First one to post!

I just wanted to be the first person to put a post up on this new forum.

I think we could start by naming one invasive plant that causes you, personally, the most problems.

Mine is garlic mustard. It is so prolific and its very hard for my woodland spring ephemerals to get started. Its blankets the wooded areas around my house and my neighbors don't do anything about it.

This message was edited Feb 8, 2006 1:17 PM

Queen Annes Lace, Daucus carota!

Hi! Bindweed!!!!!!!

Johnson Grass, Sorghum halapense - arrrgghhhhhh :(

Dea

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon)

And ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto to everyone else's arch nemesis (nemeses?) listed above.

Oh yeah, Johnsongrass and Bermuda!

Hi Terry!Nice to "read"you!I have a question for you!I,too, battle Bermuda,as well as the other perennial weeds.My question is would it be out of line within this forum to discuss an application that you have used to control some of these weeds,say for instance,a home-made formula?Thanks.....Dave

I wish there were a magic formula for Bermuda - no such luck. Roundup if applied during the growing season will kill the top growth, but manual extraction (which is difficult, as it sends thick, nasty, brittle roots down a couple feet.)

It is allegedly weakened by shade, but my experience is that it has plenty of energy to send runners out to areas where it receives enough sunlight to sustain itself. That effectively negates mulching and smothering techniques that might work with other plants.

Terry,have you ever heard of using vinegar and dishsoap? I've not tried this,yet.

I have heard of it, but I don't hold out much hope for it against Bermudagrass.

Other remedies for more typical weeds include boiling/hot water, full-strength vinegar, and using a "blow torch" to burn them out.

You could try splitting an atom over the spot where bermuda grows...that might do it ;-)

If you see a small mushroom cloud rising from the Kansas-Missouri border,it might be me.....lol!!

Here's what we do for Johnson grass. 2 acres of the stuff when we first moved in :( We mow and mow early, almost scalping the area. Then we rake with a heavy, long toothed attachment. We then mow again. After 5 years, we've got it mostly under control, but keeping it mowed early and often seems to be a key.

Where it self seeds in our gardening areas is a different matter - hand pulling is all that works as it's mixed in with perennial beds. We usually spend 3-4 days early spring going at it and we never have licked it.

Dea

Purple Loosestrife, Narrow Leaf Cattail, and European Phragmites. Toss in Ribbon Grass too. Those four are going to be the death of me.

Bindweed for sure. I made the mistake of hauling in a load of manure one year that was obviously full of it. I've battled it since, and have it cut down, but some still keeps popping up. I've read that bindweed seeds can live up to 100 years and then sprout. Ugg.

I almost had a problem with a runaway Artemisia 'Oriental Limelight'. I thought it was so cute when I bought this little 4 inch potted plant. The next year it was crawling all over by underground roots. I started digging it up that next spring, and it took a long time to get all the little roots out. Each piece of little root left grew into a new plant. Finally, I do believe it is all gone.

Aegopodium! Also known as Bishop's Weed, Gout Weed - a pest by any name.
Houttaneyia - beautiful but it took over about 50' x 3' of daylily space, interspersing itself among my lovely plants.

My favorite gardening author, Pamela Harper, said to only plant Aegopodium in a thick cement pot WITHOUT A DRAINAGE HOLE, put the pot on cement and hope for the best.

This spring I'm going to make a tall, wide mouthed, aluminum foil "funnel" and put the end over the weed and spray down into the wide mouth (so it won't touch any other plant) and if I make a dozen such funnels I can do a dozen a day and TRY to eradicate them. I'll spray with Roundup.

Oenothera Speciosa, aka, Showy Evening Primrose. Grind it up and you get a new plant from every stem fragment.

I have bermuda grass and the pink primroses(oenothera). The bermuda comes under my fence from the neighbor's lawn, the primroses are wild here.
The bermuda grass has managed to find a way into the beds beside my pool where there is marble chip mulch. It came up thru the landscape fabric and is a pain to try to remove. At least the oenothera is easy to pull up. I have a lot less of those than I did two years ago.

Believe it or not, my invasive plant is Black-eyed Susans. I planted a small area by seed the first year at my house and they have reseeded themselves to cover every flower bed, mulched area, and sidewalk crack in my yard. They grow in the grass too, but not as obvious since they get mowed down. They are really pretty, so I haven't tried to get rid of them yet, I just pull up in unwanted areas since they are shallow rooted.

Equilibrium-Purple loosestrife isn't allowed in Indiana, but I live close enough to Illinois that I have seen it over there on some garden tours. It is a beautiful plant, but I'm sure glad I don't have any!! I have ribbon grass though. Mine hasn't seemed to spread out, but it will grow anywhere. I have potted it and grow it in my pond in deep standing water and it thrives, so I'm sure it could be a big problem in the wrong area.

Bermuda Grass for sure...and I've tried the blow torch....it stunts it, but won't kill it....Creeping Charlie and Henbit....

I'd have to vote for Johnson Grass in my #1 position, followed by Japanese Honeysuckle.

flowerchild, are you sure that plant that is taking over your yard is not Brown Eyed Susan (rudbeckia triloba) rather than Black Eyed Susan(rudbecki hirta)?

