New Invasive Pest Bigger Than Any Animal

We have the worst possible invader in our yard, and it is slowly winning the war, even if we have won a few battles.

It is the Tree of Heaven, but believe me it is a living he77 to have this invasive tree.

It is also called stinking sumac, and I can attest it smells worse than anything else in our yard, even rotting cherry blossoms.

You cannot just cut it down.  When you do this, it comes back stronger and in more places.  The thing spreads out and sprouts new trees in 360 angles for about 200 feet.  The roots are deep, and you cannot pull them up once the tree is about 6 inches tall. 

You think you have pulled them all up, and then a week later there are another 100 between 3 and 6 inches high.  They even popped up in our mustard green raised bed.

I would trade a yard full of kudzu for these pests.

Here is a picture from the University of Georgia showing what this pest looks like.

That sounds terrible.  How long has it been there?  Have you taken any professional advice?

Only the so-called professional advice available online.  We are 100% opposed to poisonous chemicals, especially those by Bayer and Monsanto, and to date, most online experts say to use a product like this.

I have read that diesel fuel also works to some extent, but I don't really want to spray diesel fuel in my yard, since the trees are within 200 feet of our crops.  Actually, I wouldn't spray diesel fuel anywhere in our yard for any reason.

I have not tried corn gluten, but I think it will not be that effective with a tree.  The only solace is that these trees are very fragile.  You can lean on them and knock most over.  However, they come back with a vengeance if you cannot keep the sprouts at bay. 

And, I found out that taking what I thought was a dead branch and using it for a tomato stake was a mistake.  Even after it had been cut off for 3 months, the thing rooted and began growing leaves in our container.  At least, it was easy to uproot.

One other thing: apparently this tree is highly medicinal and has even been considered to have anti-carcinogenic properties.  We have enough to cure cancer worldwide, but it would take nitroglycerin or TNT to remove the roots from the biggies.  They even penetrated our tons of limestone bedrock.  When I was digging holes for our fruit trees 20 years ago, I pulled out boulders that were well in excess of 100 pounds.  It took three of us to move one boulder out of the hole and into a wheelbarrow to cart it off to the woods, and the wheelbarrow sunk an inch deep into the ground as it was wheeled.

Have you tried lye?  That is the only thing that has worked on the small trees I have been battling in my yard.  I dig around their stem, saw them off an inch or so under the soil, then pour lye directly on the freshly cut stem.  So far, none of the ones I have treated this way have survived.

Thanks for the information Goosegirl.  Assuming I am not too accident-prone, I shall give this a try.  I have injured myself with both lye and muriatic acid in the past.  No soap-making or brick-cleaning for me ever again.

Goosegirl wrote:Have you tried lye?  That is the only thing that has worked on the small trees I have been battling in my yard.  I dig around their stem, saw them off an inch or so under the soil, then pour lye directly on the freshly cut stem.  So far, none of the ones I have treated this way have survived.

I have not heard of lye killing some small trees.  I am not familiar with 'lye' at all.  Could you please give me more information about where to get this and how to utilize it?  And if there are any cautions?  Thank you very much!

I know this might sound a bit crazy, but it might be worth a try: electrocution.

Oooodles of years ago my roommate had a small basil plant in a pot and it wasn't doing well. My mother came over, took a look at it and said the plant had nematodes. She suggested getting a large battery (one of those big square ones), wrapping a length of copper wire around each terminal and then zapping the plant quickly with the other exposed ends of the wire.

In theory, the electric shock would kill the root knot nematodes.

What it actually did was kill the basil plant.

So, who knows? If you have a small enough sapling and care to experiment, try it out. It might just work.

Good luck!

cpl100 wrote:

Goosegirl wrote:Have you tried lye?  That is the only thing that has worked on the small trees I have been battling in my yard.  I dig around their stem, saw them off an inch or so under the soil, then pour lye directly on the freshly cut stem.  So far, none of the ones I have treated this way have survived.

I have not heard of lye killing some small trees.  I am not familiar with 'lye' at all.  Could you please give me more information about where to get this and how to utilize it?  And if there are any cautions?  Thank you very much!

cpl, here's what wikipedia has to say about lye.
HTH!  

Growing up in the swamp on a bayou bank we had to fight off willow trees.  They grow fast and are almost impossible to keep off of a clear bank .  The only thing we found short of killing the bank was to ring the young trees when they came up. Whittle a notch all the way around the tree and leave the tree standing.  This starves out the tree and kills it roots and all.  If you just wack off the tree it will grow several shoots more.  by ringing it it will die.

Sodium Sulfamate ( USA spellings ) should see them go permanently  , it is a compost activator that also knocks stuff like Japanese knot weed and mares/horse tail on the head . You cannot grow stuff in the ground for a couple of months though .

I found it very effective when I composted certain weeds in situ. such as horsetail without digging them up
First I gave it all a few minutes of cold water power washing with some vehicle cleaner solution in the power washers dosing tank then about tow hours later on as the water had evaporated I used a pump up garden sprayer to spray the correct made up Sulfamate solution on the now damaged horsetail so it could enter easily though the now holed wax covering each plant stem has.Three weeks later it was as dead as a dodo so were the roots .

 Now just over 8 months later a few tiny plants are showing and in about four weeks when I'm a bit more rehabilitated from the back surgery I'll be giving it another dose to finish it off permanently

Here in the UK it is so cheap and effective no one can be bothered to pay for the government licence testing programme .  So in true government quango style it is not allowed to be used as a weedkiller . Even though it turns to nitrogen plant food after about five months .
 

I have a historical document data sheet , that shows what it used to be used for and the dosage rates it was used at ,  all very interesting historical stuff as it used to be commonly used on perennial weeds , all sorts of plants ,shrubs ,trees and various cut stumps etc.

 PM me if you want a copy .

cpl100 wrote:

Goosegirl wrote:Have you tried lye?  That is the only thing that has worked on the small trees I have been battling in my yard.  I dig around their stem, saw them off an inch or so under the soil, then pour lye directly on the freshly cut stem.  So far, none of the ones I have treated this way have survived.

I have not heard of lye killing some small trees.  I am not familiar with 'lye' at all.  Could you please give me more information about where to get this and how to utilize it?  And if there are any cautions?  Thank you very much!

Lye is a caustic, so you should wear safety glasses and rubber gloves.  It used to be easy to find in any grocery store, but due to its use in making meth, it is now much more difficult to find.  Soap-making suppliers or industrial chemical suppliers have it.  It is usually found in powder form, but you may be able to find some already in liquid form.  I got a 50 lb bag of it from our chemical supplier at my last job so I could make soap, then found it works well on tree stumps!

We had an outbreak of runners / suckers from a tree in our backyard. Horribly sharp upshoots; my sister actually cut her foot, through her shoe, while she was TPing our house for my 30th birthday (serves her right!!).  I know it's not organic, but I went through my entire backyard, on my hands and knees, cutting off every upshoot, and treating with a drop or so of Tordon. Problem solved.