Property clearing, vegetation, weed remediation advice needed.

[sean donato]

but, it's applied to the road, not the weeds on the shoulder. Most likely soaks into the pavement more than it runs off into the ditch. No weeds on the road.

Umm, no that's nit how that works. Black top is a non permeable surface, designed to shed water to the sides of the road. The road side see every bit of salt or any other winter treatment that's applied to the road. Even at 100lbs per lane mile per storm event, it's still not enough to kill the grass and weeds.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Umm, no that's nit how that works. Black top is a non permeable surface, designed to shed water to the sides of the road. The road side see every bit of salt or any other winter treatment that's applied to the road. Even at 100lbs per lane mile per storm event, it's still not enough to kill the grass and weeds.

Sorry, I'm not fluent in DoT SOP (although I am becoming fluent in acronym)
Like I said earlier, I mow my gravel driveway.

 

[sean donato]

Beautiful thing is we can all do whatever we think is best. Circumstances vary. With my parents getting older and still having a lot of property to maintain, I'm not going over to mow the weeds down the center of the lane every week, let alone once a month. Spraying the lane keeps it nice and costs less then the fuel does to mow it. Id spray more/ plant something other then grass in the verge if i was allowed. Got it to the point one pass with a 60" deck and you're up to the trees in the tree line on either side of the lane. the meadow and pastures are enough to keep after, actually got a local farmer to tend the old horse pasture, we don't charge him anything and he keeps whatever hay he gets off of it. Cut down on the mowing time considerably. There's about 4 acres that gets mowed around the house, shop, and barn. I simply don't have the time of day to keep after it all and keep up with my place, this year being especially challenging, since I'm building my shop.

 

[pdqdl]

buy Preen in the garden section. Same stuff.

Yeah, but at a considerably higher price. Preen is costly!

There are better, longer lasting preemergent herbicides available, which should be done anyway. Trifluralin is effective but has known plant-resistance problems. Use a different product next year, and a different one the year after. Try to alternate herbicide "types", as well. Treflan is a type 3 herbicide.

 

[pdqdl]

BTW: you shouldn't need any herbicides or mowing on an active driveway, unless you are concerned with the cosmetic appearance.

Drive on the weeds. The compaction will kill off most of them.
My mother-in-law has a gravel driveway 8/10ths of a mile long. It never gets mowed, and no weed control is ever needed. They occasionally take the tractor and grade the hump in the middle down a bit, but that's it.

Mowing the shoulder is essential, though.

 

[sean donato]

What's your definition of active, and you drive all willy nilly just to drive over weeds? Most traffic my parents lane sees is when we're all over for holidays. Other wise it's like one or two cars in and out a day at best. Spray and forget it.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

My gravel is half lawn of weeds. I can see things browning up a bit now.

I had to take a break from maintenance for 2 weeks due to a 911 Emergency that required us to go to Cleveland from Balto to attend to my father in law's health crisis that landed him in the hospital.

Wife and I took a week break and now she is back up there. Dad is home and doing better, just needs his kids to look after their needs more than letting him fly solo @ 89 years old.

Not driveway related but I have a boatload of Poke weed coming up on the one property line where the Town Hall took out 4-5 trees in about 100 foot stretch.

Got tons to clear before Winter so that the place doesn't Overrun us like it did this Spring.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

...

Not driveway related but I have a boatload of Poke weed coming up on the one property line where the Town Hall took out 4-5 trees in about 100 foot stretch.

Got tons to clear before Winter so that the place doesn't Overrun us like it did this Spring.

Leave the poke weed - at least until it dies back.
Birds love the berries.

I've been fighting one that comes up every year in the flower bed in front of my LR window. Every year I cut it back, this year I let it be.
When the berries ripened I had all kinds of birds eating the berries, and I could sit just 3' from them inside on the couch and watch them.
Oh, and the tree frogs love them, too.

Poke weed in a fence row doesn't hurt anything and is beneficial to wildlife.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Btw, who the hell declared Nature the enemy and when did everyone become so afraid of it??

 

[sean donato]

no one, but I sure as hell ain't gonna work harder for no reason either. Let the weeds grow if you like.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

no one, but I sure as hell ain't gonna work harder for no reason either. Let the weeds grow if you like.

It's less work.
It boggles my mind how some people spend so much time, effort and money attacking and killing native plants, trees, and wildflowers only to replace them with overpriced imported hybrid stuff from a box store.
Not saying you do that. Just saying I think it's a stupid, non-environmentally=friendly thing to do.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Besides, weeds only grow just so tall and then they die back - not into infinity like Jacks beanstalk.

 

[sean donato]

It's less work.
It boggles my mind how some people spend so much time, effort and money attacking and killing native plants, trees, and wildflowers only to replace them with overpriced imported hybrid stuff from a box store.
Not saying you do that. Just saying I think it's a stupid, non-environmentally=friendly thing to do.

no topiary plants at my place and the "grass" is whatever green stuff grows. Taking care of my own place is a lot of work, let alone helping mom and dad out then having to manage my wife's grandmother's place too. Spraying makes life easier, especially when you can't be at the place every week, or even every month for that matter. Basically becomes a necessity at that point.

 

[sean donato]

Just for some context, here a re a few pictures from last year at my wife's grandmothers place. She has 18 acres and it's infested with bamboo. Unfortunately, between my work schedule, wifes work schedule and the kids, I haven't been out this year to deal with it yet besides during the spring when it sends it's new shoots out. Got sprayed amazapyr and round up at that time. Last time we were down, I noticed that the patch hadn't grown hardly at all from where I left it after spraying it. I'll be scheduling time this fall to remove more in an attempt to start taking the woods back. Don't have the time, money or energy not to spray.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

Bamboo is unbelievable.

