I have a backyard that is pretty much a mess, or... a blank slate, if you're a glass half-full kind of person. I plan on completely redoing the lawn in the fall, but my main questions are about the area beyond the grass.
My biggest question is, how do I handle the mess just beyond the edge of the grass, which is a mix of thorny vines, poison ivy, saplings (I don't know the tree type) and various other growth. It turn into a jungle as the summer goes on and I am trying to clear it all out before that happens. Any thoughts? Herbicide, brush-hog type thing, or something else that I can't think of???
The overall plan is to clear out the brush (for good!), take down all the dead trees (maybe leave some of the larger saplings), split and stack the wood (on racks for future fire-pit), and have some sort of nice ground cover... maybe ferns or something simple. Any other suggestions? I am all ears.
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With the stuff you have and the scale of the job, it may be that you will want to use herbicide. The best mix is a combination of Crossbow and Round up. Crossbow is a woody herbicide and Round up is a broad leaf killer and it helps the Crossbow do a better job at killing. You mix the Crossbow as instructed and add the Roundup to it. Do not add more water for the Roundup, add round up to the Crossbow mix as if it was water; this gives you a strong mix. Add a small amount of dish soap to help it stick to the plants. When the plants are good and green spray them then.
I would cut and pull the poison ivy using gloves with a latex glove in side of them. Bag the poison ivy then put a second bag over the first if you go some of it on the bag. If you burn it, the smoke will burn you so be careful if you burn it and know where the smoke is going. Toss the gloves away when done. Wash your tools you used on the poison ivy with soap and water; use latex gloves to do this. It may be wise to buy a poison ivy first aid kit and a poison ivy skin blocker.
Brush hog the rest low to the ground. You can cut the stumps down or rent a stump grinder. Drill some holes in what is left of the stumps and pour a high nitrate fertilizer in them to rot the stumps.
I would cut and pull the poison ivy using gloves with a latex glove in side of them. Bag the poison ivy then put a second bag over the first if you go some of it on the bag. If you burn it, the smoke will burn you so be careful if you burn it and know where the smoke is going. Toss the gloves away when done. Wash your tools you used on the poison ivy with soap and water; use latex gloves to do this. It may be wise to buy a poison ivy first aid kit and a poison ivy skin blocker.
Brush hog the rest low to the ground. You can cut the stumps down or rent a stump grinder. Drill some holes in what is left of the stumps and pour a high nitrate fertilizer in them to rot the stumps.
To be clear.tomf wrote:is a broad leaf killer and it helps the Crossbow do a better job at killing. You mix the Crossbow as instructed and add the Roundup to it. Do not add more water for the Roundup, add round up to the Crossbow mix as if the CROSBOW MIX was water; this gives you a strong mix. Add a small amount of dish soap to help it stick to the plants. When the plants are good and green spray them then.
Oh, I also recommend you use latex gloves and a mask when spraying; the stuff is a poison. I do my best to use as little of any thing that is poisonous, but some times the scale of the job requires it. I never just spray pesticides as they are very bad for the wild life. Having the brush gone will in it self cut down on the mosquitoes; I lived in Mass and it is mosquito central.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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How big is your little wooded area. The back half of my lot is a steep downhill, too steep to use power stuff on if I wanted to. When we bought the house, the hillside was nothing but a few trees, a ton of Japanese honeysuckle shrub, English ivy, poison ivy, and a ton of trash.
I've been working my way down the hill, building retaining walls and path, and clearing. Given the situation, I have cleared it all by hand. Cut and pull all the ivy (in haz-mat style gear for the poison ivy, gloves tucked into long sleeves and duct taped, socks tucked into long pants and duct taped), pull any honeysuckle that's young enough, cut the rest and paint it with Round-up (yes I do sometimes use Round up on the honeysuckle, but painted on not sprayed and only once while clearing land that hasn't been cleared in decades). Pull and strip as much of the roots out of the soil as I can.
Important thing is have plants ready. As soon as you have a small area cleared, replant it with what you want to grow there. I'm planting all native woodland shade wildflowers and shrubs (and a bunch of trees). If you leave the ground empty, you will get a ton of weeds. Nature abhors a vacuum!
So if your area isn't real large and you don't care about having it done all at once, you could just clear by hand. If either of those IF's aren't true then what tom said.
I've been working my way down the hill, building retaining walls and path, and clearing. Given the situation, I have cleared it all by hand. Cut and pull all the ivy (in haz-mat style gear for the poison ivy, gloves tucked into long sleeves and duct taped, socks tucked into long pants and duct taped), pull any honeysuckle that's young enough, cut the rest and paint it with Round-up (yes I do sometimes use Round up on the honeysuckle, but painted on not sprayed and only once while clearing land that hasn't been cleared in decades). Pull and strip as much of the roots out of the soil as I can.
Important thing is have plants ready. As soon as you have a small area cleared, replant it with what you want to grow there. I'm planting all native woodland shade wildflowers and shrubs (and a bunch of trees). If you leave the ground empty, you will get a ton of weeds. Nature abhors a vacuum!
So if your area isn't real large and you don't care about having it done all at once, you could just clear by hand. If either of those IF's aren't true then what tom said.
And now for something completely different. You need to know going in that I cannot get anywhere near poison oak, poison ivy, or any of their relatives. I even need to get "suited up" in Level D+ personal protective gear to work with juniper, or severe contact dermatitis is the result.
(How sensitive am I?
