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Mark Blatter
04-02-2019, 8:01 PM
Have you ever planted something that later regretted? I don't really mean a tree in the wrong place, or a bush that you didn't like. I mean a plant that after the fact made you just hate it.

I let my daughter plant some herbs three years ago. One of which was mint. Hey it smells good and we had planned on using it in our herbal tea. However, it is not an annual, but a perennial, which we didn't know. It is also very hardy. I mean you simply cannot kill it. It even kept growing in the winter despite cold and snow. Last summer we dug it up as much as we could, watered it with vinegar which was supposed to kill it, yet it survived. This past winter it kept growing again. Yesterday I pulled up bricks and dug up every bit of it I could find. I searched and removed every leaf and bit of root I could find no matter how small. Yet I know it will grow back and haunt me next year.

Lee Schierer
04-02-2019, 9:10 PM
If you think mint is bad don't ever plant any Swamp Marigold anywhere within a mile of your property. the plant sends rhizomes out through the soil an even if you kill the visible plant with roundup the rhizomes continue to grow and spread and can break the surface many many feet away. Then that plant sends out more rhizomes.
407074

Jim Becker
04-02-2019, 9:12 PM
Yes, mint can be tenacious and I regret planting some near our small fish pond off the patio. As you can imagine, it loves the moisture. LOL That said, it's very popular with our honeybees so I have actually planted more in other areas where if it spreads a little, it will not be an issue. There are many varieties of mint, too, some of which can be labeled misleadingly.

While I never planted it, I know of quite a few properties in the are where folks planed bamboo...and picked the 'wrong' kind. It's taking over the world!

Frederick Skelly
04-02-2019, 9:21 PM
Poison Ivy. I didnt plant it, but it sure took hold. Was tough to eradicate.

Andrew Seemann
04-02-2019, 9:22 PM
Oregano, Shasta Daisy, catmint (catnip), garlic chives, Johnny Jump Up, creeping charlie, purple aster, Cleome; there is a pretty long list of varieties that blur the difference between "garden plant" and "irremovable menace" Heck, even dandelions were originally just a food crop.

Ken Platt
04-02-2019, 9:38 PM
Wisteria. I had absolutely no idea how invasive it is. It sends these tendrils 30, 40 feet from the main plant, and the things root themselves every few feet. And there are dozens of them, running in all directions so you end up with this crazy patchwork of tough, rooted vines running every which way, and climbing everything vertical in their path, like firewood stacks, trees, whatever.

And the worst is, when it blooms, it's SPECTACULAR and smells wonderful so I can't bring myself to cut it down (not, I think, that it would stop it). I have cut it back, but at one point it had grown up a utility pole, and the guy wires supporting it, so that when it bloomed there was this 40 foot tower of foot long blooms.

Oh, and cat-tails. I have this little, 30 foot diameter pond, and I thought some cat tails would look nice, but they completely swallowed the pond. I've been pulling them out for years, but they come back from, I guess, rhizomes under the water. If I don't get to them for a year, they eat the entire pond again.

Ken

Ron Citerone
04-02-2019, 9:53 PM
Wisteria. I had absolutely no idea how invasive it is. It sends these tendrils 30, 40 feet from the main plant, and the things root themselves every few feet. And there are dozens of them, running in all directions so you end up with this crazy patchwork of tough, rooted vines running every which way, and climbing everything vertical in their path, like firewood stacks, trees, whatever.

And the worst is, when it blooms, it's SPECTACULAR and smells wonderful so I can't bring myself to cut it down (not, I think, that it would stop it). I have cut it back, but at one point it had grown up a utility pole, and the guy wires supporting it, so that when it bloomed there was this 40 foot tower of foot long blooms.

Oh, and cat-tails. I have this little, 30 foot diameter pond, and I thought some cat tails would look nice, but they completely swallowed the pond. I've been pulling them out for years, but they come back from, I guess, rhizomes under the water. If I don't get to them for a year, they eat the entire pond again.

Ken

Wisteria is the worst of the worst!

Bill Orbine
04-02-2019, 9:59 PM
Grass....every week in the summer I gotta cut it!:rolleyes:

Patrick Walsh
04-02-2019, 10:19 PM
Grass.

I hate the stuff. To keep it nice requires so many chemicals, lots of water and much cutting. Dog pees on it and it looks like crap in a hurry.

