fence that will be butchered to make hamburger for the grocery store.

I wish people in charge would wake up and realize the beauty and value of native plants and animals. Two years ago I went looking for native grasses on a small mountain and found some quite old stands of native bunch grasses in many places. This "hill" is private property and will become lots for houses at some point and probably no one will be aware of those grasses.

We have a native plant arboretum in our town that was conceptualized and constructed by our native plant society, but it's so tame compared to really untouched areas that are too quickly disappearing.

Best,

Cricket

[April]

Did anyone inform the EPA of the destruction of the slough? You just can't go wrecking wetlands, the feds take a really dim view of that. Call the EPA. The county might be forced to pay a hefty fine and be required to restore the area.

I didn't say Illinois doesn't use pesticides, I just think it's not common. Mow, Mow, Mow!

[zebraman]

Hey April and Criket;I don't know if youv'e thought of this but why don't both of you Bulldoze your houses and you could put in bunch grass and protect it!Just a thought.-

[Cricket]

April,

That won't do any good because our former Governor is now head of EPA and everything that has happened here on the lake this summer has the blessings of the state Dept of Agriculture. Our state representative just amended the weed law to prohibit the use of any method of weed control that doesn't kill the weeds in one year. This lets out the weevil biocontrol for Eurasian milfoil and just about everything else but herbicide. They have the power to do anything they want.

Oh, Zebraman, we have the right to our values too.

Best,

Cricket

[chubbyduckie]

Hey April and Criket;I don't know if youv'e thought of this but why don't both of you Bulldoze your houses and you could put in bunch grass and protect it!Just a thought.-


LOL, Z-man!! April, not true that wetlands can't be destroyed. Our neighbors in MN. lived next to a wetland, and we'd see wild ducks there every summer. A major motel chain wanted to build there, and they sure did; gone are the wetlands - also, Wal-Mart moved in, promising to keep the area 'green' with landscaping. After the fact, there's no landscaping, just a big parking lot and the ugly store.

If you have enough $$, they're not going to worry about the environment.

[April]

I take it that Zebraman is the local, snarly, yet somehow tolerated troll? Ok. Bulldoze your own house, termigant. Nice picture, BTW. Cute dog. Was that taken before or after you ate it?

Yes, wetlands CAN be destroyed. They can be destroyed with or without an environmental impact study done by the Army Corp. of Engineers, or the EPA.

I'm just saying that if they are destroyed w/o the proper permitting from the federal government, there will be hefty fines involved.

This is not to say that the ACE or EPA doesn't have big business's best interests at heart.

[johno]

I'm not sure what a termigant is, but you had me rolling... :D

[zebraman]

Hey Guys; Its actually spelled termagant-"Overbearing,boisterous character".
I was just pointing out that people that are always screaming about what others are doing to "the Environment" never want to buy land and protect it.They just want to BeYaaatch (spelled incorrectly on purpose).-

[johno]

Ter-ma-gant. I think I'll remember that now.

[chubbyduckie]

Hey, Z-Man: If you're an "Overbearing, boisterous character"....that's a compliment, right??! I think so!!

[zebraman]

Hey ChubbyDuckie;You would think,but I don't think that is the way it was meant.Oh well.-

[Lavandula Girl]

The most common definition of this is 'bad-tempered, overbearing woman'. It was used a lot in medieval morality plays. It's a Norman-English variation from an Italian word.

[mobi]

The most common definition of this is 'bad-tempered, overbearing woman'. It was used a lot in medieval morality plays. It's a Norman-English variation from an Italian word.

:confused: well there must be some confusion.Zebraman is not a woman. as to bad tempered that is rather a subjective opinion/description.Zebraman has been quite generous with his knowledge of plants and their cultivation requirements,as well as sharing of seed.
It is kind of hard to be overbearing in the true sense of the word on a message board.April as you have said everyone is entitled to their own values ,maybe more reading is in order befor you determine what another persons values are,better yet just ask that person directly.Mobi

[johno]

Let me clear up my position, just for the record. I thought it was funny (the termegant comment) coming from a person experiencing Zebraman for the first time. While he is quite a character, and overbearing at times, I must agree with mobi that he has been generous with his vast knowledge of plants. He just runs hot and cold sometimes...

Z., sorry to refer to you in the third person, I'm just addressing the wider audience...

[Lavandula Girl]

Just clearing up the definition.... for the record. I'm sure Zebraman can be very generous. We all run hot and cold sometimes. It seems to me though, that someone free with their opinions of others, can't very well get agitated if others are then free with their own. I've seen people on these forums called bigoted, transgendered, closed minded, and ignorant as well as generous, friendly and helpful. That (opinionated behavior) happens in any long running relationship, however vicarious. In the long run, is the name calling beneficial? Heck no. But does it sometimes work for us in the moment? You bet your ***. And sometimes it's funny. When it isn't, speak your mind and move on.


