****anemone invasion**** HELP!

Anemones are coming up everywhere. I divided and gave clumps away. The roots rambled under the weed barier and are coming up where ever there is a hole in the fabric. I've tried to dig them out of my box elders but they keep coming up. It doesn't seem to matter if the soil is packed clay with gravel or soft garden soil...I can't seem to get all the roots out. On the surface they look gentle and delicate and even seem to wilt during heat and dry spells (it's just an act) their roots are "going great guns" running far and deep! I even dug some up and tossed them near the woodline during a heat wave and they are bouncing back! Help, what can I do without disturbing my well behaved plants and shrubs??????

All I can say is "good luck"..... yeah, they really spread, don't they? I don't think you can ever get rid of them.

Sanna

what kind of anemones are they?

I'll second that question of what kind of anemone you have. There are quite a few out there.

Maybe you better not give any more clumps away to friends. There's absolutely nothing wrong with bagging these types of plants and tossing them out with your regular garbage.

A gopher ate the roots of mine last week. its dead, definitely dead.

I think I planted some of these bulbs........

Uh oh! ;)

Maybe I oughta look at my list!

YEP! Very first one I have listed-Anemone Blanda Mixed!

You can't see me but I am holding up the sign of the cross in front of me. All joking aside, maybe contain them to a planter and then deadhead them level with the planter since they self-seed pretty well?

But they are already in the ground! Now what? LOL I see your cross! HA HA HA I might be needing one of my own this spring to ward off the anemones!

Leave em be, there's always tomorrow or the day after.

I donno where they are planted! LOL We planted over 300 bulbs, maybe the squirrels got these! HA HA HA
Even if I knew where they were planted it is probably froze solid. :(

Just looked at the package-I only planted 12 tubers, and I think they are in a pretty well contained spot? I built a small bed under the tree in the front yard and I think most went in it, and I may have put some in my wheel barrow planter. Under the tree is where the squirrels have done a lot of digging, so maybe??? LOL

http://www.ciscoe.com/archive/anemone.html
I thought this was an interesting article on them. :)

Oh my, pretty funny-

I have to admit to using these for a client who wanted "as low maintenance as possible - just put things in that will grow and spread". We went over the list carefully, and I explained (and provided in her final packet) how things spread, and what that means - and this was still high on her list! That was a couple years ago, and I've heard no complaints. It's quite possible she now has a front yard full of these and is happy as a clam - LOL! (I drew the line at Bishop's Weed.)

Aren't ya glad ya don't live next door to her ;)

After reading your problems, eden, I would definitely agree with Equil that I am glad I don't live next door!! And now that I know just what pests these things really are my personal database is going to get a bit of an update.

And eden, I REALLY HATE even mentioning the *C* word, but you may want to consider getting a small paint brush and try painting an herbicide directly on the leaves if they're still a problem next year - that can give you a great deal of control over such a nasty last resort.

LOL to you all! :) Going kinda slow right now as our other puter seems to have gone to PC Heaven and using the old trusty Windows 98 Dell right now! LOL
I went out today while it was nice and the moles and squirrels have wreaked havoc where these were planted, so maybe none will survive! :)

Wouldn't it be great if we could create mutant squirrels that would do our weeding for us? Oh yeah, and leave the other stuff alone - LOL! OK - sorry, that was way off topic, promise not to hijack anymore.

LOL Hijack anytime :)

I have a possible solution. My mother inlaw irradicated a bunch a blackberry bushes by putting black plastic over them. She didn't cut them down first I don't think. Slowly killing the plants by smothering and heating them up, causing them to use up all the energy in the roots too, trying to repair dying foliage. Trying to remove the roots was useless only serving to divide and multiply them. I'm not sure how long she kept the plastic down but, if it work on blackberries it might work on anemonies. It's kind of unsightly but if your really desperate.
Lydia

I wish they would list these particulars on the packages so we know what we would be getting ourselves into BEFORE buying! But then that would be cutting them out of some sales, so doubt that ever happens!

Ha, who ever started this thread is no where to be found. Hmmm, maybe she got lynched by the people she gave "clumps" of her anemones to so hijack away!