Planted a bunch of pacasandra a few years ago. I was warned against it so far so good.

I grow bamboo in containers. After trying to break up to transplant one container I would never ever ever plant it in the ground. Just a little reading tells you so much though..

Ted Calver
04-02-2019, 10:21 PM
Wisteria is the worst of the worst!

The American wisteria is much less invasive/aggressive than the Chinese/Japanese varieties. Something like these would be a well behaved garden asset.

https://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/2239/amethyst-falls-american-wisteria/

https://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/473/blue-moon-kentucky-wisteria/

Art Mann
04-02-2019, 10:38 PM
English ivy.

Mel Fulks
04-02-2019, 10:57 PM
Some things that are too aggressive can be put to hard labor. Pennyroyal mint repels Mosquitos and other biting bugs.
You can put it in a "turf top seat" sit right on it and pluck some to rub on neck and arms. The seats go back to Middle Ages
or earlier. We had one that fell apart when we had to move it to accommodate some heavy landscaping. Need to make another one. Other plants were used too. Easy to find old cartoon like drawings of TTS.

Steve Eure
04-03-2019, 7:48 AM
Wisteria for me too. I bought a house years ago and the woman who owned it would get leftover plants form her employer and she would just plant them wherever there was a empty spot. She planted a circle of red tips around the well, and then planted the wisteria among them. It climbed over each tree along with several pines in the area and actually looked like an umbrella under it. It covered everything and ended up strangling the pines. When they died, they couldn't fall because of all the wisteria holding them up. I wound up cutting down everything to get to the well and to this day am still battling the runners and new growth form that bush. The trunk of the wisteria was 8" in diameter. I drilled and poured stump killer, straight roundup on it and it killed the stump, but not the runners.

Tom M King
04-03-2019, 7:50 AM
Leyland Cypress. They lived long enough to get forty feet tall, and then almost all got the "wind burn" that they end up with. I wish I had just planted native Red Cedars.

Brady Watson
04-03-2019, 8:18 AM
Ipomoea alba, sometimes called the tropical white morning-glory or moonflower...Incredibly prolific and once it goes to seed - volunteers show up for years to come. (Although it does make nice big flowers. I scanned one...first pic on my website)

Mugwort - Didn't plant it - it does the rhizome thing and it's hard to get rid of. Put down GOOD ground cloth...it busted through it and pokes out of the edges. What a pain...

Steve Rozmiarek
04-03-2019, 9:01 AM
We moved in with a pretty grape vine on a nice arbor. That thing is a beast, amazing how much it spreads. Previous owner admitted that it had taken over the entire back yard at one point, it's trying to again.

John K Jordan
04-03-2019, 9:06 AM
Life lesson: always plant mint in pots.

Doug Dawson
04-03-2019, 10:16 AM
Torpedo grass (panicum repens). I didn't plant it, it came with the house, and the only way to rid yourself of it is to move (which I did.) It will take over your entire lawn and gardens, and there is no known means of control. Epidemic in parts of the South (where I live.) Only a complete idiot would plant it, and, apparently, many do.

Doug Dawson
04-03-2019, 10:23 AM
Ipomoea alba, sometimes called the tropical white morning-glory or moonflower...Incredibly prolific and once it goes to seed - volunteers show up for years to come. (Although it does make nice big flowers. I scanned one...first pic on my website)


Moonflower is a lovely plant, it attracts these great herculean moths at night. It's also a horrible whitefly magnet, I would never plant it again. I found that the primary means of control is to withhold watering, and a pre-emergent.

Passionflower (another ipomoea species) is greatly more invasive, spreading by underground rhizomes as much as twenty feet per season in good soil. Never plant that one in the ground, always in pots. Only spreads by seed if you see the seed pods, which are uncommon in nursery-sold plants.

John K Jordan
04-03-2019, 11:42 AM
Passionflower (another ipomoea species) is greatly more invasive, spreading by underground rhizomes as much as twenty feet per season in good soil. Never plant that one in the ground, always in pots. Only spreads by seed if you see the seed pods, which are uncommon in nursery-sold plants.

Maybe the non-nursery passion flower plants are different. There are several growing here "wild" for years that have not spread, but maybe the soil where they are is not that good, I don't know. I see the seed pods on them every year.

