So I grew up in the desert basically, and have no idea about trees growing too well
And looking on google gives dozens of suggestions, and as usual many are ads for some snake oil and the rest contradict each other.
But the person who owned this hose before me liked some little trash trees. I don’t know what they are, but they grow in a cluster from a root system. Maybe a dozen .5 inch to 1.5 inch trunks popping out of the ground next to each other. The the saplings. Freaking hell, all the damn saplings. There are maybe 100 three inch sprouts that have popped up in a three foot radius already this spring.
I cut all the “trees” down to the ground, but what is the best way to kill the entire root system without digging up or nuking from orbit the entire 3 foot radium area?
When I’ve had to get rid of just one or two trees (a few inches wide), I cut them off a few feet above the ground, dig around them, cut through the roots (one way or another) and use the trunk to start rocking it back and forth. Eventually you can get it out of the hole and not be left with a stump.
Sounds like you have a bigger problem. You could call someone with a stump grinder to get rid of them. The other option I’ve always heard is to drill a bunch of holes in it, fill it with gas, wait a day and fill it with gas a again and continue to do that for a few days. Then you’re supposed to set it on fire and let it smolder for a few days to burn out the roots. That always made me a bit nervous, but everything I’ve read says that even if you don’t set it on fire, all that gas is enough to make sure it’s totally dead. There’s also other chemicals you can buy to soak the stump with using the same method.
If you do this, eventually the stump and roots will decompose/decay and disappear. The idea is that they’ll do this without leaving you with a yard full of mushrooms.
Fire will work, but slowly. Dig around the roots to expose as much as possible and use dried firewood or charcoal to keep the fire going. Chop or cut into the stump and roots as much as possible. Even if you don’t burn up the whole thing you’ll kill it. You can also get chemical herbicide that will kill the thing. There are products containing potassium nitrate that kill it and help it rot. Or dig it up, or get a stump grinder.
The key here is to kill it, then you can cut away any portion above the ground, cover it up with dirt and let it rot away for years, eventually leaving a depression in the ground.
For the first pass, you might consider it to be crepe myrtle. It doesn’t matter if you are incorrect, I just know crepe myrtle has this way of shooting from its roots in the immediate vicinity of the main tree.
Could be worse, Some trees send their roots horizontally 100 feet to grow a new stand of trees 100 feet away !. It might be your neighbours tree sending this stand out to you !. If it is, thats a different problem to what you said so far.
Best not to use copper or other inorganic, as it will prevent plant growth in that soil.
There are root system poisons. eg Glycol. brand name Round Up. it kills root systems. That means that it doesn’t kill the top without killing the root below it. Drill holes in trunks, anything big enough to have a hole in it , and fill hole with a root system tree poison, and plug hole.
When the root dies, the bacteria in the soil destroy the organic chemistry substance such as glycol.
The stumps are small, and the main problem is the root system. I don’t think a grinder or fire is going to solve the problem. Not a green solution, but I think you’re going to need a herbicide. Check with your farm/lawn store.
I recommend that you do not follow the advice to use fire or mechanical removal.
When you see a woody plant with “sprouts that have popped up in a three foot radius”, you are dealing with a plant that is capable of root suckering. The plant is creating adventitious shoots from the root system. Plants have evolved this ability to deal with being defoliated by fire or large browsing animals. If you even try to burn or mechanically remove the stems you will end up with thousands of root suckers all over you land, as ever root within six inches of the soil surface throws up a shoot.
You already discovered that you made a mistake by cutting the trees down. Don’t compound it with the use of mechanical removal or fire.
What you need is a herbicide that will translocate throughout the root system. This would have been best achieved by applying to the stump of the plants as you cut them, but it’s too late for that. The best option now is simply to spray the foliage. That way you minimise disturbance of the root system and minimise the amount of additional suckering.
