:eek:
Whoa, that stuff is poisonous? When I was a kid my sister and some neighbor kids and I loved to pretend-cook with various plants and leaves and stuff. These bulbs were a favorite, due to the goopiness. We never ate any of it (we weren’t that dumb), but we would get the goop all over us, and I’m sure at some point each of us accidentally got some in our mouths. I guess we were just lucky.
Sorry about my long absence. I’ve been stupid busy (not battling sleepydick, unfortunately.)
Thanks for all the advice. I guess I’m going to have to try the scorched earth option. I painted, nay, slathered on the concentrated Roundup last year, to no avail. I wonder if taking a weedwacker to the leaves, THEN using glyphosate, would work. It would open up the vascular system to the poison, and is something I could do pretty readily.
I don’t have a blowtorch handy, but am not at all averse to acquiring one, should it be necessary.
I am not liking the sound of “total soil replacement” at all.
Oh, and this seems an appropriate time to share my sick, twisted mad-scientist fantasy having to do with these matters. See, I am an ecologist and a botanist, aand one of the few issues I’m fairly psychotic about is exotic species invasions. It infuriates me that I finally have this nice, pleasant, woodsy yard in which to do my ideal landscaping: all native vegetation, but suddenly have this practically insoluble problem with an invasive weed that apparently came out of nowhere. My neighbors don’t have it. I don’t know where the horrible stuff came from.
I dream of oak-leaf hydrangea, native hardwoods, buckeye, trilliums, dwarf iris, ferns, viburnum, smoke trees, fringetrees, solomon’s seal, jacob’s ladder, etc. I want my yard to look like an upland Alabama forest the way it’s supposed to be. NO damn privet, English ivy, wisteria, kudzu, nandina, and certainly NO freaking sleepydick.
So the mad scheming scientist in me fantasizes about developing nanotechnology which can be encoded with geographic coordinates and a “kill message” consisting of unique DNA sequences, and a set of instructions that says “mulch anything you come in contact with, in this set of coordinates, that has the encoded DNA sequence”.
Yes, I know it’s science fiction. Yes, I know it’s impossibly impractical. But a boy can dream, can’t he? 
What I did with the scorched earth policy was this: I sprayed the area surrounding the S of B with water (to help cut down on ignition). I held the blowtorch* over the S of B area (it’s good it grows in clumps for this) until they “melted”. THEN I sprayed super concentrated Round-up and THEN I covered the area with corrugated cardboard and mulch.
This was good for about 2 years. They are starting to creep back. I did the scorched earth policy to an area about the size of a round, above ground backyard pool.
Now I plan to simply dig up the clumps as I see them sprout. Thing is, the bastards have gotten into the lawn, and spread that way. I have an acquaintance who LOVES Stars of Bethlehem is appalled that I practice Total Eradication. Luckily, she lives nowhere near me…
Risha–no worries! I only do that to plant life. 
*(actually a butane tank attached to a long metal nozzle–they used to sell them in a gardening catalog until they were recalled last spring. There was a malfunction with the washer/valve-type thingy and this allowed the flames to shoot UP the handle…They no longer sell this item, btw)
Mix you roundup with liquid soap- The soap helps it stick and breaks down waxy coatings.
You could try damaging the leaves before painting (take that! waxy coating)
When all else fails I’m a great fan of boiling water (I set up an electric kettle or two outside near a tap)
You never did say how large an area was affected. It might help to decide on an effective solution.
Hmmm. You’re right. Let’s estimate 25’ x 75’ (and growing!)
Yikes!
I’m thinking small nukes might be the way to go after all! Fuse that soil into glass to a depth of 8 inches. What it doesn’t kill outright, won’t be able to break through!
Or since nukes are somewhat hard to find, soak the area with a few hundred gallons of gasoline, then fire a flaming arrow at it from a safe distance. That’ll take care of 'em all. do not do this. this is likely illegal and definitely foolhardy in the extreme. you’ll burn your house down and seriously piss off a lot of people ranging from the spouse to the fire department to your insurance company. But c’mon - you’ve thought of it, admit it!
More seriously: maybe it’s time to call some lawn / landscaping services. They might have suggestions. At the least, they’d have the equipment to basically remove the top 8 inches or so of soil and put fresh down. Such a large area isn’t a do-it-yourself task, I imagine. There’s something called landscaping cloth / landscaping fabric that might be useful, depending on what you plan to do with the area once the invaders are on the run. Mixed reviews on the stuff out there on the web though - it can be a pain later on. http://store.the-landscape-design-site.com/ I’ve never used the stuff myself.
You might wish to put in a physical soil barrier wall a few feet from the current infestation. Make sure you don’t have any outside the barrier, because you dug too close. Trying to starve it out blocking the light won’t work well because it’s a bulb. Attacking at this time of year is likely the most effective.
There was a patch of it in our back yard, under the 100 million yards of blackberry briars. We defeated the briars over a two years war.
We did nothing but mow it with the grass and it hasn’t expanded in the 11 years we’ve lived here.
Of course, we have no children or other outdoor pets.
I think rototilling the soil is what did it for Ogre.
Well, here’s my working hypothesis: we aided its invasion all unawares. Our yard is subdivided about 25’ from the back patio by a low (4 or so inches high) concrete wall that used to be the foundation for a fence, probably to keep dogs in check. The fence is long gone, but the wall remains. The area on the near side of the wall was all grass, but we got the idea that we wanted to convert that entire area into a large, cove-like garden made up of native flowers, ferns, and the like, with a small triangular bed to one side as a seasonal herb and vegetable garden.
I think the sleepydick bulbs were already in there, but largely controlled by the dominant grass.
I tilled the entire area up to prepare the soil for my native garden, and like Abaddon opening the Pit, I set the infestation free.
Or, in short, what he said.
So, ya delved too deep and released the unknown horror. Are you sure you’re andOgre and not a dwarf?
So sleepydick was in pandora’s box.
Ya know, what’s most bothersome about this is that while it could have happened to someone who didn’t give a rat’s patootie, no, it has to happen to someone with really cool plans.
"I dream of oak-leaf hydrangea, native hardwoods, buckeye, trilliums, dwarf iris, ferns, viburnum, smoke trees, fringetrees, solomon’s seal, jacob’s ladder, etc. "
That would be spectacular.
The other side of our coin, is we have trillium, grape hyacinth, blue bells, crocus, dog-toothed violet, spice plant, mock orange, rare varieties of rhodies, azaleas and roses, three varieties of lilac and three 70 year old dogwoods.
If you have the time and patience, and can find them all and identify the plants reliably, repeated removal of the top growth should kill just about anything. Green plants can’t manufacture food if you keep on removing all the green parts - so they will eventually die.
I rid a garden of mare’s tails that way. With bulbs, the battle could be longer because if the stored food, but still, if you keep going, you should win.
… you’ll be in the home and wheelchair-bound, if even alive, but you’ll win…
What Mangetout touts does work for some plants-I got rid of a viburnum hedge that way; it took about 5 years, but sleepydick is concentrated evil. I wish you luck. Perhaps a combo of all the proposed solutions will work?
Also, I have found that if you pull each “blade” in early-ish spring when the ground is moist or pull up a clump–it all comes up: bulb and green matter. If you try to do this later on in the season, you only pull the green stuff, and I’ll swear the bulbs multiply like rabbits to make up for the loss. Pulling up entire clumps is very satisfying: much like tearing an entire hangnail off and luxuriating in the blood and pain that follows…
I take my garden personally. Can you tell?
I love the idea for that area you described. I hope it works out for you.