JKJ

Brady Watson
04-03-2019, 11:45 AM
Did anyone mention bamboo? :eek:

John K Jordan
04-03-2019, 12:09 PM
Did anyone mention bamboo? :eek:

Bamboo is fantastic if you have the right location and space. A good friend has had a patch down a steep hill by a spring for many 40 years now and it stays right near the water. It's a wonderful place to walk through and just experience. He cuts uses it around his house and studio. I know of another patch on an island out in the middle of a river here - that seems to constrain it's spread.

I wouldn't want it near the house or garden though...

JKJ

Scott Donley
04-03-2019, 12:12 PM
English Ivy, I swear the devil gave it to mankind.

Doug Dawson
04-03-2019, 12:14 PM
Did anyone mention bamboo? :eek:

There are clumping bamboos and non-clumping bamboos. The former are delightful, and muy expensivo. The latter are the scourge of entire neighborhoods, but people will let you cut them down for free, and they make great garden trellises.

Doug Dawson
04-03-2019, 12:20 PM
Maybe the non-nursery passion flower plants are different. There are several growing here "wild" for years that have not spread, but maybe the soil where they are is not that good, I don't know. I see the seed pods on them every year.

The nurseries don't need seeds, they find a plant they like and propagate it from cuttings. We're in zone 8b/9, Knoxville is 7a, and the plant is cold-sensitive, that probably affects the spread.

Allan Dozier
04-03-2019, 1:23 PM
Morning Glory. It dies back in the winter but the seeds sprout up all over the garden.

Lee DeRaud
04-03-2019, 3:01 PM
Nandina, AKA "Heavenly Bamboo": not really a bamboo, but it has all of the nastier aspects of real bamboo without any of the charm.

Mind you, I didn't plant it, but it's popular with the local landscape designers (may they all die a slow lingering death). There were a dozen or so planted around the house when I moved in, and close to 40 years later I'm still doing battle. I feel like I'm slowly gaining on a victory, but I have a suspicion that at least one or two of the more stubborn locations will outlive me.

Kev Williams
04-03-2019, 3:06 PM
timely thread, as I was just telling the wife for the umphundreth time 'Vegetation Is EVIL!' -- Grass is growning already, and we're being overrun with English Ivy in the backyard...

And Trumpet vines. Got one on opposing corners of the house my mom planted years ago. I've chain sawed them to the ground, poured gas and diesel fuel on them, drilled holes in it and filled them with Roundup. And every spring they comes back, and I swear it grows more than a foot a day. Gets between the rain gutter and roof, gets thru the soffit and grows in the attic... within a week it'll grow from the corner of the house and engulf the water faucet 25' away, we have to cut it back every week. In the back yard it's growing up thru every expansion joint in the driveway and sidewalk, and last year it came up the other end of the lawn 50' away from the house.

-only thing worse maybe is a Chinese Elm tree. But nobody plants those, they just show up! I DID succeed in killing ONE Chinese Elm a couple years ago, but not these Trumpet vines...

And how about Quaken Aspens for this list... I moved into my previous house in 1982, the builder planted TWO quakies in the front yard. By the time we moved out in2006 the front yard was a jungle, and they were growing in every square foot of the property, you couldn't walk barefoot on our lawns, the quakies would poke holes in your feet. All the houses on our street had a 50' tall sand hillside in the back yard, my quakies were growing in the hills of neighbors 2 houses away on either side!
--funny thing, the 2 original quakies got sick a died at about 5 years old.

Adam Herman
04-03-2019, 3:28 PM
Every house we have bought has had English ivy growing on the GD house. Why people let that happen is beyond my comprehension.

BOB REESE
04-03-2019, 4:29 PM
My idea of fun lawn work is to pave it over and paint it green.

Mel Fulks
04-03-2019, 5:21 PM
Why doesn't anyone ever ask why the "Ivy League " schools let Ivy grow on their buildings? They can afford to have it
removed. Perhaps telling people it's bad is just because they want to protect their brand. Around here the people
warning about Ivy have trees covered with poison ivy....It native so it's ok. The indigenous people knew it was bad and
kept it down. Education ain't what it used to be.

