This is the result of, I can only assume, many years of mowing/cutting and the subsequent hellscape of root suckers. Slide 3 is after a foliar application of triclopyr, 4 is some regrowth sprouts.

I got deeper into the woods and found what I believe is the main root sucker that has somehow grown to be approximately 6 inches wide and adhered to a host tree. I did a hack and squirt with diesel and more triclopyr, along with some other basal bark spraying for countless 2-4” suckers that are girdling trees and crossing the understory of my woods.

Fighting these will be my life for the foreseeable future. Surprisingly enough though, I have not seen a single spotted lanternfly.

You live and you learn 🤷‍♀️🙄

Anyway I’ve been spraying a quarter acre of mature JKW periodically starting from May and I’m seeing great results!! Life changing tbh.

In 2022 we moved into an 8 acre property in North Carolina. Having the property reviewed by a local (now renamed) Audubon society group, we became aware of a significant stilt grass problem.

They gave me lots of advice. One of the main things that stuck with me is "work downhill". I've tried my best to do that. I also learned about the "6 year seed bed". The folks telling you about this don't often bring up the diminishing returns. 80% of seed will sprout within two years. That's important to understand.

So I wanted to share with you the results after multiple years, in case you're feeling discouraged.

For the time I've lived on this property, I've never seen any flowering or seed happening on any microstegium plants. Even so, last year was REALLY daunting. My entire roadside meadow was thick with stilt grass, despite having mowed down and pulled all the stilt grass I could find. I pulled what I had patience for during the year, mostly from garden areas, and started serious work in August, which is brutal hot out here, and assaulted with a string trimmer, and hand pulling, and pulling thick areas out with a study steel rake. Anything that came back got mowed down with the mower's lowest setting. I have a bottle of glyphosate 40%. I've thought about it many times but worry too much about impacting all the other natives plants which ultimately need to claim sunshine real estate on those areas.

Year two was probably the worst. We were losing ground. Stilt grass was everywhere with even a little sun. When I completely cleared a garden plot, it was back in force two to three weeks later. Even established plants were getting choked out. I ran myself to exhaustion raking and pulling over and over, and burned through string trimmer spools on my old black & Decker like they were going out of style.

Year three, again the roadside meadow was thick with it. The yard was probably the worst it's been. We're not sowing grass or other plants and maybe should be. Again I pulled garden spaces early and again it came back. A friend of mine came out with their string trimmer, and I upgraded to a Ryobi 40v. No more discarded spools, I just reload with 6 yards at a time. We decimated the invasion. No leaf of microstegium was allowed to survive. We poured sweat into the soil. I'd also bought and planted various native grasses, and spread seeds I'd collected in wild areas. It wasn't quite as intense an infestation but it felt like minimal gains.

Year four, it finally feels like progress. The front meadow, once 90% microstegium, is now 90% native species. I've still got to get in there and pull stilt grass before it seeds out, but I doubt we'll bring the string trimmers up there again.

There are still areas thick with the stuff, but they're smaller, thinner, and migrated downhill.

With drought and high temperatures, it wasn't a great year for establishing new plants but we got in some healthy samples of native species all the same.

I know I'll be fighting stilt grass for years to come, but it's finally starting to feel like it's a war we can win. Maybe deer will track seeds in, but the intense seed bed is waning, and the native grasses, flowers, and other plants are starting to claim more of the sunshine.

Having felt so discouraged in years past, I wanted to share the progress. I'll see if I can find comparative photos to share. It's a hard fight but it can be won.

We started renting this place last year, and we didn’t realize until we moved in the insane spotted lantern fly and tree of heaven issue on the property. There were four adult TOH and thousands of lanternflies to deal with. Luckily, we are an environmentally conscious group. SLF populations are growing rapidly in our city, and it’s only become a thing people are aware of within the last 3-5 years, so it’s still early days for us.

