Posted on 10/08/2022 2:24:04 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
I’m in Arizona and don’t even try to grow a lawn. Unfortunately, Bermuda grass seems to be established around some of the trees and shrubs that we do water regularly, so the grass has to be pulled fairly often. Weed mats help where we can use them.
That crap is nasty. You can actually hear it grow. And it kills everything in its path…
“The alien shrub that can’t be stopped”
George W. Bush is an alien? It would explain a lot.
“Kudzu was used as an attempt to control illegal marijuana operations.”
I thought it was brought over to stop erosion. They didn’t have illegal marijuana grows when this stuff was imported.
“Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States at the Japanese pavilion in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.[23] It was also shown at the Chicago World’s Fair.[33] It remained a garden plant until the Dust Bowl era (1930s–1940s), when the vine was marketed as a way for farmers to stop soil erosion.”
The neighbor had zoysia sod installed several years ago. It is putting-green beautiful in the summer. But...starts fading out in the Fall...is paper-bag brown by winter....then starts greening up again in Spring. And, incredibly invasive. I built a low landscape block wall to separate our yards...put a planting area with a 2-foot kill zone along the block wall. Anything green in that kill zone is Rounded-up. I should’ve done the same thing on the opposite side. That neighbor has a healthy supply of Bermuda...and it loves MY yard.
Nuke it from orbit....
If goats work for Kudzu removal then donkeys likely work better. Donkeys are very good at brush clearing. Heck, they even chomp down on poison ivy.
Donkeys are also a good mix with cattle. The cows and a donkey or two in the herd are good mix. Donkeys will aggressively stomp and kick snakes and predators.
My suggestion is to send all we can to Martha’s Vinyard….
Nutsedge is a tough one to kill, too. I eradicated it by digging under it and sifting through the dirt for all rhizomes. Missed a few of course, so as soon as I saw those sprouting, I dug those areas up again and removed the remaining rhizomes.
Pulling nutsedge is a useless exercise. The Japanese variety simply breaks off at the roots and then the roots send up new shoots. Spraying it with poison seems to knock it back awhile, but unless you eradicate the rhizomes, it always comes back. I hate the stuff, as it grows much faster than grass, so you see the nutsedge blades sticking out of your freshly mowed yard within a day or two of cutting them flush.
Bermuda grass is similar although much easier to kill off. If you let it get into your garden, pulling it out won’t kill it. Even a tiny piece of the roots left under ground will regrow the plant. Tilling the soil makes it even worse in my opinion, as the broken pieces will quickly regrow.
One year I bought Zoysia grass plugs from a newspaper ad. They even sent the plugging tool. I planted them according to instructions, and it turned out that I didn’t have enough to cover my whole yard.
I watered and watered and WATERED them, but nothing happened. Oh well, I thought, at least I didn’t spend a lot of money.
After a few years, I started to notice the grass in that area getting thicker. It finally took. Over time, it spread to almost the whole yard and it WAS so thick that dandelions wouldn’t grow in it.
It was tough getting the lawnmower through it, and it was the last grass to turn green in the Spring, and the first to turn brown in the Fall.
A blackberry thicket saved my nieces neighborhood from a raging wildfire. The bushes are downright evil but they did stop that fire.
Which young Bush relative is your article about?
Great idea!
Yeah, for all the apparent volume of a thicket, there’s really not that much fuel there, and it’s too spread out to burn intensely. A fire will just creep through underneath on the dead leaves. Mop-up’s no fun, though.
—”
Bamboo is a pestilence. It chokes out grass, destroys our native oaks by smothering their crowns, and it’s almost impossible to destroy.”
When we bought this property it had numerous fruit trees mostly cherry...
One year most of the cherry trees died. The Morton Arboretum asks that my wife bring in a branch.
They said that the trees had been planted at the same time and have a fixed life span.A few more years all the fruit trees were gone except my favorite, the massive mulberry.
My wife hated it but every critter in the county would stop by on summer nights for a fruit dessert.
One sad day the local power company was canvassing for approval to trim near the power lines, this happens every few years but this time my wife approved the complete removal, we pay nothing. I still miss that tree.
A friend suggested bamboo and they say it does well in northern Illinois.
I have heard bad things but most are from Florida.
Now thinking I will pass on the bamboo.
I’m so glad I don’t have to fool with a lawn anymore.
Oh good lord.
CC
—” squirt 40% glyphosate inside the stem”
On one side we and our neighbor both have a fence, about one foot apart, he also has a thick hedge line. Been like that for about 70 years and was becoming a fire hazard.
We decided to CAREFULLY spray Roundup.
It killed my lawn a few feet in from the fence and in places you could see my footprints as I tracked it around.
Mostly recovered after about five years.
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