GlobalUsefulNativeTrees, a database documenting 14,014 tree species, supports synergies between biodiversity recovery and local livelihoods in landscape restoration
Topical to what's been on my plate all day: hacking away at invasive plants in my backyard. Moved in not long ago, and the yard is basically a study in stubborn invasives: scilla, mustard garlic,...
Topical to what's been on my plate all day: hacking away at invasive plants in my backyard. Moved in not long ago, and the yard is basically a study in stubborn invasives: scilla, mustard garlic, buckthorn, creeping charlie, wild parsnip, barberry.. more Im sure.
From what I understand, previous owners attempted a wild/lowmo backyard, but without meaningful stewardship to remove these species and foster natives, it's a losing battle.
If anyone has a solution to goutweed (snow-on-the-mountain), a couple of non-native ivies, Virginia creeper, periwinkle, garlic mustard, autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, and buckthorn that...
If anyone has a solution to goutweed (snow-on-the-mountain), a couple of non-native ivies, Virginia creeper, periwinkle, garlic mustard, autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, and buckthorn that doesn't involve six months of plastic cover, backbreaking manual labor, herbicides, and flamethrowers... I'm all ears. Maybe hired goats, or some kind of salad dressing that deer enjoy?
We've had a couple of conservancy naturalists through to help identify invasives, and just pulled out a single very pretty but horribly invasive Oregon grape holly.
You're not going to like it, but... My education is in ecology, I have also worked side-by-side with several people with professional environmental restoration experience in Australia, and I have...
You're not going to like it, but...
My education is in ecology, I have also worked side-by-side with several people with professional environmental restoration experience in Australia, and I have relatives with lifelong professional environmental restoration experience working for the US Forestry Service maintaining national parks. I have sought similar advice for addressing invasive weed control, and everyone's overwhelming advice is glyphosate if the weed pressure is extensive. Even though it gets a bad rap, it is the industry standard for environmental restoration because it is essentially the most effective way to kill invasive weeds without doing environmental damage or endangering workers, hikers passing through, etc. Mind you, that does not mean you should eat it (in my opinion, it should be a crime to spray it on crops that people are going to eat), but it is safe for home use if you follow the safety instructions on the container.
The advice I've heard from people who work in environmental restoration is to mix glyphosate with a quality penetrant (which makes it more effective against plants with waxy leaves, such as periwinkle and English ivy; note that a surfactant and a penetrant are not the same thing, although many additives will contain both) and maybe use an agricultural-grade red dye (which makes it easier to identify where you've already sprayed and can help warn people to stay out of the sprayed areas).
You want to apply it on a warm, dry day with minimal wind, during a time period when the plants are actively growing a flourishing (such as spring). And, of course, you should wear PPE (which you should always wear when spraying anything, even something like neem oil). And it goes without saying, but make a study of the plants in your yard and make sure that you can correctly identify weeds vs. natives. If in doubt about a given species, leave it alone until you can ID it.
If done correctly, the plants should exhibit good health for a week or two after spraying, maybe even longer, but then their health will gradually degrade. Just be patient and let them die on their own. You only need to do a follow-up (either another round of glyphosate or manual removal, whichever is easier) if some of the plants push out new, healthy growth after the glyphosate has had its effect.
I would recommend against using heat or fire to kill weeds because it does not kill their root systems, and I would likewise recommend against most other herbicides (and herbicide-like substances, such as salts) because they can do lasting damage to the soil and/or to waterways that your property drains into, and they are also often more risky to wildlife, pets, and people. If glyphosate is not an option, manual removal and sunlight deprivation are better options (albeit labor intensive and of limited effectiveness for certain types of weeds, such as those that spread by underground runners).
After weeds have been removed or killed, the weed seeds in your soil will still grow new weeds, so you will just have to keep coming through and weeding again; this is just a lifelong chore, I'm afraid, but it will be easier if you stay on top of it and remove weeds while they are small. A hoe can help if there are a lot of them; I recommend some type of push hoe that is adjustable to the user's height. Mulch is a huge help here and is something I consider pretty vital for just about any garden, but it will need to be refreshed every so often as it breaks down. Non-invasive groundcovers can also help suppress weeds, as can trees and shrubs that cast dense shade.
If the weed seeds are overwhelming, though, there is still something else you can do. I have never heard of this being used by conservationists, but agriculturalists commonly use solarization to kill seeds. This is done by running irrigation on bare soil (after the weeds have been removed) and then covering it with clear (not black) plastic to effectively create greenhouse conditions at the soil level. This is left in place all summer long. The warm, wet conditions induce seeds to sprout, and then they cook in the sunlight. (But, again, this is a lot of work. It's only worth doing if traditional weeding is even more work than solarization would be. It also only works in locations that receive full sun.)
Thank you to OP - this is going to be useful in our ongoing project to reforest the back acre after a major emerald ash borer-induced die-off. We're still working on getting seedlings to survive...
Thank you to OP - this is going to be useful in our ongoing project to reforest the back acre after a major emerald ash borer-induced die-off. We're still working on getting seedlings to survive deer browsing, but I'd like to leave a restored and resilient canopy for future generations.
Hey, I am working on a very similar project and am very happy to share notes if you are interested. For us we are also trying to bring back a native forest that has become overrun with invasives...
Hey, I am working on a very similar project and am very happy to share notes if you are interested. For us we are also trying to bring back a native forest that has become overrun with invasives and has experienced an ash borer induced die off. We have had good luck protecting young trees from deer browse using the tube method and have also had success protecting shrubs and other small plants with black wire fencing.
We've had good luck preventing deer damage using inverted tomato cages over new saplings. Unfortunately, the deer have decided the stacked wood from all those ash trees makes a cozy windbreak....
