Tackling invasive plants round 2: Ivy, Creeping Buttercup, Cherry and more
If I knew back then what I know, now I'd be much less frustrated.
Ivy is the next most problematic plant on my property after blackberries, which I’ve written a stand-alone post about. I’ve always had a few in patches of ivy here and there. Then it suddenly exploded in growth and seems to be everywhere.
Ivy is incredibly effective at choking out native plants - those plants that butterflies and other insects rely on in order to live.
Takeaway fact: ivy plants fruit when they’ve started climbing high up in the trees - and the birds spread the seeds everywhere. Your first plant of attack in a huge infestation like mine is treating those vines that are growing up the trees.
You can cut the vine at the base to kill the top growth. It will resprout. More effective is to treat the stump immediately with Stump and Vine Killer. I’ve been super wary of using *any* inputs in my garden - organic or not - since I live on established old forest and wetland. But using a dab of herbicide where it is called for in this instance, is going to help tremendously in the long run so you can actually get ahead.
You can also dig it out if you want, but then you’ll end up damaging your tree — and your back.
Hopefully your vines aren’t that thick, and you can use clippers or loppers to snip them at the base. On the big vines, I cut a notch on them with a Sawzall, and then paint the base, like this
Here’s what the treatment looks like on a tree from last year:
For vines growing along on the ground, pulling the vines up seems to work. You need to make sure that the vines don’t touch the ground until they are for-sure dead after you pull, or they will end up resprouting.
I have occasionally ran the vines through my small electric chipper, and found that they have not resprouted (so far). I’m not as confident with these not resprouting as I am with blackberries. And they don’t go through the chipper as easily as blackberry vines do.
Cherries are the next major infestation on my property, getting worse by the minute.
Note I am NOT referring to the native Bitter cherry or Chokecherry. Those two are super important habitat plants, and they don’t spread the way that that Prunus Avium does.
I believe - but not totally sure - that this tree is in fact an escapee from sweet cherry cultivation. This is one reason to re-consider planting sweet cherry on your property - nevermind the fact that they are incredibly disease prone and the birds are usually the first to get to the fruits you do get.
Though I have cherries all over the property, I’ve never seen a cherry to taste it. Word is that the fruit from these trees is no good. Like with the vast majority of fruiting plants, the seedlings that come from cherries is not the same as the original plant.
Cherry is so invasive that the City of Portland has it listed on their nuisance plant list, and don’t allow them to be planted in certain areas.
Here’s a photo of one blooming right now 4/2/2024 on my property:
And if you look even closer, you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of saplings near these plants. I’m not kidding - they are awful.
There are pulling tools that the Soil and Water Conservation district has that might be effective on these saplings. I may give this a shot after I’ve cut down all the flowering trees, so that they don’t have an opportunity to spread seeds.
If that proves to not work out, my eradication method for this one will be like the blackberries. If I can pull them up easily by hand, great, otherwise, I’ll cut the small saplings with loppers at the base, paint immediately with stump and vine killer. Note that even bigger trees will resprout from the base, so those too need to be treated.
I may inoculate the larger limbs with mushrooms or just turn them into firewood. Small saplings will get run through my chipper.
Creeping Buttercup was a minor problem on my property too, until I inadvertently made the problem substantially worse.
Two years ago I spent several months combing a small area of my property, carefully digging up every plant I could find. Note that I was meticulous in digging these out.
Here is the result:
Every single little piece of root from those plants I dug out came back by like a million-fold. Talk about frustrating.
I stopped into Clackamas County Soil and Water Conservation District to talk to them about the problem, and they recommend a product called Milestone to knock it out. This is the same chemical that causes aminopyralid contamination in compost, so care must be taken in how the product is used. And it’s expensive.
But I’ve seen what this plant can do to wetlands, and I’d rather not have it take over my wetland, or vegetable gardens.
Thistles are a minor problem on this property, but one that seems to not want to go away. If I accidentally let them bloom, they spread quickly. I’ve been pulling them with thick gloves, but they do persist. I learned from the Soil and Water Conservation district’s website that if any piece of root fragment is left in the soil, they will regenerate. My pulling seems to only be delaying the problem until a later time. I’ll be trying some cut-stump treatment on this one too.
Many other plants are problematic too, shiny geranium and herb robert being good examples. So far, they have not created the same amount of damage that the above plants have, but still worth paying attention to.
What invasive plants are you battling on your property?
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Hi Amy,
that very much sounds like poison hemlock (your Queen Anne’s Lace lookalike as well as what you are seeing roadside.) I’m at a loss as to what can be done to prevent those plants from blooming and seeding every field and pasture nearby, but it is imperative that the word get out about this highly toxic plant. Deaths have been reported among children who thought it was benign and used the plant’s hollow stem as a whistle. Toxicity, even on dried canes, can remain for up to three years.
The January freeze did a good job of knocking the plants we watched down, but they re-emerged this Spring with full vigor and we just pulled plants and taproots (similar to Queen Anne’s Lace.) (One must wear gloves.)
I am not aware of any other Best Practices our county recommends, but this plant does pose high risk to humans, livestock and wildlife.
Thank you for noting, Amy!
Cherry also runs underground, so those seedlings may actually be suckers. I have a weeping cherry (sterile - no fruit) left by the previous owners and whatever rootstock it is on throws up suckers every year. My fruiting cherries in my orchard do not sucker - better root stock? Mulching and mowing? Dunno.