NOW... back to invasives..... does anyone have a good remedy for a really firmly entrenched stand of old growth poison ivy? Round Up, which I have used as my last resort, isn't doing the trick. There seems to be too much of the cane to have an effect. It's killing the leaves back, because it has foliar take-up, but more sprout. When I spray, let the plant die back, and then cut the canes to the ground, I just get a new crop. I realize it's not technically a non-native, but the growth, which studies have now linked to a depleted environment, is out-of-bounds with true native growth. Any great tips?

[zebraman]

Hey Guys;Sorry about the slow response but Monday's are my SHOPPING days and was out helping America.
Hey Mobi;thanks but I was having fun.I realize that the main def.was regarding a woman but it was not the way she used it.Also the words origin is from Muslim culture and Not Italian.It is taken from a Muslim Deity and was used in English Theatre.
I did however get a laugh out of this so thanks criket.
We don't even have Poison Ivy here,so Why would I even care?
Control freaks Always have a hard time with me!-

[April]

First off, let me apologise to Zebraman. I shouldn't have called you a termigant(old spelling, actually), or a termagant. It was rude and inconsiderate. I apologise for my bad behaviour. The comment about the "dog".......well, it wasn't the dog who pissed me off, so I apologise to him/her, too.

I don't like hippies, either. I could never be a hippie because I always despised the Grateful Dead, spin dancing and hacky-sack. I'm more on the Nirvana/Arctic Monkeys/Queens of the Stone-Age tip.

I do/have done a lot of hard, physical work as a volunteer for various local state park and forest preserve districts, everything from brushing to planting, to painting bluebird boxes. I have been doing it for 25 years. I am active in keeping big box stores out of this semi-rural area, and I am proud to say that he citizens of this county approved a referendum to raise property taxes a miniscule ($100 per $200,000 assessed value)amount to help buy land to preserve from development. It cost me and the DH less than $100/Yr extra. Well worth the price. If we could afford to buy land of our own to protect and restore, we would buy it, protect it, and restore it.

I grow my own native plants from seed because it's fun, and it gives me something to do in December. I give most of the resulting plants, if any, to charities like Habitat for Humanity, and my friends. I keep the locally endangered or extirpated stuff that I grow, like cardinal flower, thimbleweed, whorled milkweed, round-headed bush clover, etc. When the time comes, and the proper habitat becomes available, the seeds will be returned to the wild, per the direction of the FPD. I always figured backyard gardeners would be a great resource to use to make sure that locally endangered plants don't go extinct, and I wonder why they aren't. I'll share native plant seed with anyone who wants it. Right now I've got Side-Oats Grama(a grass) and Baptisia Australis(an herbaceous forb) and New York Ironweed(an herbaceous forb), and I'll have much more, later. They're great plants, and ideally suited for the home gardener, IMO.

Lavandula Girl,

Poison Ivy is a native plant. Truly. Just because it's native, doesn't mean it can't be aggressive. (Some species of asters and goldenrods are aggressive, and virginia waterleaf and obedient plant are aggressive. All of them are native. You cannot judge a plant's nativity by it's aggressiveness or lack thereof...my bearded Irises are well behaved..but they're not native, for instance.)

You have to keep spraying or painting the PI re-sprouts if you're using the Round-Up. Eventually the plant will give up and die. It's a stoloniferous, suckering plant, so this may take a bit of time. For the canes, cut the cane off 4 inches above the ground. make another cut 4" above that. Knock out the part in the middle, and paint both exposed ends with Round-Up. Fall is the best time, as plants are drawing nutrients into their roots for the winter, as opposed to sending them out to make leaves. Also, Round-Up works best when the ambient air temp. is below 85 degrees and above 50 degrees(which around here is Fall). Above or below those temps, plants kind of slow or shut down their respiratory systems, and you would just be wasting your time and chemicals. Keep in mind that PI is a valuable food source for migrating birds, though. Perhaps you could just eliminate it from any of the areas you regularly frequent?

Or you can switch to a brush killer that has 2,4-D in it. Cut the cane off 4 inches above the ground. make another cut 4" above that. Knock out the part in the middle. Paint both exposed ends of the vine with brush killer. But be very careful with it. *Per my instruction at "herbicide school"*, Use a paintbrush to apply it, and wear long sleeves and long pants and rubber gloves on your hands if you use it, i.e., follow all the safety instructions on the label. It binds to the soil, unlike Round-Up, and can kill nearby plants, too. Plus, it's environmentally toxic. I prefer not to use it, but it does work faster than Round-Up. I apply it with a paintbrush. I've had to use it once on this property, on some stubborn mulberries. April

P.S.....How does someone post in a trans-gendered way? LOL!