Doug Dawson
04-03-2019, 5:31 PM
And Trumpet vines. Got one on opposing corners of the house my mom planted years ago. I've chain sawed them to the ground, poured gas and diesel fuel on them, drilled holes in it and filled them with Roundup. And every spring they comes back, and I swear it grows more than a foot a day. Gets between the rain gutter and roof, gets thru the soffit and grows in the attic... within a week it'll grow from the corner of the house and engulf the water faucet 25' away, we have to cut it back every week. In the back yard it's growing up thru every expansion joint in the driveway and sidewalk, and last year it came up the other end of the lawn 50' away from the house.


I had a neighbor across the street who had a red trumpet vine climbing a utility pole, and a xeriscaped front yard. The yard was usually covered with baby trumpet vines. I would regularly see him out there digging them up. Feeling sorry for him, I recommended glyphosate ("Round-Up") but he would say, No, I'm an organic gardener! Well, organic isn't going to help you if you're confronted with a Demon From Below. He was also a man of God. I wanted to say, God sent you a helicopter. Anyway, glyphosate doesn't travel so far up the rootway that it would damage the mother plant (and hooray if it did.) That was several years ago, and I moved, threatened with the darn thing crossing the street and becoming my problem too. It's still an issue, from what I'm told.

Direct application of stump killer (triclopyr) can work well, if you're persistent and apply it to a very fresh stump (the plant needs to think it's a part of the transpiration process, i.e. before it "scabs over", which can happen quite quickly.)

See also, the yellow trumpet vine that took over eleven square blocks of the Miami warehouse district, some years ago.

Adam Herman
04-03-2019, 5:43 PM
ivy is on 46 states noxious weed lists and will try to destroy your home. yes, i should have let it grow?? it sends roots 10's of feet out into the surrounding area, tries to grow into and break up concrete, and will survive unless you pull all the roots, which is nearly impossible. I have been cutting it down, pulling it down, spraying it and it still pops up and i dig those shoots out and find many feet more of roots i did not find the first 10 times around.

Stan Calow
04-03-2019, 5:51 PM
Ditto on morning glory. Took years for it to be gone. Red oak in the yard because we are plagued with oak mites the last couple of years. Linden - beautiful tree but the main target of japanese beetles (attracting them) which have been ravaging lindens and other nearby plants around here.

Brady Watson
04-03-2019, 6:03 PM
Y'all need some goats...:D

Nike Nihiser
04-03-2019, 6:31 PM
Pronghorn Sumac.

Karl Andersson
04-04-2019, 8:02 AM
I planted some horsetail/ scouring rush near a pond in my back yard- I figured it was native, so it would be OK. I actually transplanted a few of the rhizomes from a small stand in the woods. A few years later it was still in a small patch but I read an article warning pond owners to NEVER plant it in the ground. It seems that article was enough, and the plants surged right after that. They send these black roots up to 30 feet away and pop up stalks every few feet. The stalks have rhizomes at their base (up to 10 inches under the surface) AND they can also reproduce by growing clumps of baby stalks up in the air and dropping them. I got them under control by doing a lot of digging rhizomes out of flower beds and painting the leafless stalks of far-ranging progeny with glyphosate, but I still have to patrol weekly for new arrivals.

Oh, and of course this species is no good as a scouring device because the dried stalks are weak and just crumble, so there isn't even a neander woodworking benefit

Brian Tymchak
04-04-2019, 9:37 AM
Every house we have bought has had English ivy growing on the GD house. Why people let that happen is beyond my comprehension.

At my childhood home, we had English ivy growing nearly to the top of our brick chimney. Time came that it had to come down. Probably the most miserable week of work I have ever done. that stuff welds itself into brick and mortar.

Mel Fulks
04-04-2019, 3:59 PM
Karl, I've got Horsetail AKA Scouring Rush too. They say the stuff was around when dinosaurs were roamed. I think it grows almost everywhere. It was used like sandpaper and Brillo pads. It does crumble but maybe some Creeker has
specifics for efficient use. I'm told Round Up kills it. If it does ....maybe one one the volunteer groups (formerly
known as Posses) will strap on their spraying irons and bring it to justice

John K Jordan
04-04-2019, 9:58 PM
At my childhood home, we had English ivy growing nearly to the top of our brick chimney. Time came that it had to come down. Probably the most miserable week of work I have ever done. that stuff welds itself into brick and mortar.