Last August, after moving in, we immediately started our SLF kill count to motivate us to kill as many as possible. There were hundreds of tallies on that board! We have a pretty great porch space, and last fall it was nearly impossible to hang out there without seeing several targets. Even our cats got a few tallies! (they only go on the fenced porch with supervision)

But the real deal came in the spring! We realized they had laid eggs all over our porch, and we smushed dozens and dozens of egg clusters. Once the clusters started to hatch, we started using a soap and alcohol solution to kill the nymphs instantly. We made rounds on the tree line multiple times a day with that spray throughout the spring and summer getting as many as we could.

This August, now that the population is fully mature, we’ve restarted the tally board. Except it’s no fun, because there are hardly any lantern flies within reach anymore! It’s still pretty easy to spot a few by looking up in the trees, but the population has NOTICEABLY AND SIGNIFICANTLY decreased since last fall. It’s pretty awesome knowing we made a little dent in the problem in our little corner of the city.

TLDR; we made a very small dent in the rapidly growing SLF population of our city, and you can too!!

I know the best test to determine that this is ToH is the crush and sniff test. However, this growth is on the 'cliff' of the back of my property. We cannot reach it easily unless we trek through the steep incline on our property and through heavy brush. Obviously if we strongly believe it's ToH then we will make the trek to confirm and eliminate. What does the forum think? See photos taken from our window.

Hi all!

Moved into a new place in January and saw some shoots popping up in early spring. This has been left alone since May and has only grown this much up until now. I’m not sure how long this has been around but the landlord mentioned they’ve been “cutting it down forever” could this be a relatively new establishment? It’s not flowering so would I continue to wait until September to spray with glyphosate? I’m in Vancouver, BC so I would just buy some Round Up. There is a shoot that gets longer than this that comes up from inside the bushes of our neighbours and they keep pulling it up as well.

Hello. Does anyone here have advice on effectively and efficiently removing bishops weed from a garden? I have a big infestation I’m working on removing in my friend’s garden for her. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! 🪴 🌱 🌺

Note: I’m in Michigan

Hi all. My lovely robust hearty JKW patch grows on a steep slope coming up through small boulders. Along the top edge is the rural dirt road, along the bottom a three-season stream, on one edge a culvert and a lovely stand of tall cedars, on the other a small woodland with a few good trees and a wall of multiflora rose/buckthorn. The whole thing is maybe 30'x20'.

Footing is treacherous and I really don't want any herbicide reaching the streambed or trees, and it's hard to find a day without wind.

I'm thinking of working my gradually, painting stems instead of spraying -- going out in the morning and doing a half-hour of sponging every day instead of one big push, reaching inward as far as I can. Then as each ~2' ring of stems withers, I can trim them, drag them away, and work another 2' further into the patch.

I've heard of folks using sponges rubberbanded onto BBQ tongs, and also those kitchen dish-scrubber sponges that hold liquid soap in the handle.

1) Has anyone tried either of these, or something similar?

2) How long do I need to let each treated area stand to be sure the glyco reaches the roots? Is it a timing thing, or just wait until the stem is brown/dry enough?

3) What concentration glyco should I use, and/or a surfectant or dye?

4) Is this a bad idea because of some element I haven't spotted?

Thanks so much ahead of time for any/all ideas!

TLDW- about 20 Joro spiders in one small corner of my parents' yard.

Visiting my parents in rural upstate SC, I saw three Joro spiders on their front doorway. When I went out back, this is what I saw in the bushes behind their house. About 20 Joros. This was just one small section of yard in the middle of a world completely taken over by these spiders. I do a ton of trail running in the area and i have to run holding a stick in front of me to clear the webs. If I stop on trail and look off into the woods, miles from any road or city, i can see webs in the trees and bushes as far as I can see.

Edit- my folks have about an acre. I went around their property with a broom. I COUNTED OVER 100. No exaggeration. I stopped counting at 100 and just bashed them down

Tree of heaven is spreading faster here than I’ve seen in the past, many times faster. Lanternfly’s also arrives this year in large numbers and I see them eating all of the old trees and new growth, seems like the damage had to be triggering the suckers?