[Lavandula Girl]

Thanks April - I knew that info, I was hoping for a magic bullet! I'm loathe to use the 2-4D, because it has longer lasting effects than the roundup, and I've got the kids and dogs to consider. (not that the roundup is great, in that regard, but not quite as lasting.) The PI problem stems also (no pun intended) from the tipping it does. Oh well.....

{PS: to the definition issue - trust me Zman, the character is a Muslim diety, but the word (Termagaunt in Middle English) is Norman, and a play on the Old Italian word for three trips, which is vital to the morality play/cycle drama in which she appears.... you have the degree in ethnobotany, mine's in medieval literature)}

[April]

if you're patient, glyphosate(round-up) is your best bet. it's harmless to people and animals, even when freshly applied, and completely inert in 24 hours. The half life of it in the environment, in pure sand soil, is 10 days. In other soils, i.e., loams, clay loams, clay, heavy clay etc,...less than half that.

I think it should be used sparingly, as all herbicides should be lMO, even though it is relatively biologically harmless. It is impossible to do a large scale prairie restoration without the use of glyphosate. Round-up is starting to show up in the belly fat of wild rabbits, though no one knows if this is a bad thing. It doesn't seem to affect their reproduction or healthy birth rate. Just an FYI.

[Lavandula Girl]

Yeah - I saw that thing about the wild rabbits somewhere - I wonder if it affects the animal as a meat source.... we don't hunt, but the dogs have been known to snag a small rodent on occasion, and all that's usually left is the teeth - blech! I have been assiduously applying the roundup as weather permits, but have not had a great amount of progress. We're clearing trees and underbrush, and the stuff is absolutely everywhere! There was just a report this year on the causal effects of the changing global environment on the growth of certain plants, and PI was one of them.... more vigorous, more virulent etc etc.... I used to not have much of a problem with the rash, but it now seems to get me even through the clothes and protective stuff when I'm out there. Oh well.... we'll continue to fight the good fight. Thanks a lot for the info!

[April]

I'm totally allergic to the stuff. I've gotten rid of the PI we had here. It was only a small battle, though, cuz all we have is a suburban type lot.

[Playoutside]

back to the invasives
chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) - a nasty shrub that has taken over many bottomlands

the rabbits may by taking up the roundup by foraging on plants that recently have been sprayed. glyspohate is water soluble not fat solulable so it should not stay within the system for more than a few days. deer have been found to selectively forage on recently sprayed vegetative material. sometimes forageing on species that they would not normally feed on. possibly the roundup has made the plant species more palatable. oh by the way, i dig the grateful dead...good stuff

[Playoutside]

that poison ivy, stay at it...its has alot of engergy stored within its root system. so although it may appear the intial round up applications are not being effective. it is hurting the plant by making it use up its stored energy. it may take 3 to 5 applications to successfully kill the poisin ivy.. also try to spray on the hottest and sunniest days possible. another trick i have heard was to wear golf shoes to puncture the poison ivy well you spray.

[sparrowgrass]

Me hates poison ivy, me does.

Our horticulture person for the Extension office told me to get the Roundup concentrate, and mix it double strength. Cut the big old vines close to the ground, spray the leaves and make sure to wet the stumps well.

It does seem to do the job. Also, I have found that the generic Roundup stuff does NOT work as well as the real stuff.

[Lavandula Girl]

I'm on my 7th application - I can't reapply til there's more growth, due to the take up process. This means that I'm working through the 7th case of poison ivy on my arms, legs and neck. It's one of those invasives you really wish you could burn off! Unfortunately, I can't even really get into digging up roots and working at it from the ground up, because of the tree roots. Best case scenario, I'm doing it all by hand with a mattock. Well, my trainer did tell me I should be doing more upper arm work!

[Playoutside]

LG,
Have you tried any the oils or liquids that supposely wash the poison ivy off after exposure. i work a lot in the woods and i really do not get poison ivy too badly but my coworker did and he swore by the stuff.
http://www.benmeadows.com/search/default.htm?N=539&Ntk=LSSSearch&Nu=dept_id&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchpartialmax&Ntt=poison+ivy

[Lavandula Girl]

Yeah, I've tried pre-exposure and post-exposure stuff.... I never used to have any problem with PI at all - that's actually why I put it here, even though we were originally talking about non-natives... I've seen a couple of studies recently that have said that PI and other natives (and non natives) have become so much more virulent and aggressive in the last 5 years. Fifteen years ago I was that annoying hiker on the AT who could tromp practically barefoot through the stuff and never have any problems, and now I look at it funny and I'm absolutely covered!