It can weld itself to itself too! I once got some chunks of large holly trees (18" or so in diameter) someone was taking down. It had english ivy growing all around and up the trunk. When I cut and pried off the ivy it came off in lattices and pulled a lot of the bark off too - they were like ivy cylinders with empty space inside. Fascinating!

JKJ

Karl Andersson
04-05-2019, 7:31 AM
Yeah, Mel, as a matter of fact somewhere in my childhood treasure boxes I have a piece of shale with a coal fossil of a horsetail stalk that was about an inch in diameter, so I guess it could be worse. I liked that it was so ancient at first, but my garden doesn't offer the kind of competition it needs to stay in check, apparently.

the glyphosate is Round-up, and it does work if you soak the stalk and wait a week. I THINK that kills the rhizome, so I paint a bunch of stalks with it (so I don't soak the soil/overspray), then watch them become little corpses, not removing them for a month or so to let the poison get to the roots, if possible.

Mike Cutler
04-05-2019, 8:02 AM
I had a neighbor across the street who had a red trumpet vine climbing a utility pole, and a xeriscaped front yard. The yard was usually covered with baby trumpet vines. I would regularly see him out there digging them up. Feeling sorry for him, I recommended glyphosate ("Round-Up") but he would say, No, I'm an organic gardener! Well, organic isn't going to help you if you're confronted with a Demon From Below. He was also a man of God. I wanted to say, God sent you a helicopter. Anyway, glyphosate doesn't travel so far up the rootway that it would damage the mother plant (and hooray if it did.) That was several years ago, and I moved, threatened with the darn thing crossing the street and becoming my problem too. It's still an issue, from what I'm told.

Direct application of stump killer (triclopyr) can work well, if you're persistent and apply it to a very fresh stump (the plant needs to think it's a part of the transpiration process, i.e. before it "scabs over", which can happen quite quickly.)

See also, the yellow trumpet vine that took over eleven square blocks of the Miami warehouse district, some years ago.

Thank you Doug Dawson!!!
My wife planted Trumpet vine along our garage 10 or more years ago, and I've been fighting it ever since.
Time to go get some Roundup!!!

Prashun Patel
04-05-2019, 8:40 AM
Grass.
I hate the pressure to maintain it. It clearly doesn't want to grow well in my yard. But unless I waste water, chemicals, and back strain keeping it maintained, I feel like a bad neighbor.

Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History Podcast did a great episode on the history of lawns and golf courses. Ever since then I've been looking for a socially acceptable way to scrap my lawn in favor or something easier, more functional, and more responsible. Last year I began that process. I have let my back yard grow fallow. The frustrating part is that grass - while it does not want to grow pretty, it also Dies Hard.
blah blah. First world problems.

Brian Tymchak
04-05-2019, 12:00 PM
Grass.
I hate the pressure to maintain it. It clearly doesn't want to grow well in my yard. But unless I waste water, chemicals, and back strain keeping it maintained, I feel like a bad neighbor.

Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History Podcast did a great episode on the history of lawns and golf courses. Ever since then I've been looking for a socially acceptable way to scrap my lawn in favor or something easier, more functional, and more responsible. Last year I began that process. I have let my back yard grow fallow. The frustrating part is that grass - while it does not want to grow pretty, it also Dies Hard.
blah blah. First world problems.

Let it go to clover. You can claim that you are supporting the bee population.

Frederick Skelly
04-05-2019, 5:26 PM
Grass.
I hate the pressure to maintain it. It clearly doesn't want to grow well in my yard. But unless I waste water, chemicals, and back strain keeping it maintained, I feel like a bad neighbor.

Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History Podcast did a great episode on the history of lawns and golf courses. Ever since then I've been looking for a socially acceptable way to scrap my lawn in favor or something easier, more functional, and more responsible. Last year I began that process. I have let my back yard grow fallow. The frustrating part is that grass - while it does not want to grow pretty, it also Dies Hard.
blah blah. First world problems.

Dig it out. Then put in gravel. Very socially reponsible - no water, no chemicals, no lawn mower exhaust pollution. :) :) :)

Aaron Rosenthal
04-07-2019, 2:25 PM
Morning glory, I pull up the shoots as soon as I see them. Still come every year.
Creeping Charlie, Killex they tell me about this time of year will do it in.
Blue Bells, I dig up every year and get the root bulbs out, but if even one survives, the seeds never die - they germinate everywhere they land.
Curses on the people who plant these "lovely" plants.