We've had good luck preventing deer damage using inverted tomato cages over new saplings. Unfortunately, the deer have decided the stacked wood from all those ash trees makes a cozy windbreak. They've colonized our lot all winter, doing a fair amount of bark damage to mature trees.
We don't really have a forest to work with, just a privacy strip around our property that connects to an adjoining township-owned vacant wooded lot that doesn't get any maintenance. We're trying to keep invasives under control there as well, or at least garlic mustard. That's easy to spot and pull up at this time of year.
Link to the app which accesses the database
https://patspo.shinyapps.io/GlobalUsefulTrees/
I tried it out and didn’t find it easy to use, but perhaps someone can use the data to build a nicer UI?
Topical to what's been on my plate all day: hacking away at invasive plants in my backyard. Moved in not long ago, and the yard is basically a study in stubborn invasives: scilla, mustard garlic, buckthorn, creeping charlie, wild parsnip, barberry.. more Im sure.
From what I understand, previous owners attempted a wild/lowmo backyard, but without meaningful stewardship to remove these species and foster natives, it's a losing battle.
If anyone has a solution to goutweed (snow-on-the-mountain), a couple of non-native ivies, Virginia creeper, periwinkle, garlic mustard, autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, and buckthorn that doesn't involve six months of plastic cover, backbreaking manual labor, herbicides, and flamethrowers... I'm all ears. Maybe hired goats, or some kind of salad dressing that deer enjoy?
We've had a couple of conservancy naturalists through to help identify invasives, and just pulled out a single very pretty but horribly invasive Oregon grape holly.
You're not going to like it, but...
My education is in ecology, I have also worked side-by-side with several people with professional environmental restoration experience in Australia, and I have relatives with lifelong professional environmental restoration experience working for the US Forestry Service maintaining national parks. I have sought similar advice for addressing invasive weed control, and everyone's overwhelming advice is glyphosate if the weed pressure is extensive. Even though it gets a bad rap, it is the industry standard for environmental restoration because it is essentially the most effective way to kill invasive weeds without doing environmental damage or endangering workers, hikers passing through, etc. Mind you, that does not mean you should eat it (in my opinion, it should be a crime to spray it on crops that people are going to eat), but it is safe for home use if you follow the safety instructions on the container.
The advice I've heard from people who work in environmental restoration is to mix glyphosate with a quality penetrant (which makes it more effective against plants with waxy leaves, such as periwinkle and English ivy; note that a surfactant and a penetrant are not the same thing, although many additives will contain both) and maybe use an agricultural-grade red dye (which makes it easier to identify where you've already sprayed and can help warn people to stay out of the sprayed areas).
You want to apply it on a warm, dry day with minimal wind, during a time period when the plants are actively growing a flourishing (such as spring). And, of course, you should wear PPE (which you should always wear when spraying anything, even something like neem oil). And it goes without saying, but make a study of the plants in your yard and make sure that you can correctly identify weeds vs. natives. If in doubt about a given species, leave it alone until you can ID it.
If done correctly, the plants should exhibit good health for a week or two after spraying, maybe even longer, but then their health will gradually degrade. Just be patient and let them die on their own. You only need to do a follow-up (either another round of glyphosate or manual removal, whichever is easier) if some of the plants push out new, healthy growth after the glyphosate has had its effect.
I would recommend against using heat or fire to kill weeds because it does not kill their root systems, and I would likewise recommend against most other herbicides (and herbicide-like substances, such as salts) because they can do lasting damage to the soil and/or to waterways that your property drains into, and they are also often more risky to wildlife, pets, and people. If glyphosate is not an option, manual removal and sunlight deprivation are better options (albeit labor intensive and of limited effectiveness for certain types of weeds, such as those that spread by underground runners).
After weeds have been removed or killed, the weed seeds in your soil will still grow new weeds, so you will just have to keep coming through and weeding again; this is just a lifelong chore, I'm afraid, but it will be easier if you stay on top of it and remove weeds while they are small. A hoe can help if there are a lot of them; I recommend some type of push hoe that is adjustable to the user's height. Mulch is a huge help here and is something I consider pretty vital for just about any garden, but it will need to be refreshed every so often as it breaks down. Non-invasive groundcovers can also help suppress weeds, as can trees and shrubs that cast dense shade.
If the weed seeds are overwhelming, though, there is still something else you can do. I have never heard of this being used by conservationists, but agriculturalists commonly use solarization to kill seeds. This is done by running irrigation on bare soil (after the weeds have been removed) and then covering it with clear (not black) plastic to effectively create greenhouse conditions at the soil level. This is left in place all summer long. The warm, wet conditions induce seeds to sprout, and then they cook in the sunlight. (But, again, this is a lot of work. It's only worth doing if traditional weeding is even more work than solarization would be. It also only works in locations that receive full sun.)
Thank you to OP - this is going to be useful in our ongoing project to reforest the back acre after a major emerald ash borer-induced die-off. We're still working on getting seedlings to survive deer browsing, but I'd like to leave a restored and resilient canopy for future generations.
Hey, I am working on a very similar project and am very happy to share notes if you are interested. For us we are also trying to bring back a native forest that has become overrun with invasives and has experienced an ash borer induced die off. We have had good luck protecting young trees from deer browse using the tube method and have also had success protecting shrubs and other small plants with black wire fencing.
We've had good luck preventing deer damage using inverted tomato cages over new saplings. Unfortunately, the deer have decided the stacked wood from all those ash trees makes a cozy windbreak. They've colonized our lot all winter, doing a fair amount of bark damage to mature trees.
We don't really have a forest to work with, just a privacy strip around our property that connects to an adjoining township-owned vacant wooded lot that doesn't get any maintenance. We're trying to keep invasives under control there as well, or at least garlic mustard. That's easy to spot and pull up at this time of year.