[Soapymomma]

i make a jewelweed salve for PI and sell out pretty regulaly , people swear by it , and so do i , generally speaking it gros in the same areas as the PI in the first place, so if you get the itch , look around for the jewel weed
it can be applied directly to the skin from the plant .

[bluelacedredhead]

Before I got into Heritage varieties of Turkeys, I raised stupid commercial large white turkeys every summer..Those dumb things would eat up every leaf of PI in sight (as well as the supposedly poisonous leaves of Rhubarb..didn't phase them one iota).

Can't get the Bourbon Reds or the Narrangansett to give the PI a second look?? Sure do like the Zinnias in my flower beds though..GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[stonysoil]

overr here in upstate central ny .. hill countyry its the korean lilac thats invading all the roadside areas.. unfortunatelly foes not have any of the glamor as the friench lilacs

[Lavandula Girl]

Did the DOT plant it originally? When we lived in WA State, the DOT had planted scotch broom everywhere. People were becoming highly allergic every spring, and the DOT got really defensive - wasn't the scotch broom, they said. Of course, the broom was incredibly prolific, and didn't stay neatly on the median and scrub hills on either side of I-5! It was a mess - still is, I'm sure.

[Helen Wong-Joe]

I hate those darn bamboo, those darn green aloe vera looking thing and those darn maple trees. My husband and I are constant digging those darm invasive x@#$% out of our garden. It's a never ending chore.

[winter_unfazed]

Maple trees are invasive but they are native. They are excellent for reforestation. I never cut down a maple tree; I just garden around it.

[Cricket]

I never use herbicide and as a result I can't reach around to get rid of all the native grass that comes up where I don't want it. If I could get it all for several years, I could win this battle. As for my invasive herbs and flowers--catnip and hollyhock, I can't stand to pull them up as weeds because I have a thriving market for catnip plants on the Farmer's Market and I'm afraid I will rid myself of them entirely if I take them all out. Also hollyhock is a good seller and I love to watch them crosspollinate and make new colors.

To get back to the serious discussion of invasive plants and their control--I've been thinking about common tansy which is very happy in drought conditions, but which is poisonous to horses. It's been the driest summer here we have had in a long time and everything is brown, especially the grass seedheads in the fields and on the right-of-way. The only things that are blooming are on the noxious weed list--the common tansy and the blue flowered chicory. The spotted knapweed bloomed and became brown immediately (I wish it would die, but I imagine every root will sprout next spring, many of the seedheads that are brown will have seeds. (The excesssive drought may have killed all the biological controls!!! Can the seedhead and root eating insects that prefer knapweed survive this dryness???)

We have been living in the smoke of the uncontrolled forest fires for weeks. I keep wondering what we would do if Global Warming changes our climate so much that only the noxious weeds such as common tansy that are green and thriving without water will be succulent enough not to be combustible in a lightning storm. That use by itself should make them valuable. Just killing them on the roadside and leaving them everywhere else doesn't really help the horse and cow growers.

But it's all too true that certain plants take over the habitat of native plants and form a monoculture of themselves. What would it be like if there were no homo sapiens sapiens running around trying to control things on this planet for their own profit and enjoyment and disturbing the balance of nature with pollutants and selfish bad practices then blaming it on the exotic noxious weeds and spreading more pollutants in a futile attempt to eradicate them?

I laud April and Lavender Girl for their paint brush applications, but the various government agencies are starting to aerial spray herbicides on wild lands again. The toxic stuff is blowing around the planet now and is in the bodies of members of even the most remote aborigine communities. It's true that Eurasian Watermilfoil can completely infest a lake, but drinking water is becoming very precious. We buy it at the grocery store!

[April]

Winter,

Some maple trees are native, some are not. The Norway Maple is one that is not...it is a highly invasive tree that will eventually destroy a native woodland..the shade it produces is so dense that other trees can't get a start, and it is also alellopathic.

Infestation of forests by Norway Maples is a very serious problem. As older native trees die off, they are often replaced by NM, which makes the re-growth of native saplings almost impossible, since, once established, NM saplings secrete a toxin through their roots, and the parent tree may be providing dense shade that natives can't grow in. It is also the first tree to leaf out in the Spring, and the last to lose it's leaves in the fall, providing 3 season sunlight deprivation to the forest floor.

Ever notice how hard it is to get anything to grow under a Norway Maple? That's why.

Aerial spraying of herbicides and pesticides can have serious environmental consequences. Exotic invasive plants also have serious environmental consequences, not to mention financial and human health consequences, too.

Cricket, I would be interested in knowing what species of native grass you are having a problem with.