Ronald Blue
04-07-2019, 10:37 PM
Surprised no one mentioned multiflora rose. It's fast spreading and difficult to control.

Jim Becker
04-08-2019, 9:45 AM
Surprised no one mentioned multiflora rose. It's fast spreading and difficult to control.
Grows in the wild here...and yea, "prolific", too. Witch Hazel, too...grows naturally and fills in fast.

John K Jordan
04-08-2019, 10:45 AM
Grows in the wild here...and yea, "prolific", too. Witch Hazel, too...grows naturally and fills in fast.

I hate the multiflora rose. The tiny roses are not even attractive.

The original topic was about regrets after planting certain species but if expanded to annoying plants that are already around, difficult to control, and spreading, around here my list includes:

- Privet
- Kudzu
- Bush honeysuckle
- Multiflora rose
- Wild grape
- Poison ivy
- Horse nettle
- Pigweed
- Buttercup

Also, honeysuckle vines. I love the smell of honeysuckle but the vines twist around and choke small trees. I've cut vines of wild grape and poison ivy that were over 3" in diameter. Invasive foreign plants like Privet, Kudzu, and Bush honeysuckle are taking over the south. Bush honey suckle also smells great when in bloom but inhibits/kills other plants around it, and birds spread the seeds everywhere. A field full of buttercup is colorful but is horrible in pastures - no animal I've had would eat it and it spreads quickly, although easy to control with 2-4-D. When I moved here there was Privet growing up to the second-story window in the house and growing out of the top of a 30'+ cedar tree. At least animals will eat Privet.

JKJ

Roger Feeley
04-08-2019, 12:47 PM
The neighbor down the street has bamboo. Fortunately, it's WAY down the street.

Jim Becker
04-08-2019, 5:17 PM
We have pretty much all of those, John...except the Kudzu. And if things continue to stay warm, we might get sucked into that world someday, too.

John K Jordan
04-08-2019, 5:22 PM
We have pretty much all of those, John...except the Kudzu. And if things continue to stay warm, we might get sucked into that world someday, too.

I'll send you some Kudzu so you can get ahead of the curve. There is none on our property but I know where to get it. Our house guest from italy last summer was fascinated by Kudzu. Of course, she was fascinated by skunks too.

JKJ

Lee DeRaud
04-08-2019, 6:33 PM
I'll send you some Kudzu so you can get ahead of the curve. There is none on our property but I know where to get it. Our house guest from italy last summer was fascinated by Kudzu. Of course, she was fascinated by skunks too.Old joke from my dad:
Q. What is a couple of kudzu seeds and a rusted-out junk car?
A. A redneck topiary starter kit. :)

Mel Fulks
04-08-2019, 6:43 PM
Update on Scouring Rush AKA Horsetail. You can eat it and drink it ; and it's good for you! Removes aluminum from brain and does other stuff.

Tom M King
04-08-2019, 7:17 PM
On the list of aggravating plants already here, on the top of my list is Johnson Grass. It's hard to kill, and while it's nice to have the state cut the grass on the sides of the roads, they bring in Johnson grass seeds from elsewhere. I do my best to kill it but it's a pain, and hard to kill. We have a state road coming down the middle of our place that's a mile long, and two other borders also with a mile each of state roads.

Birds spread that seed too, and I've, so far, been able to kill it when I see it on our trails, but I have to catch it early.

Mel, I'll have to try that, I'm sure I have aluminum, and all sorts of other stuff, in my brain.

I hate to use poisons, but gave up the fight without them long ago. This mower stays on the back of my category 2 tractor all through the growing season. I have a 40 gallon tank on it. There is an ATV boom on the back that can cover a 30' swath, or I can flip another switch, and spot spray up to 30 feet away. I had to go to two different pumps to serve either, but I can operate them from the tractor seat. The twin rear wheels lets the 7' rotary cutter cut as good as a finish mower. I fabricated a door that I can open, and sharpen the blades with a grinder.

The other picture covers smaller jobs. The rack above the sprayer tanks holds the wands up in the air so they can drain, and not clog up. After each use, the wand used is taken off, and soapy water run through it that's in one of the sprayers.

