Plants You Regret?

[Mel Fulks]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Y'all need some goats...

[Nike Nihiser]

Pronghorn Sumac.

[Karl Andersson]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.