It’s hard to say what herbicide to use because we don’t know what the tree is. However there are some generics that work on most plants. For a residential block, I;'d recommmend be using a picloram and triclopyr herbicide. These are available in small quantities from most hardware stores as blackberry or tree killer. Check the label for the active ingredient. Buy yourself some sort of sprayer. For relatively small infestations like this, one of the little squirt bottle is enough. Usually mix the herbicide at 5-10mL/L (check label for correct rates. Get yourself some rubber gloves.
Now, spray the plants thoroughly. Can’t stress this enough. Apply a full coating of the herbicide to both side of the leaves and to the stems. All parts of the plant should be wet. Leave the plants alone this spring. Don’t cut them, don’t poison them with anything else. If they continue to put out new leaves, you can apply more of the same herbicide, but don’t interfere otherwise.
If you do it right, then 90% of the plants should be dead next year. You will always get some that needs re-treatment, but just do the same thing next year. But of you disturb the root systems of these plants further, it’s a safe bet that you are going to end up with a lawn of this plant. Poison the suckers and be done with it.
It matters a huge amount if you are incorrect. Many herbidicides won’t work on many species
Copper won’t do anything at all. It’s just not that toxic, in fact it’s an essential micronutrient. Unless you are prepared to apply several kilograms of powdered copper per square metre, which at current prices is dam expensive.
I assume you mean Roundup, the active ingredient of which is glyphosate.
Glycol is antifreeze.
Not really, no. Glyphosate is generally lousy as a woody weed killer. A more likely effect is that it causes the tree to briefly drop all its leaves, causes some calluses on the trunk, then the tree recovers.
These plants are less than three months old. Drillingis not an option
Glyphosate. Glycol is antifreeze. And it might be broken down by bacteria eventually, but the immediate fate is simply to be neutralised by the soil itself.
I dunno about that, I used roundup pretty successfully on a bunch of elm suckers in my yard. Admittedly, it took 2 or 3 applications and about a week per tree but it worked and killed the local root too.
I had a problem like this and I just kept axing away at the stump. In my case part of the trunk was still alive while about 80 percent was dead and rotting away. I shoveled around the base and tried to target the living stuff.
You just have to dig up the stump of the main trunk (good exercise for an afternoon!)
Then your lawn mower will take care of the saplings. Just keep mowing for a few years, then the root system is vanished.
Would really help to know what the tree is. It may be a shrub which would explain the small shoots close together. May be a tree that regenerates if the top is cut like box elder, maple, chinese elm. The saplings could be reseedings like the aforementioned trees are prone to do. I’ve got 2 acres of them over the past 25 years. I didn’t plant a one.
My solution for an area of about 5x10 feet full of this stuff was to rent an industrial strength brush whacker/cutter and cut all this stuff down to ground level. Then I brought in 1/2 cubic yard of topsoil spread it out over the area and seeded that.
I let the grass grow for about 2 months and could see it was grass and also full of the root suckers.
Then i started mowing. The suckers kept coming back for a period of time, but was mowed down with the grass. Now the area is all grass, and looks nice.
I’ve had good luck with painting the stumps of what was cut with Roundup, or with a weed killer targeted at woody stuff. I use it full strength, put it in a jar and used a cheapie paint brush. Wear gloves too. Doing it that way makes sure you are targeting the right growing thing and you don’t spread poison any further than you have to. It DOES need to be done on a fresh cut though, so that the plant is still absorbing from the cut area.
This works well for things like big brambles too, if you can get to the main root head. Otherwise you’ll spend forever digging out the trailers.
There’s no question that herbicide is the way to make sure that thing is dead. It doesn’t remove the stump though. Hard work, fire, or time will solve that, and fire will kill it too if you’d rather pollute the air than the soil. There is some possibility that anything but herbicide will leave shoots alive that could pop up somewhere else. Assuming you use the herbicide, and nothing is left sticking up so you can just let it rot eventually, you can still burn something just for the hell of it.