Used to spend 30+ minutes per barberry snipping branches, trying to use the uprooter, then eventually giving up and just digging with a shovel. Got training for cut and paint through our county Invasive Management volunteer program, now it’s maybe 5 min per. One person snips the branches, other dabs, move to the next. Probably hit 20 today, 50 to go (plus any resprouts in the coming years).

Edit: typo

Eastern MA, year 2 of management.

4 weeks ago I sprayed grass getter in the pine wood understory.

Google AI says I am good to mow low and weed whack because it is too late to reflower, and leave the remains because it hasn’t flowered yet.

I can’t totally scalp the yard, so 2 inches is my deck height

Is anyone in New England noticing flowers or seed yet?

Is it time to whack away at it and still avoid bagging it?

In the process of killing 3 TOH trees but it just seems like the lanternflys never end. I tried spraying them with 50/50 dawn and water but doesn't seem like that kills them.

After killing hundreds and hundreds of suckers over the last 3 1/2 months, this is what they look like when they pop up now.

You’re welcome to deny that this is a tree of heaven sucker, but I know that it is and I wanted everyone to know what it looks like when it’s near the end, and the root system is almost exhausted to the point of death

Does TOH produce sap that can be collected?

Basically title. Hello experts...I write today to learn whether Tree of Heaven sap can be collected and if so how to do it, and when. I'm waging a two-front battle with TOH and SLF in lower NYS (other invasives plus vines too but that's a story for another day) and I want to try an experiment that would need some sap..to see if I can preferentially attract swarming SLF to something that is not actually a TOH nor our poor river birch. As I've recently eradicated all the main live trunks of TOH and am just dealing with aftermath stumps, roots and shoots I don't know that a trap tree is practical anymore. I understand the sap is toxic so will be careful and manage/handle responsibly. Thank you for any thoughts...and please forgive me in advance for cross-posting to r/invasives and r/treeofheaven in addition to r/arborists.

This is the most effective way i have found yet.

Not my TOH; they are on a walking trail. I suspect they have a year or less before they officially die. It drives me up the wall that the city isn't removing them. At least the slf are good for something.

I have these japanese knotweed in my pack garden, smallish area, but extremely stubborn.

I have got myself some of the oldschool Roundup to treat them but im in dount about two things:

1) i let them grow this big over the last two weeks to actually have something to treat was that a mistake? As is should i not have done it or was it too early in th e summer. I read on this forum there is a window where they start to pull energy i to the roots and that is when you want to hot them. In northern EU what time of the year is that (oct/now or now)?

2) Even if too early should i just start now?

3) how do i administer it they are too small to cut and fill? Do i paint/spray it on the leaves or the main branch?

Picture in comment 👇

We treated 70 ailanthus this week in a forested urban park using hack-and-squirt with triclopyr. The trees ranged from 1" to 18" diameter. One multistem individual had 5 trunks, each over 15" DBH.

As an experiment we used 30% triclopyr ester in oil on 25 of the trees and 30% triclopyr acid in water on the rest of them. Most of the literature suggests using the aqueous acid for hack-and-squirt, but some of my colleagues swear by the ester/oil formulation for both basal bark and hack-and-squirt. Their logic is that any overflow of the hack application will be absorbed into the bark, so no product is wasted. We'll see. I think that the bark on the larger tree is too corky and the triclopyr molecules that soak into the bark. won't make it into living cells.

We have another 35 smaller trees to treat with triclopyr ester at another site next week.

It just flowered, I know I’m a little trigger happy to spray it. Also in the second slide wtf is this monster that looks like it doesn’t belong.

We have a patch of unmanaged vines and plants and I have been slowly watching these plants get further and further away from the wood line. Growing fast too. They are approaching our leech field.

What is this plant and what’s my best course of action?