Organic Round-Up
Last week we started the process of trying to remove the giant wisteria root from the perennial border. You may recall that Kirk had taken an axe to it and we were letting it dry out a bit before trying to go after it some more with a one-two punch of hacking and spraying.
During the week I attacked it with a product I found called Burn Out II. This is a herbicide that is made with clove and citrus oils, and if you spray it on a sunny day, it kills all the leaves of whatever you spray it on. And it smells great—like a clove orange at Christmas, if you've ever made one of those. I am really excited about this stuff, since we have an organic garden and aren't thrilled about spraying real Round-Up anywhere. I also looked at other herbicides, but they were even worse: wear a mask, don't use near children and dogs, etc. I know, I know: Burn Out II doesn't get to the root the way Round-Up is supposed to, but if you keep killing all the leaves, eventually the plant will die from lack of nourishment, so this seems a much better, less toxic way to go.
Anyway, I sprayed the Burn Out II a few days in a row on the wisteria root and let it cook in the sun (remember, it's still unearthed and has a lot of scoring in it from the axe-beating it took). I also used it in a more typical way on the crabgrass in the brick path out front. Since someone who used to live here thought it would look rustic and cool to lay those bricks a full 1/2 inch apart, every single crack is covered in weeds. Jerks.
In this picture you can see three different stages of the Burn-Out II solution in action (click on it for a better look). Toward the steps is no solution at all—it's just green crabgrass everywhere. In the middle you can see the browned-out leaves where I sprayed, and in the foreground is the finished product. After the weed leaves died from the spray, we took a scraper (I think a tool left over from scraping up floor tiles in the old house) and a sharpened, flat-edged shovel and scraped off the leaves. Then, because I am a perfectionist, I went back and pulled out anything left--it all came out of the cracks much easier dead than alive. We swept the bricks clean from all the dirt that came out with the leaves, and behold: a path that welcomes rather than frightens. I suppose really meticulous homeowners would powerwash the dirt out of the cracks and re-sand the bricks and a preventive measure for the future. We shall see.
Back to the wisteria. After a good deal more hacking with the axe and digging and prying with the shovel, Kirk managed to pull out the biggest chunk of the root (this was hard because it was right up against the footing of the porch foundation, so it was hard to get any leverage). I think he ended up taking a chainsaw to it as well. Here's why:
A root the size of an 8 year old child's torso is no joke. That's still not even the whole thing, but what's left is much smaller, and also over two feet under ground. I know that wisteria is a crazy bitch that can grow from just a tiny bit of root, but we are optimistic that the combination of our cold winters, a severely damaged root, and 28 inches of dirt between it and the sun will do it in. If not, we are hoping that any new shoots will be kind of pathetic and easily nipped in the proverbial and literal bud. We gave the remaining open wound of it one last spray, and then we filled in the gigantic hole, leaving a lovely blank slate.
Ah...let the planning and planting commence!
During the week I attacked it with a product I found called Burn Out II. This is a herbicide that is made with clove and citrus oils, and if you spray it on a sunny day, it kills all the leaves of whatever you spray it on. And it smells great—like a clove orange at Christmas, if you've ever made one of those. I am really excited about this stuff, since we have an organic garden and aren't thrilled about spraying real Round-Up anywhere. I also looked at other herbicides, but they were even worse: wear a mask, don't use near children and dogs, etc. I know, I know: Burn Out II doesn't get to the root the way Round-Up is supposed to, but if you keep killing all the leaves, eventually the plant will die from lack of nourishment, so this seems a much better, less toxic way to go.
Anyway, I sprayed the Burn Out II a few days in a row on the wisteria root and let it cook in the sun (remember, it's still unearthed and has a lot of scoring in it from the axe-beating it took). I also used it in a more typical way on the crabgrass in the brick path out front. Since someone who used to live here thought it would look rustic and cool to lay those bricks a full 1/2 inch apart, every single crack is covered in weeds. Jerks.
In this picture you can see three different stages of the Burn-Out II solution in action (click on it for a better look). Toward the steps is no solution at all—it's just green crabgrass everywhere. In the middle you can see the browned-out leaves where I sprayed, and in the foreground is the finished product. After the weed leaves died from the spray, we took a scraper (I think a tool left over from scraping up floor tiles in the old house) and a sharpened, flat-edged shovel and scraped off the leaves. Then, because I am a perfectionist, I went back and pulled out anything left--it all came out of the cracks much easier dead than alive. We swept the bricks clean from all the dirt that came out with the leaves, and behold: a path that welcomes rather than frightens. I suppose really meticulous homeowners would powerwash the dirt out of the cracks and re-sand the bricks and a preventive measure for the future. We shall see.
Back to the wisteria. After a good deal more hacking with the axe and digging and prying with the shovel, Kirk managed to pull out the biggest chunk of the root (this was hard because it was right up against the footing of the porch foundation, so it was hard to get any leverage). I think he ended up taking a chainsaw to it as well. Here's why:
A root the size of an 8 year old child's torso is no joke. That's still not even the whole thing, but what's left is much smaller, and also over two feet under ground. I know that wisteria is a crazy bitch that can grow from just a tiny bit of root, but we are optimistic that the combination of our cold winters, a severely damaged root, and 28 inches of dirt between it and the sun will do it in. If not, we are hoping that any new shoots will be kind of pathetic and easily nipped in the proverbial and literal bud. We gave the remaining open wound of it one last spray, and then we filled in the gigantic hole, leaving a lovely blank slate.
Ah...let the planning and planting commence!
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