The worst case of poison oak I've ever had was in March 2000, when the only possible path of contamination was this: my dog came into contact with another dog at his day care. That dog had been on local park trails, notorious for poison oak. My dog and I watched hockey together on the couch. He fell asleep on the couch, and then I did, too. So I didn't even know I'd been exposed until it was systemic. The initial dose of 60 mg prednisone didn't have any effect at all....)
Given that, I would call in outside help *first* before even thinking of going out there myself or asking DH (perhaps in your case DW or teen children?) to go out there. I would call in the rent-a-goat people ([url=https://goatsrus.com/]here's one[/url] in my area). Goats can eat poison ivy, vining plants--thorny or not, and low-hanging foliage from saplings. They'll also eat shrubs down to nothing, so if you have any valued plants at all, follow whatever advice the goat-owning company provides on how to protect roses or whatever you might want to keep. Independent nurseries probably know how to contact goat-landscape-service companies in your area.
After the goats have done their thing, the area will be much more approachable. That will be the time to take a deep breath and say, "OK. Here are the photos of what I'm dealing with," and take them to the independent nursery and say, "What next?"
You already have at least one suggestion to have plants at the ready, but I'm not sure that plants will be happy being planted in chemical-laden soil (if you follow some of the previous advice). It may be that a second round, after tilling, exposing roots, and letting the noxious plants come up one more time and get eaten again
, is needed for true control.
After that, just pull up whatever shows up.
For this year, one or two raised beds may be the way to go. Build temporaries close to the house while the bush-whacking/eating is taking place further back, and grow something that makes you happy: tomatoes? zinnias?
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
(How sensitive am I?
The worst case of poison oak I've ever had was in March 2000, when the only possible path of contamination was this: my dog came into contact with another dog at his day care. That dog had been on local park trails, notorious for poison oak. My dog and I watched hockey together on the couch. He fell asleep on the couch, and then I did, too. So I didn't even know I'd been exposed until it was systemic. The initial dose of 60 mg prednisone didn't have any effect at all....)Given that, I would call in outside help *first* before even thinking of going out there myself or asking DH (perhaps in your case DW or teen children?) to go out there. I would call in the rent-a-goat people ([url=https://goatsrus.com/]here's one[/url] in my area). Goats can eat poison ivy, vining plants--thorny or not, and low-hanging foliage from saplings. They'll also eat shrubs down to nothing, so if you have any valued plants at all, follow whatever advice the goat-owning company provides on how to protect roses or whatever you might want to keep. Independent nurseries probably know how to contact goat-landscape-service companies in your area.
After the goats have done their thing, the area will be much more approachable. That will be the time to take a deep breath and say, "OK. Here are the photos of what I'm dealing with," and take them to the independent nursery and say, "What next?"
You already have at least one suggestion to have plants at the ready, but I'm not sure that plants will be happy being planted in chemical-laden soil (if you follow some of the previous advice). It may be that a second round, after tilling, exposing roots, and letting the noxious plants come up one more time and get eaten again
, is needed for true control.After that, just pull up whatever shows up.
For this year, one or two raised beds may be the way to go. Build temporaries close to the house while the bush-whacking/eating is taking place further back, and grow something that makes you happy: tomatoes? zinnias?
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
I like the painting idea. If you cut a hole in a can and put it on your spray tip then the spray is confined to just where you want it.
Depending upon the tree roots and how well you can run a tractor you can use little or no chemicals. I pull the unwanted plants out by the roots and use very little and in most case no chemicals. I plan for the wild life so I use as little of an amount of chemicals as I can. I have cleaned up many acres with little or no use of chemicals. When I do use them it is mostly to kill the blackberries that sprout from the roots left behind so I use just enough to get the job done; but as I said I am using a tractor to pull the roots and grind things up. I have areas where I planted grass so I just keep it mowed and this does the job of killing blackberries.
Goats become food for the animals where I live.
Some people use alpacas to keep the coyotes away as they will protect the goats.
Depending upon the tree roots and how well you can run a tractor you can use little or no chemicals. I pull the unwanted plants out by the roots and use very little and in most case no chemicals. I plan for the wild life so I use as little of an amount of chemicals as I can. I have cleaned up many acres with little or no use of chemicals. When I do use them it is mostly to kill the blackberries that sprout from the roots left behind so I use just enough to get the job done; but as I said I am using a tractor to pull the roots and grind things up. I have areas where I planted grass so I just keep it mowed and this does the job of killing blackberries.
Goats become food for the animals where I live.
Some people use alpacas to keep the coyotes away as they will protect the goats.There are tons of coyotes in the non-urban (and even some urban) areas of northern California. (I saw one in the road on my way home a few years ago when I drove through Tilden Park.) The goat providers bring portable fences, trained and intense Border Collies, and trained shepherds. The goats don't just wander around unprotected. They come in for one day, two days, however long the job will take.tomf wrote:
Goats become food for the animals where I live.
The Border Collies have been reported to kill coyotes regularly, and even one or two neighbor dogs who weren't kept in their own yards and who jumped over the fence (which is actually a double fence). Owner stupidity again....
So these hired goats aren't easy prey. They're hard-working, brush-clearing four-foots; they come, they eat, they leave.
Cynthia
When I lived in the city where a big yard was under one acre we had coyotes, I see them in the area around the place I work; there is no shortage of them. Out here they run in packs and when they get a kill they go nuts and it sounds like H. There are not so many Mt. lions but they are around. The bear come by often and one is about 500lbs or more from the look of him. I did see something that looked like a bobcat once.