Solarizing would work but not for the gal who planted them in and amongst the desirable plants. I like smothering. You can also smother many things with old carpets that you can pick up at the curb when people get new carpeting. Doesn't look the greatest out in your yard but it can work and no cost involved in buying tarps and such.

It is doubtful the nursery industry would ever voluntarily list these things on their packaging but wouldn't it be nice if they had to do what cigarette companies did. Think of plants labeled,
"warning- this plant is allelopathic"
"warning- this plant is formally identified as invasive in the following states..."
"warning- this plant is formally identified as a noxious weed in the following states..."
"warning- this plant is a known host/vector of fusarium"
Right about now I'd settle for forcing the nursery industry to stop the exclusive use of common names when marketing their plants. Wanna use a common name, sure go ahead but also list the scientific name so people can at least look up what they want to buy to make their own decisions. Lack of botanical names on plant labels seems to be the number 1 reason why so many of my friends and neighbors who are actually aware of and sensitive to the issues of non-environmentally friendly plants end up planting garbage plants in their landscapes. Most people these days know how to use a search engine to look up the name of a plant while adding the word invasive or noxious or weedy when they get home and I know quite a few who would have returned plants for exchanges if they had realized the cute little 'Crimson King' Maple was nothing more than a cultivar of the highly invasive Acer platanoides (Norway Maple) or that Gobbler Oak was nothing more than a cultivar of the highly invasive Quercus acutissima (Sawtooth Oak). People are a lot more responsible these days because of the back breaking work removing the offspring of the junk plants in their own yards and also because I think it's becoming common knowledge that when junk plants get into natural areas that it's our tax dollar cleaning them up. I guess it would just be nice to somehow get the nursery industry to at least use both a common name and a scientific name so that those who are interested in making educated decisions about what goes in the ground at their home can do so easier.

Oh I totally agree EQ! I think from now on I will either make a list of what I 'think' I want to buy, or, if there is a limited amount, but it and then look it up PRIOR to planting it! I have put too much work into making my garden areas beautiful, and don't need the EXTRA work in trying to remove other stuff I shouldn't have planted in the first place! I know I have a lot of plants that I have tried to identify on here and come up with nothing, all because of the name on their packaging! And being new to gardening, I don't know all the other names they COULD or SHOULD be called, so I am at a great loss! I have, however, learned to ask more questions since, but still not always sure what ones to ask.

That is so true Equil! I find that half my work with clients is education! They have a list of names, and then we sit down and discuss what those names really represent. Fortunately, by the time someone has made the decision to get someone in to help them with their yard they've realized how much they don't know ;-) I also REALLY push local non-invasive natives, annuals that mind their manners (at least for clients - LOL), xeriscaping, all that stuff.

We've all been dooped/duped (sp?) and had to rip things out of the ground. It just gets old after a while. Sooner or later you become somewhat familiar with many plants and can spot the differences in the characteristics from the mild mannered natives as opposed to the look-alikes regardless of whether they use a common name or not. As with anything else, it takes time. The other thing I do is keep good quality field guides in my car so that if I can't figure out what they're really selling based on the label, I can run out to the car and and bring back a book and have a good shot at trying to get a hit on the ID. Guides that use black line drawings are the best because you don't get hung up on color.

Most of the landscapers and designers around here push the fire sale stuff because it's cheap. Some of the eastern states took a real pro-active stance against plants costing the tax payers the most amount of money and made it unlawful to sell a lot of crap in their states. Unfortunately, other states haven't been as quick to respond and many may never respond (depends on how strong the nursery lobby is in their states) so those nurseries with all the back 40's are pushing em in other states. I can't tell you how many yards are loaded with Barberry, Caleryana pears, and burning bushes not to mention all the others these days. Rather annoying as the offspring are ending up by me and then I've got to hand pull them. Kudos to you for at least letting your clients know that they might be selecting a plant that's going to create a lot of work for them or their neighbors or end up naturalizing in an area they never expected.

