What to do with hillside invasive plants?

[Anonymous]

Short version - after hand-pulling weeds is there anything not super terrible for the earth that I can put down to lessen the chance that invasive plants will re-occur?


Long version - We moved into our home two years ago and have slowly been trying to tackle and insane backyard. Thankfully I was able to get the bamboo up over the last two years because it had only started to creep over from a neighbor. We put in a barrier for that.

Now I'm trying to tackle lots of poison ivy and invasive garlic mustard and some sort of other insane invasive plant that grows by rhizome. I learned last year I am very allergic to poison ivy so this year I hired someone to pull basically everything back there (keeping the good may apples and ferns). I understand that I can have people come hand-pull weeds repeatedly to tame this hillside. I am nervous to do any work myself given the poison ivy. Other than Round Up, is there anything I should put on the hillside after the next round of hand-pulling? Thanks for ideas.

[Anonymous]

Do a dense planting of desirable plants - buy them as big as you can afford. It won’t eliminate the weeds completely but dense planting is the best way to crowd them out. Knowing nothing about the site, evergreen shrubs might be a good choice but it depends on the sun/soil.

Doing round up and leaving the hillside bare is a mistake because a) weeds will move right back in and b) erosion.

[Anonymous]

The plant spreading by rhizome may be Japanese knotweed. Terrible stuff!

[Anonymous]

I have zero tolerance for Japanese knotweed and poison ivy. Round up it is.
If anyone is interested in foraging the very tender shoots of Japanese knotweed are supposed to be edible.

[Anonymous]

You could cover the hill side with a weed-blocking fabric, stake down the fabric, cover with mulch, and then make small holes to insert plants of your choosing, like a creeping juniper

[Anonymous]

Just want to offer my sympathies. I have a small hillside--the top is shared with the neighbors. At some point they planted day lilies at the top that have marched down the hillside interlaced with poison ivy.

I have done nothing with it so far but avoid it as far as possible. The one time I dared to clear out a couple of day lily stalks, I got poison ivy. Suffered for two days feeling very sick and had to get prednisone.

My dream is to have a landscaper come in and redesign with native plants, then rip out all the poison ivy and day lilies, and give me a small wild-life friendly habitat to enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Hire someone to flame the weeds, then use a biodegradable weed blocker and plant through it with natives that will cover the ground with the shade of nice plants and block returning weeds. Also accept that there is no such thing as weed free (even concrete get weeds in seams and cracks).

Also look up "bay scaping" for plant ideas.

http://chesapeakestormwater.net/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2013/04/Homeowner-Guide.pdf

[Anonymous]

Creeping flox

[Anonymous]

We've just removed all the English ivy on our hill. The neighbors on both sides still have it so we will need to be vigilant about pulling it when it comes back under the fence. We've left the periwinkle even though it isn't native. It's not as aggressive a spreader as the ivy and the hill is steep so we need something holding in the dirt.

We have a lot of shrubs, hostas and other plantings on the hill. That tends to keep down the weeds, but we still have to pull them regularly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do a dense planting of desirable plants - buy them as big as you can afford. It won’t eliminate the weeds completely but dense planting is the best way to crowd them out. Knowing nothing about the site, evergreen shrubs might be a good choice but it depends on the sun/soil.

Doing round up and leaving the hillside bare is a mistake because a) weeds will move right back in and b) erosion.

This-figure out what works in your area and is appealing (or at least tolerable) to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could cover the hill side with a weed-blocking fabric, stake down the fabric, cover with mulch, and then make small holes to insert plants of your choosing, like a creeping juniper

Ugh, do NOT do this. The mulch etc on top of the fabric will quickly make a happy home for all sorts of new weeds and when you go to rip the horrible fabric out in a few years, it will be super heavy and a huge PITA.

Landscape fabric is fine for certain things, but don’t leave it in place for more than a season. It just doesn’t work at all and ends up looking terrible every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Short version - after hand-pulling weeds is there anything not super terrible for the earth that I can put down to lessen the chance that invasive plants will re-occur?


Long version - We moved into our home two years ago and have slowly been trying to tackle and insane backyard. Thankfully I was able to get the bamboo up over the last two years because it had only started to creep over from a neighbor. We put in a barrier for that.

Now I'm trying to tackle lots of poison ivy and invasive garlic mustard and some sort of other insane invasive plant that grows by rhizome. I learned last year I am very allergic to poison ivy so this year I hired someone to pull basically everything back there (keeping the good may apples and ferns). I understand that I can have people come hand-pull weeds repeatedly to tame this hillside. I am nervous to do any work myself given the poison ivy. Other than Round Up, is there anything I should put on the hillside after the next round of hand-pulling? Thanks for ideas.

NP here- i literally could have written this EXACT post! Only difference is out neighborhoods bamboo at the top of our hill had already over taken our hill when we moved in just less than 2 years ago now. Anyway, OP would you mind Sharing who you used to clear the hill? My husband had posion ivy 2x now and has it right now from trying to transplant hostas from the jungle on the hill. We also want to do the barrier for the bamboo. Can you please share your process for that and if it’s been effective? Thank you so much! We’ve been struggling to under take our backyard!

[Anonymous]

RoundUp everything on the hill. Go heavy with the application. Kill it all, you can’t leave anything left alive.

When it’s brown (2 weeks usually), use a string trimmer to clear it down to bare dirt.

Cover hill with perennial wildflower seed mix. Cover with 1” layer of garden soil.

Water daily. Within 6-8 weeks the hill will be covered with new growth, and it will be dense enough to resist invasive weeds.

[Anonymous]

There's some kind of pesticide that specific to poison ivy that friends used. You're going to want some way to kill that stuff when it inevitably comes back after you plant other stuff.

You can't so seeds to cover a hill-they'll wash away

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RoundUp everything on the hill. Go heavy with the application. Kill it all, you can’t leave anything left alive.

When it’s brown (2 weeks usually), use a string trimmer to clear it down to bare dirt.

Cover hill with perennial wildflower seed mix. Cover with 1” layer of garden soil.

Water daily. Within 6-8 weeks the hill will be covered with new growth, and it will be dense enough to resist invasive weeds.

1” sounds really deep to cover wildflower seeds.