?

Log in

No account? Create an account

Previous Entry | Next Entry

What's with the driveway and the invasive species?

  • Jun. 15th, 2013 at 1:22 PM
garden
kls_eloise
This spring continues my battle with the Japanese knotweed.  One small patch came up this year, and I promptly sprayed it.  IT promptly sent up a sprout that looks like a TREE through the middle of one of my hostas.  Sort of a vegetative "F--- you."  I sprayed that one too - as well as the sneaky low patch it sent up elsewhere in the garden.

That would be the right side of the driveway.

On the left side, I have oriental bittersweet.  Which is tolerant of RoundUp, and is just as evil as knotweed.  So that's going to be an exercise in pulling it, pulling it again, and pulling it AGAIN, and seeing who gives up first.

On the bright side, my mountain laurels were spectacular this year.

Tags:

Comments

( 7 comments — Leave a comment )
isabeau_lark
Jun. 15th, 2013 07:26 pm (UTC)
That stuff is a nightmare. So, do we get pictures of the mountain laurel?
| Reply | Thread
kls_eloise
Jun. 15th, 2013 11:08 pm (UTC)
None of them came out very well, and now they're on their way out. It was a surprisingly good year for them. I wonder if they just needed more light?
| Reply | Parent | Thread
hugh_mannity
Jun. 15th, 2013 10:12 pm (UTC)
Have you tried white vinegar on weeds? Apparently you just spray it on, undiluted, and they curl up and die. Much less toxic than Roundup. And also a lot cheaper.

I bought some today which I will try tomorrow. Hopefully.
| Reply | Thread
kls_eloise
Jun. 15th, 2013 11:07 pm (UTC)
I haven't had any luck with it, although I've read about people who have.

Knotweed is so noxious that even the DEP uses glyphosate on it - they have a protocol for using it to kill knotweed along waterways, even. It's a huge rhizome - so killing the leaves doesn't really do you any good. You have to exhaust and poison the mothership. In England, soil with knotweed is classified as controlled waste, and I read that they found one rhizome that was 70 feet long. I'm hitting it with 52% undiluted glyphosate, and it's only slowing it down.

The bittersweet is another one where you can't just kill the leaves, you have to kill it root and stem or every little bit resprouts. I'm not quite sure where it came from, but I've got a lot of pulling in my future. Managed to find some poison ivy in the process. It's apparently my year for noxious vines.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
isabeau_lark
Jun. 16th, 2013 03:26 am (UTC)
If you use vinegar, you should put a squirt of Dawn into it. Often the leaves of things have oils on them, so the vinegar doesn't soak in. The Dawn strips the oils so the vinegar can do its work.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
pippagrey
Jun. 16th, 2013 03:55 pm (UTC)
I have knotweed all along the back of our property, (about 30 feet wide), part of which I don't mind too much since it's a steep slope , but which creeps several feet closer to the house every year without hours spent killing it.

Which is why I want a goat. Knotweed is edible, even by people during it's early stages (think asparagus and rhubarb), and it would seem to be a good relationship, eternal food for an animal that will eat pretty much anything.
| Reply | Thread
galingale
Jun. 18th, 2013 01:50 am (UTC)
Your house and mine. One side Japanese knotweed (and yes Robert wants to eat it, I said he can but Victoria and I will not). The other side bishop's weed. Bittersweet, Dandelions, Creeping Charley, and the unfortunately named 'wandering Jew' everywhere. Oh and Coltsfoot in the front lawn now.

Robert won't let me destroy the knotweed because he likes to make toys out of it for Victoria. But but but there is a ton growing three blocks away .... Sigh. And he has planted bamboo at his mother's place.

I am so in need of a goat. Ya think East Hartford would allow it? Lol.
| Reply | Thread
( 7 comments — Leave a comment )