John K Jordan
04-08-2019, 8:28 PM
On the list of aggravating plants already here, on the top of my list is Johnson Grass. It's hard to kill, ...

A hay producer told me once he knew of one way to get rid of Johnson Grass - he had fenced off an area and put hogs inside. Apparently they will root down and eat the rhizomes. Hard to imagine if what I read is true, that the rhizomes can grow 5' deep. Maybe that's not typical.

I hate it when I find Johnson grass in hay. The llamas will digest the seeds but I understand they can pass through a horse. But I worry about it less since I found out horses love to eat Johnson grass and apparently clean up any sprouts right away.

I got some in my garden years ago and fought it by hand. The garden is fairly small at about .2 acres. The small sprouts are distinctive with a bit of red near the ground - I kept a sharp eye out for them and dug up each one, following and digging up the roots. I tried to get every little piece since I understand a new plant can grow from a fragment - till the ground with roots and you plant pieces everywhere! It took a number of seasons but I haven't found any for years now. I watch for stray plants around the farm too that birds probably brought in, and dig them up as I find them. Fortunately as the leaves grow they are quite distinctive too with the white vein, making them easy to spot.

JKJ

Tom M King
04-08-2019, 8:57 PM
Our horses won't eat Johnson grass.

Bob Glenn
04-09-2019, 11:17 AM
Sticker bushes. I don't know the real name, I've just always called them sticker bushes. We bought a house that had several planted around and never pruned. I got a sticker in my finger and the finger still is right after a year. Why would anyone plant sticker bushes in their yard?

Kai Morrill
04-09-2019, 2:06 PM
Jerusalem Artichokes.

W Craig Wilson
04-17-2019, 10:49 AM
Clover! Years ago my dad planted clover in his lawn, expecting the added green to be a plus; realized his mistake when it started choking out the grass. Took many seasons to get is all eradicated.

(I used to chuckle when I would remember one of the bone head things my dad did. As I age, I find I do more and more that are just as stupid. Miss you Dad.)

Jim Becker
04-17-2019, 11:29 AM
Of course, Craig...the clover could very well be helping to sustain the pollinators in your area in a big way which is at least a "happy mistake".

Jeff Bartley
04-17-2019, 2:04 PM
Leyland Cypress. They lived long enough to get forty feet tall, and then almost all got the "wind burn" that they end up with. I wish I had just planted native Red Cedars.
Previous owners of our house planted these along the border of the property, maybe 10-12' from the road. In our three years here they've probably doubled in size and are blocking the view of the road from the stop sign.

Any advise about pruning? Cut them down before they're hard to cut down?

Tom M King
04-17-2019, 4:14 PM
I'd go ahead, and get rid of them. Ours grew to 40' tall in maybe 15 years, and then started to decline, and look terrible. Yesterday morning, one fell across the neutral power line, and the power company hasn't come yet. The powerline is keeping it from falling in the road. They are having to co-ordinate with the tree trimming contractors.

Ours were planted for a view block of the only houses visible from our place, but I wish I had just planted the native Red Cedars, which I'm gradually filling in the holes left by the dying Leland Cypress trees.

Here is what it looked like a couple of years after I planted them. I just took a picture of what they look like now, and will post that as soon as my phone sends it to the computer.
http://starbornhavanese.com/images/DSCN0916.JPG

Terry Wawro
04-17-2019, 8:17 PM
We planted a couple of bottlebrush plants to attract butterflies. They grew quickly and worked like a charm. Lots of butterflies all summer long. The problem showed up the following Spring. It had set seed and thanks to the birds (I guess) we had bottlebrush plants popping up all over the place. I spray them every month or so but I still battling the new seedlings.

Tom M King
04-17-2019, 8:59 PM
Here's what is left of those Leyland Cypress trees now. The one to the right you can see the "wind burn", as they call it, and that's the one on the power line. You can see that many of the others seen in the first photo are now dead, and gone. I don't remember exactly what year I planted them, but that pony is still here, and he's 17 years old now.

Sorry about the rotation. They really are growing on this side of the world. Those fence posts are 8 feet apart.

Stan Calow
04-18-2019, 3:10 PM
Hey planting clover in your lawn must be a common idea. Friend of my dad's did that only to have his kids get multiple bee stings that summer.