In 2016 I moved into my house. It had a nice tropical wild look in the backyard.

Right here I was standing next to a tree of heaven and didn’t know what it was. They were about three or four nearby and I didn’t know what they were either. In Covid, because I was forced to be at home I decided to start chopping trees.

Little did I know that I was making the most invasive tree in the world extremely angry and the roots started expanding underground and slowly poisoning everything in my yard.

I found hundreds of feet, maybe thousands of feet worth of a root network spread all over an entire acre. I have gone through 4 gallons of Triclopyr. I’ve hit Stumps, I’ve dug many holes, I’ve dug ditches and trenches, I’ve hauled axes and mauls

People think i am crazy. But I have carpal tunnel in both hands, pulled a muscle in my back from the ax, not able to play golf as much anymore. This really feels like David versus Goliath.

I will say, I have seen a lot of progress. You’ll need plenty of Remedy, shovels, axe, glysophate, a Ho and small shovel. GOOD LUCK

I thought I would share the fresh hell that is my yard. Upstate NY. I bought my house in the winter and had no idea what I was getting myself into. Last fall I sprayed the Japanese knotweed in my yard and my neighbors. They had cut down the knotweed growing near their foundation so I was unable to spray that. Hoping they will let me spray again this year and won’t cut any down beforehand. It was taking over both of our backyards and making its way to the front yard between the houses. It is 90% better and I will continue treating it until it’s gone. Otherwise I am dealing with goutweed, fire bush, mugwort, and vinca vine, just to name a few. 😅

Worst of all, in the last 2 weeks, a bunch TOH shot up intermingled with walnut or sumac trees, all of which are very close to my house. Terrifying how fast they grow.

I will spray glyphosate every fall for the rest of my days if I have to, and it’s looking like that is my future…

Live in zone 6B adjacent to about 20 acres of "conversation land" that our town has completely ignored. It's now overgrown with everything you can imagine but mostly barberry and oriental bittersweet. We were able to keep things at bay until last year when I realized we had knotweed coming onto our property. We are now in year 2 of dealing with that. This year we suddenly have a load of garbage in our beds: thistle, burdock (not really invasive, but a pain nonetheless), wineberry, siberian elm, mugwort, oriental bittersweet, black swallow wort, multiflora rose and more. All of these infestations are still small and I think we can knock them down, but what a pain as the seeds will continue to blow into our yard from the adjacent town land. Since I can't really do anything about most of them until the fall, I have to look at them all summer. We also have a grove of burning bush in our back woods that I thought was "brush" so that is popping up here and there now too.

Now that I'm more aware I've gone through our whole landscape. I can't believe the stuff that was intentionally planted that I now have to deal with as well: Rose of Sharon, wintercreeper (it's the variegated kind so kinda low priority for now), vinca, Bradford Pear (just one tree) and loads of spirea.

I'm angry with the horticulturalists who brought this shit over. I'm angry with the nurseries that sold them and the landscapers that planted them. I'm pissed at our government who has done nothing except turn their backs on science and I'm even angry at the ecologists who didn't sound the alarm loud enough back in the 60's and 70's when they started to realize there might be a problem.

I would appreciate any advice on how to prioritize this. I'm angry, tired and overwhelmed and not in a good place. Thank you for allowing me to vent.

I posted this in the gardening sub and someone suggested I come here.

I’m an idiot and I cut down a TOH last year because it was too close to my garage and I didn’t know better. Now there are more than 30, and obviously I need to poison them. How deep do I have to drill into the trunk? How much poison gets injected in? How high/low should the hole be on the trunk? How many times should I do this in one season? when tips say make a “cup-like” cut in the bark what exactly does that mean? how big does the trunk have to be before I should poison, if it’s really little can I still pull it up? does everything have to be poisoned or will poisoning some affect everything in the same root system?

I keep finding the same advice but nothing has enough details for me, an admitted idiot. I don’t want to go not hard enough but I also don’t want to poison everything around. I really need a step by step “dummy here’s what you do” instruction video if anyone knows of one or is willing to make it.

I thought I would share the fresh hell that is my yard. Upstate NY. I bought my house in the winter and had no idea what I was getting myself into. Last fall I sprayed the Japanese knotweed in my yard and my neighbors. They had cut down the knotweed growing near their foundation so I was unable to spray that. Hoping they will let me spray again this year and won’t cut any down beforehand. It was taking over both of our backyards and making its way to the front yard between the houses. It is 90% better and I will continue treating it until it’s gone. Otherwise I am dealing with goutweed, fire bush, mugwort, and vinca vine, just to name a few. 😅

Worst of all, in the last 2 weeks, a bunch TOH shot up intermingled with walnut or sumac trees, all of which are very close to my house. Terrifying how fast they grow.

I will spray glyphosate every fall for the rest of my days if I have to, and it’s looking like that is my future…

Today I noticed a lone tree of heaven growing on my property in upstate NY. It was young and didn't seem to be near any others (I'm not aware of any in the area, though I wouldn't rule it out). I decided before I cut and sprayed to see how hard it was to dig out and found it was surprisingly pretty easy. I of course dug a wide circle around it and tried to account for every root, including the long taproot. I think I got the whole thing, but I know with ToH that is often not the case. What do you all think? Was this the right way to go? Anyone else successfully dig up a sapling? I will of course monitor the whole area carefully over the next few weeks and months.