Thanks - yeah, I know of some landscapers locally who are nuts over Fire Sales. I tell my clients we're either going to just mulch until we find the right plant, or plop a nice annual in there. Sometimes you get lucky, but... The things I design are definitely not candidates for any of the TV shows - nothing gets done in just two days!!! (And I must say it irritates me that those shows give people such false expectations of what their yard will look like. They expect Sissinghurst in a week.)

I talked one client out of a callery pear by telling them that the limbs didn't have the right branching angle to be healthy for more than 5 years - hehehehehehe. Burning bushes around here though, it seems like they hand them out with the Welcome Wagon pack whenever someone moves in! (AND, we STILL have "landscapers" here planting purple loosestrife, for those wanting a cottage garden!)

Very good point on using the black line drawings!!

You were telling the truth about most Calleryana. Besides which, who wants their Calleryana breeding with the neighbor's Calleryana so that little calleryanas end up popping up all over the place having to be hand pulled. There used to be a really great article out there on line titled "The Coming Plague of Pears". It was a phenomenal article written around 2000. Seemed to disappear from the public domain real fast. Shame, I can't find it anywhere other than a link to it at GardenWeb which referenced the article and linked back to our site in one of the posts which I find hysterical because the only comment there is mine in the PlantFiles giving the beast a negative and I quoted that article back when it was on a public domain site so it's actually by us to be read but here's the GW thread, clean out your computer for malware after you visit their site though-
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg112308498006.html

Back to us here where as that one member notes, the article was reprinted many times-
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/73633/

Nice write up on them here titled "Who Let the Pears Out"
http://www.scnps.org/articles/pears.html

Nice article on why we should care here-
http://www.biology.uc.edu/faculty/culley/Pyrus.htm

Now, will somebody start writing some really good articles on burning bushes and barberry please ;)

Hey all - I need to kick this to see if I can get your opinions on Anemone sylvestris -specifically its growing height. Yeah, I know it's invasive - but I'm fact-checking and in DG we show it as getting to 36", yet that seems very high from my experiences, and from what I'm seeing in other references.

My sense is it's more closely the 12-15" or maybe even 12-18" height range.

Maybe somebody decided they'd give the height based on where the plant was when in bloom? The flowers do shoot up much higher than the foliage which is probably more like 10" to 12" based on what I've seen. That's about all I can think of.

Just contact a PF Administrator and point it out and ask them what their take is. Somebody will get back to you.

I can't believe our climates are that different. I've been planting anemone blanda
for years. I do get a little self seeding at this place but just a few at the grassy edges
around the trees under which they are planted. It never occurred to me that some
found this little sweetie to be invasive.
Tam

Thanks Equil - I hadn't even thought of that.

Tammy, I'm with you -- I have had a single clump for over 25 years and there is no way I would consider it even mildly invasive. This whole thread has me thinking, "hunh?"

Suzy

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3837833

Depends on the type of anemone. Using the common name is causing problems. There are quite a few anemones out there all being called anemone. This is one of the reasons why it is always best to use the scientific name of the plant. A plant can have several different common names but it will never have more than one scientific name. To further complicate matters... I've seen situations where around 20 different plants are all being referred to by the exact same common name. Creates a lot of confusion out there at times.

Anemone Blanda - are we not sure that's the plant we're discussing?

The one I referred to way back last summer was of the Japanese Anemone variety. For me, it grows underneath cement to find new soil!! Well, maybe not that bad, but I don't think I could ever get rid of it if I wanted to. Fortunately I have it fairly well contained. It's something like this one http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/72615/ but not necessarily. I don't know which variety it actually is.

Sanna

Ah... yes, Japanese Anemone (is that anemone japonica?) can be rambunctious.
I have a clump of the white flowered ones (I don't recall name) and it has been
well behaved. I've heard the pink ones are more problematic... and they did self
seed at my last house.

Tam

I think the white one is called "Honorine Jobert" - At least that's what the one I bought some years ago was tagged.

Check it out here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/69323/

I can see where it could be somewhat invasive, given the right conditions, (it does spread by underground runners) but in my garden, it's fairly easy to keep under control, and it really does make a lovely display in the late summer/early autumn time frame.