Fighting Mimosa

This is a take off if a comment I made in another thread.  I have had a 20 year battle with Mimosa. Are there any ideas on how to control it?

This may not be workable if you are talking about an acreage, but when I lived in DC I would pluck out the mimosas at the seedling stage as soon as I saw them. They will really take over.

For other aggressive spreaders, I break off and dispose of the seedheads before they "ripen" Nipping them in the bud.

Nearly everywhere I've ever lived, I've actually planted mimosa for its many benefits and never regretted it.  The light shade permits many other plants to grow underneath it.  It's a nitrogen fixer so it rehabilitates degraded soils, it coppices readily so is good for chop-and-drop and small firewood.  And it's one of the favorite things for goats and sheep to eat! They will even clean up fallen leaves and pods off the ground.

I've been reading a very interesting book about how biochar will save the planet, and it would tell you that you have a perfect material to feed a biochar kiln or pit to then feed your soil and create stable carbon in the soil. I posted an excerpt here:  https://permies.com/t/150726/Biowaste-Electrical-Generation-good-bad#1179071 that was specifically discussing how invasive plants are excellent candidates as feed stock.

Unfortunately they're changing the local rules here about outdoor burning and I'm not sure a biochar kiln is even on their radar. I'm hoping to use the technique to decrease the amount of English Ivy that is growing up trees, but it will depend on what the actual rules look like whether I have to stick to a much smaller and contained system.

Hi All,

I had a huge tree in my back yard. That changed when I began to excavate on the south side of my basement to put in a greenhouse.  That's when  I realized my basement was under attack.

I don't have any tips only that I look forward to my bi-annual chopping down of the mimosas.

Hi Rob,

That is pretty much where I am at right now.

Sounds like prime biochar fuel, or goat fodder to me?

The bits of woody areas that I have to regularly trim regrowth on are my main biochar fuel source. Cut, heap, let dry for a few months, burn.

John F Dean wrote:I had a huge tree in my back yard. That changed when I began to excavate on the south side of my basement to put in a greenhouse.  That's when  I realized my basement was under attack.

Was this just because of its size, or is there something near your basement walls that it wants/likes?
I've heard with willow, it's seeking water and I saw the same happening with someone who planted the *wrong* bamboo in the *wrong* spot.  
Most trees/plants have something they don't like (apparently P. dulcis bamboo doesn't like seaweed). Is there some way you can use that to discourage the mimosa from at least coming the direction you don't like?

My back yard , where my big mimosa lived, has no mimosa seedlings.
I attribute this to allowing the chickens free range for years.
Of course, no other perennials had a chance either.
In the places where they couldn't go tree seedlings continually come up.

Copper nails

Hi TJ,

Can you give more detail?