Doing battle with vine and weeds
This past weekend and several previous weekends I have been working in the yard trying to make some headway against the weeds in our yard especially the invasive vines climbing everywhere. In one section along the border of our property there are about a dozen different vines/climbing plants all woven together. There's poison ivy vines the size of my arm, with leaves where each of the leaflets are as big as my hand. There's greenbriar with slender but strong vines covered with 1/2 thorns that pierce right through heavy gloves. There's oriental bittersweet that climbs and twists and twines around trees choking the life from them that spreads both through spreading underground roots and a plethora of orange berries. There's japanese honeysuckle spreading everywhere. There's wild grape vines that grip so firmly you can't pull them down. There's wild climbing rose and wild blackberry adding their grabby and stabby thorns. There's lesser amounts of virginia creeper, english ivy, moonseed vine, and two other vines I haven't yet identified.
I've spent hours and hours each weekend day since early spring, but much of the time it really doesn't feel like I'm doing more then slowing their inexorable spread. And the last couple of weekends I would finish, and come in to shower and find half a dozen (or more) ticks crawling on me looking for a tender place to bite.
Well, that sounds pleasant. LOL
Careful with those thorns. I got a serious infection from a rose thorn once. Are you allergic to poison ivy? My family is, and I was itching wildly last month from two little dots of it on my arm. We've made some progress with the poison ivy over the years, but it still pops up all over the place.
I hope those crawling ticks weren't accompanied by one that attached himself in an out-of-the-way spot. Ask your wife to check your back!
I'm trying to envision poison ivy vines the size of your arm, and I've decided you have skinny arms. :-)
Maybe you could rent a goat or two. seems like I read that somewhere here in Oregon where those blackberry brambles and Hawthorn bushes are being controlled with goats. Sounds almost like you have met your match. Wishing you good luck.
Bob
I had a huge wild grapevine up in the trees. I cut it off at the base and gradually over the course of a year, the dead vine slipped down in places to where it could be pulled down a little, cut and disposed of.
This same area had some trash trees which are now regrowing and like you, have vines of various kinds. I've decided that I'll probably find a commercial company to clear it out down to the ground as it is only about 30 feet by 5 feet.
Bob, I feel your pain. I was cited for my falling down fence... and upon removal in one corner I found a thicket.... so thick, and all across the fence in to the neighbor renters yard... It is a loosing battle here too.
this is what my hated vine looks like:
Bob, I feel your pain. I had a project like that many years ago. You eventually get ahead of the growth, but it takes time, effort, and sweat. I've since done it in two other yards that did not have poison ivy - so much easier. This project is much easier in the winter than the summer - if you can hold off that long.
Nanny beat me to it. I was going to say rent a goat. I understand they complete with each other for poison ivy. I don't envy you that job. It sounds nasty.
I can sympathize with you. It doesn't take long before Virginia creeper, poison ivy, blackberries, wild roses, Japanese honeysuckle and grape vine--AND TICKS--on our property, too, get a start. I also have pokeweed--not a vine, but the roots go down forever if you don't get it before it grows beyond the seedling stage.
Marcia
I finally did something with the strip between my yard and the farmer's field in back. There is all that you and marcia_m mention. They can and will kill trees. Last year I started out with loppers, then my lawnmower but gave up; then my step brother decided to bring his brush mower over, only it's not a farm tractor attachment, it's a mower from Sears with weedeater type line. He swore it would go through that mess "like butter". HA. I knew better. The lines kept breaking over and over. It did get alot of the weeds but not the multi flora rose and woody vines with their big trunks. And the thorny stems kept whipping around and grabbing at his bald head. LOL. Finally he looked at me with sweat dripping off him and said, "I'm going home to get my chain saw". Even with that it was a chore, but we dragged four or five huge MR shrubs out of there along with the myriad of Va.creeper and wild grape.
That was in the Fall, and I followed up by spraying brush killer on the exposed stumps of the woody plants. That helped. This Spring I'm keeping the area mowed down with my riding mower and still spraying the leaves of the noxious vines. I don't think I will get rid of them completely - just keep them under control.
Couple of things I'd never paid for as a homeowner, gardening or painting, always having done my own...
But when we bought this property the lawn, areas immediate to the house looked cared for while the perimeter of the acre was neglected. Ivy running amok, blackberry, volunteer alder and hemlock, snarls of false lily of the valley - I had thought I could handle the renovation myself. I couldn't.
I hired a crew and they were worth every penny ;) 4-5 men depending on which day it was, 5 days (although none were full days, they came for a few hours one morning, another day it was afternoon). They were amazingly hard working, cheerful, considerate - I tried to let them know how much I appreciated their effort with coolers of soft drinks, fruit and ice water and know they appreciated that. All the debris went into a dump truck (I lost track of how many dump truck loads of ivy left here), sidewalks and driveway blown clean end of each day.
Two years later I'm still working on the landscape re-work, but the heaviest part was done for me saving me months of time. Money well spent, I haven't regretted writing that check even for a minute ;)
I am affected by poison ivy, but perhaps to a lesser degree than others. Or perhaps it is just that I am especially cognizant of it, and mostly handle it with a 6 foot long pruner. I did get a nasty rash on my calf earlier in the season, I think from sawing through a large hairy vine, and the wind blew the sawdust onto my pants leg. I thought a had a picture of one of the arm-sized poison ivy vines, but I haven't found it.
A week or so ago I was using the push mower on a thick patch of oriental bittersweet when I found and nearly chopped up a box turtle.
I guess I should count myself lucky that I don't have multi-flora rose, or kudzu (which definitely grows around here).
I did find that there is a local company named goatbusters that will set up a temporary fence and release a number of goats as an ecologically sound weed control solution.