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I am in Connecticut and now have awful invasive species plants and spreading mitten trees and it is all out of control -- cannot see what used to be pretty gardens. Lots of trees I want and I want to clean up the acre+ and keep it healthy. People say they do this stuff but they do not and get annoyed when I ask questions--my Dad, when alive, did all this caretaking and did share knowledge -- but I am treated like an idiot when I do not want to roundup kill every living thing on the property and replant my world. My Dad liked your magazine so I thought I might try asking you for help finding an honest company that can help me get this done this year. What do I do???
The rental property where I live connects to city property and they are both textbook studies for noxious weeds! 100% of county's list. My issue is their way to control/ eradicate is chemicals! The city property is part of the rain water drainage flood plan and has it's own ecosystem, including but not limited to ducks, geese, and turtles. So I've learned to live with "weeds". Stickers, sandburs, thistle get a salt, vinegar, and soap treatment...at least I don't worry when I see a squirrel burying a peanut nearby. In my yard, as long as it's not stickery, it just gets mowed and even watered. It may not be the usual lawn but you can go barefoot and run your toes through it!
We have it growing on a drainage pipe near our small creek bed. It is so hard to get rid of. Neighbors across the street let it grow through their hedges because they like it. I am sure that is how it spread here to our yard. Can't keep pulling this stuff, how do I get rid of it?
Honeysuckle is very invasive and tough to eradicate. You need to cut them down to the stump and then spray the stump with herbicide two years in a row. Hope this helps.
Japanese Knotweed is NOT bamboo. It is even more invasive and almost impossible to eradicate. Look it up on Google. We "inherited" a huge swath of it when we moved to the country in Ontario. We spent the next 8 years trying to beat it back, with very little success. It sends out suckers that can be up to 15 meters long, and every part of it will reconstitute and grow more plants. It will grow through concrete paving, or anything else that is in its way. Don't EVER be tempted to buy it at a garden centre. In fact, if garden centres in your area are stocking it you should inform them that it is a noxious weed and they should get rid of it - and probably the only way will be by poisoning it.
Smothering under a tarp over landscape fabric held down by heavy beams killed most of the creeping buttercup that was going to take over if I hadn't got to it soon enough. Left it covered a few months over the hot summer, now I am handpicking the pieces I see that I wasn't able to kill, it's a good thing to learn to recognize these invasives in advance since when I first saw it I left it to see what it would do/become.