The reason I ask is that I've had that same problem but with r. triloba.

I forgot to add castor beans, I've pulled millions of those things up, they come up in the gardens, in the grass.........everywhere. I try to keep the flowers cut off so they don't make seeds but I always miss some.

My most troublesome is pokeweed. The birds love the berries and I hate to get rid of it. Last summer I decided to just keep some in one corner for the birds and chop the rest. This will be my first season to wage war on the pokeweed. At the house we lived in before this one I had a constant battle with privet and honeysuckle.

I have a lot of pokeweed here too, & like you LulaLu I leave it up thru the winter for the birds. Have a 15-footer right next to my deck. The robins, bluebirds, mockingbirds, & cedar waxwings LOVE it, & when the weather is really raw & cold, I like watching them gulp those berries down.

That said, I haven't found it too difficult to control, since the only way it spreads is thru what the birds drop. Although it does have a long taproot, I find that consistently chopping down &/or at least partially digging unwanted plants out eventually kills them.

Joe-I'm not sure exactly what these plants have evolved to now. This pic is the second year after I planted them. These is the original location and are the actual ones that I put in.

This pic shows how much they have spread. The original planting was put in just off to the left of the pic and they have spread on their own all the way to the far right side. I don't have any close ups of the newer ones, but they have crossed with something else. The ones that grow directly under the window on the right of the pic now have petals that are similar to a coneflower in shape, but colored like yellow with deep red centers. They almost look like a cross between blanket flowers, purple coneflowers, & black eyed susans. When they bloom this summer I'll get some closeups to post.

Salt grass !!!

looking at you pictures, flowerchild - its hard to tell, but it looks like your aggressive plants may be rudbeckia subtomentosa, or sweet black eyed susan... and yes those can be very aggressive...

A simple black eyed susan has a more developed cone in the center (like a coneflower) ... the other weedier species have flatter centers more like a sunflower... but darker.

I do like the picture though, the liatris stands out very nice against the yellow backdrop.

If you're like me, you know that you need to keep the aggressive flowers from going to seed, but you like them so much you hate to chop them all down :-)

Tombaak - what is "Salt Grass". I can only think of the marsh grasses by the beach around my parents' place. Somehow can't picture that as a Nevada pest. But we may be thinking of 2 different plants.

Alkali Salt Grass, Distichlis spicata.

I just can't kill it. It comes up through everything. We put tar paper down in one area out of desperation. It only took a few months to come up through that. It grows right through iris rhizomes and bulbs.. Awful stuff.

Yuck - I certainly don't envy you. But then - I have Johnson Grass. Very similar in its diligence.

I am not familiar with Johnson Grass and from the sound of it, i think i'd like to keep it that way!

You are blessed!! Lol!!!

Johnson Grass, if not mowed, grows to 6-8 feet tall & spreads by both seed & underground runners/rhyzomes. Roots can run 4-5 feet deep, so digging isn't really an option.

If that weren't enough, when stressed (by frost or drought) it contains concentrated cyanide compounds that are poisonous to livestock, & since I have horses, this can be a real problem. In fact, it's so much of a problem here in VA, that a number of counties actually impose monetary fines on landowners who don't make a conscious effort to eradicate it.

It's a constant delight here.

Wow! My salt grass doesn't seem so bad after reading that. We keep it mowed and it doesn't look terrible, but it destroys garden beds :(

We are putting in a large raised bed veggie garden in the next couple of months. To keep the salt grass out, we are pouring a 3" thick cement pad under it!

Mine is chinese privet and chinese tallow !

This is an interesting thread - thanks joepyeweed for starting it! It's always fun to commiserate...it's comforting to realize our nightmare isn't as nightmarish as someone else's ;o)

To help others learn from our mistakes (or mistakes foisted upon us by our forebears or neighbors), please post a comment about your most loathesome "weed" (or "weeds") in PlantFiles. A well-reasoned, succinct note about why - and how - you try to eradicate it can serve to warn someone else away from choosing it.

Having said that, I will also plead that we don't use our comments to berate anyone who left glowing praises for the plant we love-to-hate. The PlantFiles comments aren't intended to be a threaded point/counterpoint of opinion, but rather a compendium of gardeners' observations which can and do run the gamut. Simply add your thoughts, and know that others will read and consider them when making their own plant selections.

Thanks Terry!

With that thought in mind, I will say that Johnson Grass IS grown & used as a livestock hay plant in some states, & some people are perfectly happy feeding it. I'm wanting to say Texas, but I'm not sure.

However, here in VA, you'd be in unbelievably hot water trying it, & would probably be found swinging from a tree somewhere - lol!!!

I'm painfully familiar with Johnson grass and have scars on my palms from naively trying to pull it barehanded out of my garden. My introduction to Johnson grass occurred about 20 years ago in Oklahoma.

For those who have never encountered this plant, count your blessings. If the soil isn't loose or wet to allow the roots to come up, the leafblades are smooth enough to cause your hands to slip, and the edges of each blade are razor-sharp. I'm just thankful it isn't a big problem here. At least not as problematic as bermudagrass. ;o)