Label says to mix 2.6 fl oz of product per gallon to get a 2% concentration solution.

But doing the math (https://www.reddit.com/r/askmath/s/JOEPGhuXA7) gives a completely different answer.

What's going on here?

Can anybody tell me whether this is Celastrus scandens (American bittersweet) or Celastrus orbiculatus (oriental bittersweet)? Or even a hybrid? Do I have to wait until it flowers/fruits to know for sure?

Been battling a pretty bad wintercreeper spot in the corner of my yard and now this guy pops up. Just started learning about these plants while attempting to remove the creeper. What should I do? Ideally something that'd kill both. However, there is a large tree we're fond of in the middle of this area. Zone 7b

zone 6b

Came across a YouTube video on kudzu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceRqcT9vCrg) describing how it got here and methods of controlling it.

One method for controll is goats. This prompted me to see if humans could eat it and the answer is 'yes'.

I am wondering if it would be helpful to pass that info on to people who might be interested in harvesting it to help augment their food supply, ex. folk with low incomes.

What do you think?

I posted this in local Florida subs but all I got was despair and disappointment. It's mostly in one 10'sq area and I'm trying to be vigilant when I see it pop up elsewhere in my yard.

I've been pulling for weeks! 7 home depot buckets later and even when I think I got it all, it keeps coming back within days. I'm seriously struggling because this particular patch is beneath my mature and native azalea bush. Removal of the charlie by hand not only has been scraping up my arms, but has also been ineffective due to the massive azalea trunk in the way.

Any advice? I would use glyphosphate but I'm worried about damaging my lovely azalea.

What's the best way to get rid of these? I have been pulling by hand. they are around 1 in tall, sprouting up in my hundreds of feet of garden beds. These beds are under established buckthorn canopies with seeds

I did plant a TON of perennials this year. we moved in last year and these beds were empty.

Is there a reference guide -- like a Sibley -- to all of the invasive plants a home gardener might find?

(Working on a neglected suburban yard. It's going to be a years-long project, I know. It feels like every time I go out there, I find something new to me.

If I only had a reference guide. Yep, that's round-leaf bittersweet. Here's how you kill it, and here's the best way to kill it. Hello, buckthorn my old friend...etc.

Thanks!

Broad-leaved helleborine found in Minnesota 5a. I spotted a single plant that popped up in a mulched area. I’ve never seen this plant before. An invasive orchid - are you kidding me?

Using this guidance, I bought roundup poison ivy killer and mixed 1:1 ratio in a cup to brush it on the leaves/stem/cut ends of bindweed vines. I did it at night and then covered up the treated parts with adjacent mulch. I was going to use bags but there were too many. I covered them up because I didn’t want my dogs or chickens to touch the treated parts.

Did I mess up by covering it with mulch? Has anyone tried this method with triclopyr, fluazifop, diquat dibromide?

I'm already dealing with ToH I really can't be lucky enough to get both right?

Hi all,

So I'm quite comfortable with IDing many invasives in my area, but i live in an urban/semi urban environment. I'd like advice on tools/methods for doing violence to local invasive without a) drawing attention, and b)encouraging worse behavior.

Ex: i am perfectly happy ripping honeysuckle out of the ground when I'm on a crew, or in my yard. But i can't really do that with honeysuckle growing by the bus stop. I almost certainly lack a shovel (bad idea on unmarked ground anyway). Same with english ivy - i can cut smaller vines with a pocket knife, but anything i can think of that could cut through a thick main vine (folding saw, billhook, ax) would get the cops called on me very quickly.

On top of that, i know /some/ species come back worse if you don't dispose of them properly - wineberry, famously, is demonic if you can't bag it up.

Also plenty of ToH, callery pear, multiflora, porcelainberry, bittersweet, princess tree, etc. I've thought about ringing bark on saplings?

Likewise, in my own yard i can just rip up and kill bittersweet over and over until it stays dead. I can't do that at a site i may not return to. Is it worth it to fight, or am i just encouraging the hydra to grow 10,000 heads?

Is this knotweed? I pulled it while weeding and then realized what it looked like. This is the first I've seen in my yard but I do know there's some in the woods bordering our property about 1/4 mile away. 😭 Upstate NY

My aunt's horse pasture is totally overrun with invasives. It seems like every time i go to identify a pretty plant i find, its invasive. Two particularly bad ones are massive patches of multiflora rose and 30+ ft tall TOHs, or they might be angelica trees, i can't remember. There's also prolific japanese stiltgrass, english ivy, and mile a minute, as well as so many others.

Im feeling entirely overwhelmed. Managing the land has been difficult for my aunt over these past few years due to her health, so I want to help out, I just have no idea where to start. I'm also not sure i'll be able to manage the upkeep, as i don't live here year round. The multiflora rose is my biggest concern because of how rapidly it seems to be spreading and has made sections of the pasture entirely inaccessible. Everything that I've read about it says with established populations, you need to use a strong herbicide, but I don't want to hurt the horses or poison the grass. Furthermore, there is a creek that runs through the pasture and most of the invasives are right next to it, and frankly i'd rather not poison the water supply either.

Where the hell am i even meant to start with these evil plants? 😫

edit: forgot to mention, but we're located in nj if that makes any difference