A Lansdscape contractor friend of mine told me of a job he had been hired to clear bamboo from a property fought him terribly.
As he only had a air filled tire skid steer at the time, he told me how he made the mistake of using it to try to clear the evil Boo. My take from what he said ( 20 some years ago story) was that the chopped off shoots would spear and flatten his tires. Expensive and frustrating I am sure,

Pretty sure he grew his business with the addition of a larger and track propelled skid steer after that.

As for TNtreehugger and the Poke weed/ other weeds live and let live comments. For the most part, I do not add any bought foliage, I also usually just wack the hell out of things with my string trimmer. However, round here, as I mentioned before, Kudzu is unbelievable and definitely a destructive menace. Also, my wife seems to think that poke weed is poisonous to critters like dogs and cats. Our 3 dogs got old and are now dead, and 2 of our 3 feral cats we were caring for also passed. My one remaining feral kitty is about 3 1/2 now ( roughly 3 years since we first found him as a wee guy) If poke weed, or any other chemical, building material etc is a danger to his health and health of other animals, I do my best to prevent poisonings. This goes for Antifreeze during vehicle maintenance, Mouse and rodent poison, weed control, etc.

As for my main reasons for weed control, it is usually for ease in walking to and from the house to my enclosed trailer, my deck, shed site prep, tree trimming/. felling safety and as mentioned elsewhere, food raised beds etc.

I also must add that in addition to the poke weed, there are brambles, the stuff that has burrs of prickly stuff, vine type weeds that can cause tripping, and even some now 20+ foot tall Locust and Mulberry trees in places they don't need to be left to grow unchecked.

 

[ATpro]

Kudzu is unbelievable and definitely a destructive menace.

Yep and it can grow a foot a day. As it grows it pegs down at the joints to the ground and forms roots, each root ball can live on its own so cutting it back doesn't work, spraying with spray like roundup will kill it back but won't eliminate it. You have to use a Soil-Applied Herbicides like tordon but it will take 3 or more years before you can replant. I have a place along a property line that has Kudzu that grows into my property, I placed a 20 foot fire brake along the line and keep it sprayed with Tordon 22 k. The Kudzu gets the idea it's not welcome and grows another way.

 

[sean donato]

Bamboo is unbelievable.

A Lansdscape contractor friend of mine told me of a job he had been hired to clear bamboo from a property fought him terribly.
As he only had a air filled tire skid steer at the time, he told me how he made the mistake of using it to try to clear the evil Boo. My take from what he said ( 20 some years ago story) was that the chopped off shoots would spear and flatten his tires. Expensive and frustrating I am sure,

Pretty sure he grew his business with the addition of a larger and track propelled skid steer after that.

As for TNtreehugger and the Poke weed/ other weeds live and let live comments. For the most part, I do not add any bought foliage, I also usually just wack the hell out of things with my string trimmer. However, round here, as I mentioned before, Kudzu is unbelievable and definitely a destructive menace. Also, my wife seems to think that poke weed is poisonous to critters like dogs and cats. Our 3 dogs got old and are now dead, and 2 of our 3 feral cats we were caring for also passed. My one remaining feral kitty is about 3 1/2 now ( roughly 3 years since we first found him as a wee guy) If poke weed, or any other chemical, building material etc is a danger to his health and health of other animals, I do my best to prevent poisonings. This goes for Antifreeze during vehicle maintenance, Mouse and rodent poison, weed control, etc.

As for my main reasons for weed control, it is usually for ease in walking to and from the house to my enclosed trailer, my deck, shed site prep, tree trimming/. felling safety and as mentioned elsewhere, food raised beds etc.

I also must add that in addition to the poke weed, there are brambles, the stuff that has burrs of prickly stuff, vine type weeds that can cause tripping, and even some now 20+ foot tall Locust and Mulberry trees in places they don't need to be left to grow unchecked.

It's some evil stuff to deal with. Spray works so long as you're ok with spraying for years + taking it down as you go. Unfortunately there's too much junk mixed in to get a brush hog or multcher in there and just doze it down, too expensive to rent a machine to dig it out and haul it away too. So I work at it as I get time and make sure I get out to spray when it's sending new shoots up. Been working out pretty well so far.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Someone I used to buy blueberries from has a beautiful stand of bamboo on his property. Idk how he keeps in under control and from invading the rest of the yard, but it's on one side of the driveway, on either side of a meandering walkway that leads to his house and a backyard/patio area with a nice gazebo and hot tub. really is magical looking.
A lot of it is very old and a good size diameter, maybe that's what keeps it from spreading, the mature plants keep growing instead of investing energy into new shoots?

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

It's some evil stuff to deal with. Spray works so long as you're ok with spraying for years + taking it down as you go. Unfortunately there's too much junk mixed in to get a brush hog or multcher in there and just doze it down, too expensive to rent a machine to dig it out and haul it away too. So I work at it as I get time and make sure I get out to spray when it's sending new shoots up. Been working out pretty well so far.

Any idea how it got there in the first place?

Up at my house in Manchester MD. one of my hardest battles was swamp. Nearly impossible to mow in some years after big snows and thaws and wet Springs.

Wound up overgrown with those Maple Trees and swamp grass, cat tails. Worst I can see is I basically grew a crop of lumber.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Any idea how it got there in the first place?

Up at my house in Manchester MD. one of my hardest battles was swamp. Nearly impossible to mow in some years after big snows and thaws and wet Springs.

Wound up overgrown with those Maple Trees and swamp grass, cat tails. Worst I can see is I basically grew a crop of lumber.

That sounds lovely to me.